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Progress buys Corticon, adds another RPM puzzle piece
Monday, December 5, 2011 by Neil Ward-Dutton
Progress Software announced today its acquisition of Corticon, the last remaining pure-play business rules management (BRM) technology provider of any size. Terms were not disclosed, but the company had recently been on a strong growth path – so it’s likely Progress paid a significant premium [we'll probably never know, of course].
Progress is pitching Corticon as a crucial ingredient as it continues to develop its RPM story, and this makes sense. Progress’ Savvion BPM technology already had a fair business rules capability (BizRules) as an integrated component, but my view is that Corticon’s technology is more widely-applicable, as well as being widely acknowledged for a very strong ease-of-use story, enabled by its heavily model-driven and graphical approach to rule specification. Its open stance towards rule management repositories will also serve it well, as Progress seeks to blend Corticon’s tools into broader capability mixes.
So in short, from an overall capability perspective, my view is that adding Corticon into the mix is a no-brainer move from Progress. Its nascent Cloud-based offering will also prove useful to Progress, I think, as it continues to develop customer propositions with hooks into public Cloud platforms.
From a market perspective, two things will be important as they unfold: (1) to what extent will Progress pitch Corticon technology outside the ‘pure RPM’ story? [I would hope this will be an important question for Progress]; and (2) what will Corticon’s extensive technology partner base – including other BPM technology vendors like Adobe, Appian, Cordys, DST, Global 360 (now Open Text), Handysoft, Software AG (IDS Scheer) – do going forward?
What do you think this means? I’d be interested in your views!
Posted in BPM