We published 8 new reports this month

• What drives BPM technology requirements? – BPM technology is an umbrella term for the software tools and platforms, and associated services that organisations use to help them implement BPM initiatives. This report is the first in a set of two, which between them explain how organisations can frame their thinking about their requirements for BPM technology, and explain the thinking behind our assessments of vendors’ BPM technology offerings. This report explains how BPM technology capability requirements should be shaped by two things: firstly, the role of BPM initiatives in supporting business transformation; and secondly, the fact that those initiatives have to work in the context of organisations’ existing investments and IT and business working practices.
• Assessing BPM technology – BPM technology is an umbrella term for the software tools and platforms, and associated services that organisations use to help them implement BPM initiatives. A wide variety of IT suppliers, large and small, claim to offer BPM technology products or product suites, and the result is a significant degree of confusion. What technology capabilities are important to support a BPM initiative? Which vendors are making real efforts to provide those capabilities, and which are simply re-naming or re-positioning their existing technology? And, indeed - does it matter? This report is the second in a set of two, which between them explain how organisations can frame their thinking about their requirements for BPM technology, and explain the thinking behind our assessments of vendors’ BPM technology offerings. This report explains the analytical framework we use to shape our BPM technology Vendor Capability Assessment (VCA) reports, which provide independent analyses of the capabilities of key suppliers in this area. Each series of MWD VCA reports has an associated “explanatory notes” document like this.
• BPM technology: BEA – In a crowded field, BEA is currently one of only a few specialist software infrastructure suppliers offering a set of capabilities aimed at BPM. After a number of years dabbling in selling “business process integration” software with its WebLogic Integration product, the company made a much bigger commitment to BPM in 2006 when it bought leading BPM technology specialist Fuego. The ALBPM technology combines a very well-integrated set of Eclipse-based design and development tools (ALBPM Studio) with a single runtime server (ALBPM Enterprise Server) and standards-based user interfaces for process participants and administrators (ALBPM WorkSpace). It provides solid functionality more or less throughout the entire BPM activity cycle (though support for process discovery and analysis isn’t a core focus of the suite). In the current version, BEA has worked to integrate ALBPM Studio with the design tools for its Enterprise Service Bus, AquaLogic Service Bus (ALSB) – bridging the gap between BPM and SOA in BEA’s technology portfolio, and providing a sophisticated integration environment for customers needing to carry out integration between business processes and external applications, systems and data sources. The end result is a highly capable BPM technology offering that also provides sophisticated integration options – a rarity in today’s BPM technology market.
• BPM technology: Lombardi – Lombardi Software is a BPM specialist vendor and its flagship products – Teamworks and Blueprint – are the company’s core focus. Lombardi’s BPM technology offering comprises two core products – Teamworks (now on version 6, as of June 2007) and Blueprint (first released in 2007). These core products are complemented by Teamworks for Office, Teamworks for Sharepoint and Teamworks for Organizational Management. Together, they provide a very sophisticated range of scenario-specific capabilities.Teamworks delivers a set of tools that provide a strong degree of functional capabilities across the board - from process design and development through simulation, deployment, runtime administration to operational process monitoring and analytics. The well-integrated toolset helps foster continuity through the BPM activity cycle, with a common runtime platform. Blueprint adds more interest because it’s unusual in two respects: firstly, it’s a product focused exclusively on providing process discovery and analysis capabilities, that allows disparate teams to collaborate in exploring BPM requirements and priorities; and secondly, it’s only available as a hosted, online service.
• BPM technology: Software AG – Software AG has offered BPM technology for some years, primarily through a partnership with Japan’s Fujitsu Software; but, in 2007, its acquisition of webMethods changed the picture significantly. The webMethods BPMS combines an Eclipse-based set of integrated design and development tools (the webMethods Designer and Developer) with one runtime environment (based around the well-proven webMethods Integration Server and Broker) and the My webMethods Server – which is a sophisticated environment for the delivery of task interfaces that also hosts monitoring dashboards and process administration functions. My webMethods Server is also responsible for hosting more broad-based, general-purpose composite web-based applications, should you choose to build them with webMethods technology. With the addition of webMethods Trading Networks, process automation support is extended to value chain participation scenarios. The offering is particularly functionally strong in the areas of rules management, process integration and execution, and process monitoring and optimisation. It's also particularly strong in its support of process scenarios where human process participants are a significant element in the mix, as well as being strong in support of straight-through processing and value chain participation scenarios. What's also particularly noteworthy about the webMethods BPMS is that the way the technology pieces are put together reflects a mature approach to product and technology architecture – and the end result is very likely to be a major positive impact on the cost of development, management and change in your BPM initiative.
• BPM technology: TIBCO – TIBCO is a rare beast in the crowded BPM technology market: a large independent enterprise infrastructure software provider that isn’t a BPM-only specialist (the only others are BEA and Software AG). Staffware technology formed the backbone of what is now known as the iProcess Suite, which is TIBCO’s BPM technology offering. It’s been complemented by a range of other technologies, both developed internally within TIBCO and licensed from third parties. Over time, release by release, the company is working to bring the iProcess technology into a common product framework, common toolset and common administration environment. Today the iProcess Suite is at a transitional stage however. As new TIBCO technologies are woven into the suite, older but more sophisticated equivalent technologies remain in the suite and confuse the picture. The result is a suite with some excellent strengths, but also some disappointing shortcomings.
• On The Radar: The Dot Net Factory – This On the Radar report looks at The Dot Net Factory, which provides a role-based identity and entitlement suite, EmpowerID, based on the company’s workflow management platform. EmpowerID should be of interest to you if you looking to address provisioning and access management requirements around Microsoft technologies, especially SharePoint Server. It should be of particular interest where you do not have a significant investment in an alternative identity management suite or you are currently basing your identity and access management approach on Microsoft’s Active Directory and Identity Lifecycle Manager.
• On The Radar: OutSystems – This On the Radar report looks at Portugal's OutSystems, which provides an enterprise application development and management solution called the OutSystems Platform, which should be of interest if your business depends on custom applications but you lack the in-house resources to keep up with demand – particularly where you have an investment in SAP applications and/or agile methodologies

Here's a selection of our blog posts from April:

• Which comes first: process or service? Part 1 – Pondering the relationship between business processes and services
• The Mysterious Oracle – Thoughts on Oracle's collaboration strategy sparked by the company's unwillingness to brief us
• Linux: innovation platform or commoditising force? – Explaining the dual markets and demand curves for Linux

• Will Sun rise higher after MySQL deal? – Neil Ward-Dutton commented on what Sun's MySQL acquisition might mean for the acquirer for this Computer Weekly story
• Live Mesh: An 'Open Platform' for Developers – Application Development Trends featured Neil Macehiter's thoughts on Microsoft's Live Mesh in this story
• Live Mesh: Microsoft's Theory of Everything – Neil Macehiter's Live Mesh thoughts were also picked up by Redmond Development News
• Carbon management dashboards and SOA’s uncertain role in Green IT – Neil Macehiter's insights on SOA and green IT featured in this ZDNet article

Come across a question which you think we might be able to answer? Or a news story that caught your eye and you want to get our thoughts? Let us know at feedback@mwdadvisors.com and we will try to come back via the blog or next month's newsletter.