Maybe it’s because I’m British. Or maybe it’s a broader thing – is anyone else getting really fed up with quotes in vendor press releases that fall over themselves to be the most super-super-excited (thanks James) they can be?
So today BEA announced that it has completed the acquisition of BPM technology specialist Fuego. By the way, I think it’s a sound move for both companies – with the usual MWD caveat that when it comes to BEA’s acquisitions, it’s important to think about how easy it will be for BEA to convince its customers that their existing investments in portal/process management technology aren’t quite enough…
But here’s what made me write this post: a quote in the news release attributed to CEO/Chairman Alfred Chuang:
“We are systematically targeting the fastest growing segments of the red-hot SOA software market,” stated Alfred Chuang, Chairman and CEO of BEA Systems, Inc. “The addition of Fuego to our AquaLogic portfolio means that we are now the only company to offer a unified SOA-based platform to integrate business processes, applications, and legacy environments.”
Let’s look at that quote again.:
“We are systematically targeting the fastest growing segments of the red-hot SOA software market”
BPM is not part of the SOA market. You can do BPM without SOA, and you can do SOA without BPM. BPM is a fast-growing segment of the enterprise software market – fair enough – but please don’t try to position BPM as part of SOA to make it more sexy.
“The addition of Fuego to our AquaLogic portfolio means that we are now the only company to offer a unified SOA-based platform to integrate business processes, applications, and legacy environments.”
Come on Alfred. A unified platform? You’re telling us that the Fuego and Plumtree products all share common development, runtime and operational environments with the rest of the BEA middleware portfolio?
BEA is making some sound moves and it really does have significant capabilities to help organisations with SOA initiatives (see our in-depth report on BEA’s service infrastructure offering). But it owes it to itself and to its customers to be smarter and cooler about the way it communicates.
No, it’s not just you Brits — we Canadians are tired of the over-the-top claims as well. I now consider most American press releases to be more fiction than fact.
I took exception to their statement that they are the only company doing this, and said that the real test will be how closely all this is integrated a year from now since I believe, as you do, that the platform may not be so unified as they say.
In fact, in looking back at my post, I see that I used the word “hyperbole” as well.
No, it’s not just you Brits — we Canadians are tired of the over-the-top claims as well. I now consider most American press releases to be more fiction than fact.
I took exception to their statement that they are the only company doing this, and said that the real test will be how closely all this is integrated a year from now since I believe, as you do, that the platform may not be so unified as they say.
In fact, in looking back at my post, I see that I used the word “hyperbole” as well.