InfoWorld says that webMethods webMethods has agreed to be purchased by European software company Software AG for $546 million. WebMethods produces web service products and business process management tools, while Software AG produces Tamino and the ADABAS database as well as their own SOA toolset. The deal should be finalized in June. This consolidates a market for Software AG in the United States. It's unclear how the webMethods product line, including WebMethods Fabric and the sunset products GLUE and EXML, will be affected.

This is interesting news for those of us that follow SOA and XML development platforms. I know Software AG as publisher of an XQuery and native XML database platform that is good for building XML-oriented services. WebMethods has a good practice as a system integrator and publisher of process management tools. And recently WebMethods bought Infravio for their SOA Repository product. (Miko, needs to get in on this news. hehe) It would seem to me that the cosolidate market looks like this: BEA with AquaLogic "I'm an ESB, no?" Oracle with Fusion "The ring to rule all others" Middleware IBM with WebSphere "All these parts fit together, right?" and Tivoli Microsoft with BizTalk "I'm an ESB, right?" and .NET Those are the big platform plays. And the more system-integration-ish plays are now: Software AG: with WebMethods and Infravio Progress Software: with Sonic, DataDirect, Actional, etc. IONA: with Artix, Orbix, Celtix, etc. Of course, they all missed the purchase of Mercury Interactive for SOA Governance. I wonder where that puts HP? -Frank http://www.pushtotest.com

Don't forget Sun with SeeBeyond.

I don't think of SeeBeyond (or TIBCO for that matter) because these are not really platforms for building XML-centric solutions and they don't offer XML persistence as part of their platforms. They are great for Java centric apps where objects rule the world, but they do less well at handling XML data. Also, having persistence means you can do things like caching for accelleration, transformation, and federation in the middle tier. -Frank

Also, having persistence means you can do things like caching for accelleration, transformation, and federation in the middle tier.

And [somehow] I hear they do exactly that .. ;-) Peace, Cameron Purdy Tangosol Coherence: The Java Clustered Cache

Also, having persistence means you can do things like caching for accelleration, transformation, and federation in the middle tier.

Let's see ... you need a persistence backend to do transformation? You wouldn't be a fan of Informatica by any chance, would you? FYI you can do transformation and "federation" without a persistence layer. I think that there is some secret spec out there that is called XSL (in it's 2nd version now), look it up ... you'd be amazed :o) And what does caching have to do with acceleration BTW? That's like saying: "you have performance problems? Put a cache in it, it's the miracle solution." a++ Cédric ps: Not to sure what you mean by "federation" BTW, I'm thinking about starfleet, but I'm not sure that's what you are thinking about to :->

I would take another look at the Sun Java Composite Application Platform (SeeBeyond). The data sheets seem to imply that the ESB persists and it can include XML.

Hmm. Strange. I just evaluated broad portfolio of integration backbone products including both wM Fabric and SAG CrossVision. Frankly, Fabric is far, far superior. Must say that I considered it as really appealing solution. But takeover is not a really good news for buyers... Artur

Hi Artur: What do you use as an evaluation criteria when looking at integration products? -Frank

Hi Artur: What do you use as an evaluation criteria when looking at integration products? -Frank

There ware a lot in my list. But most important were: 1. SOA enabled (ability to expose connector/flow/other) as a WebService, 2. Consistency and offered integration scope (out-of0the-box connectors), 3. Support for technologies we use, 4. Vendor/product/support presence in Our country, 5. Vendor Vision 6. Price of course Fabric is really, really amazing. Maybe a little to expensive. Sad to hear that there are some moves around this. Nobody knows whether there will SAG replace CrossVision with Fabric, or vice-versa or, maybe, merge them (but it makes no sense for me since both products share a lot of functionality). Really sad to remove Fabric from my list ;(. Artur

webMethods as an integration tool is OK. But the BPM and Workflow products are not mature. So do not jump in and burn yourself.

"What goes around, comes around...." For those who don't know or remember, SAGA software, a subsidiary of Software AG, in the years 1999, 2000, 2001, created a product called "Sagavista". Sagavista was a Java-based EAI product. In 1999, WebMethods created their own EAI solution competing with Sagavista. Many of the employees of SAGA software jumped ship and went to WebMethods. Sagavista (and SAGA Software) was sold to IONA. The product really never took off..... Many of the adapters were licensed to Peregrine software and iWay (BEA Weblogic Integration used those adapters in earlier versions of the product). Now, here we are again... "What goes around, comes around...."

Only if the German guys were smart enough to realize the potential in the EAI space earlier. They had the microsoft story and did not buy the java line. So here we are again. Software AG spending 540 million when they could have a mature product by now if they continued with sagavista