IBPMS: BPMS Leader Software AG attempting to lead in IBPMS

Less than a year ago I wrote a post titled: BPMS Next Generation: IBPMS. The post is about Gartner's new Magic Quadrant of IBPMS, which is very different from previous Gartner's BPMS Magic Quadrants.
Only three Leaders left in the IBPMS Magic Quadrant (IBM, PegaSystems and Appian) due to a new Use Case: Intelligent Business Process Operation (IBPO). 

In the MyTake section of the post I wrote: "Expect changes in Immature markets like IBPMS".
Vendors which are no longer Leaders will try to improve their position in this emerging market. 

Tibco acquired StreamBase Systems. StreamBase Systems is a Complex Event Processing and Real Time Analytics company.

This post is about Software AG a former BPMS Leader.

a brief history of Software AG BPM History

2006 - The company released a SOA and BPM suite. The suite was developed together with Fujitsu. 
As far as BPM is concerned, Software AG used, Fujitsu Interstage branded as Software Ag product.

2007- Software AG acquired WebMethods. 
WebMethods BPM and WebMethods SOA products replaced most of Software AG's SOA products. The leading Centrasite Registry which was developed by Software AG and Fujitsu and Software AG's Mainframe SOA products remain as part of the company's offerings.

2009 - Software AG acquired leading Business Processing Analysis vendor IDS Scheer. IDS Scheer's ARIS is the strategic Business Process Analysis tool since the acquisition.
For more information read: Vendors Survival: Will Software AG Survive Until 2019?

Software AG Intelligent Business Operation (IBO)
On June 13, 2013 Software AG acquired from Progress a Complex Event processing company named Apama.
Apama is a mature CEP platform complementing current Software AG's CEP product acquired in 2010.

On August 22, 2013 Software AG acquired JackBe and announced its new Webmethods Intelligence Business Operation Platform.

JackBe's Real Time Business Intelligence products and Mashups products will play a key roll in the new platform.

Illusion: WOA and The Lego Blocks Model
It is not the first time that building IT systems by End Users without coding is only a dream or illusion.

Generating a complete System by transforming a Model to Code by using CASE tools was an illusion. 
The Model, build by System Analysts, could be useful and could provide code skeletons, but not a complete System.

Rule Based Engines are also useful. The dream of End Users defining Business Rules  (by using a simple friendly interface) which are transformed by a Rule Based Engine to a complete system, was the mission of the First Generation. Rule Based Engines of the following generations were more realistic: You can generate only parts of the Application from Rules defined by End Users. You can not avoid coding (or buying) the other parts.

Building complete SOA systems by End users by combining Web 2.0 and SOA was less ambitious than the CASE and Business Rules Engine first generation because programmers has to code the Business funcionality. However, it was an illusion as well.

The idea was to tie SOA Services and Mashapps the Web 2.0 analog to SOA Services. 
Robustness, Security, Change Management, Performance Management, Scalability, Availability and SLA are SOA Services requirements. Non of them is applicable to Mashapps.

An Enterprise Service Bus could connect the two worlds, preserving Services Robustness and Mashapps ease of use.

The leading vendors of the WOA-SOA Lego model were IBM, BEA and JackBe.


JackBe

Image Source: JackBe

A failure of the WOA-SOA Lego Model is negligible for a giant like IBM. It is very easy to name 100 or more products, which are more important to IBM. 

Large companies like IBM take into account that some of their ideas and solutions will fail. 
As long as the failing solutions are not strategic and are not money makers, they can "swallow the bitter pill".

For a kiosk like Jack Be it is a threat on its Survival, because the SOA-WOA Lego Model is strategic. 

Jack Be leveraged its ability to collect easily and in a friendly way, data from various sources. Its flagship Presto product was changed to unique Real Time Business Intelligence product.

Finally, there was Happy End to JackBe's story; It was acquired by Software AG.

You can read Software AG's Press Release about JackBe acquisition as well as the launch of Real Time Analytics Platform for Intelligent Business Operation.

You can easily understand JackBe's products importance, by reading the following quote from Software Ag's announcement.

"JackBe will serve as the foundation for Software AG’s new webMethods Intelligent Business Operations Platform. The platform will provide customers with an integrated, real-time awareness of dynamic operations and processes via easy-to-use visualizations. The resulting improved response times and increased quality of business decisions will support decision-makers in achieving better business outcomes".