Shake-up or Break-up of BPMS market?

Everybody is a-twittering (or is it a-tweeting?), a-blogging or otherwise commenting on the major changes taking place on the BPMS vendor scene. IBM scoops up Lombardi and now Progress is gracing its portfolio with Savvion. Must be a sign of something … but what?

Tea leaves and Tarot cards aside, most of the speculation on what these acquisitions actually mean and do to the market is just that, speculation – which is why I’ll reserve my judgement.

But it would be wrong to see both acquisitions in the same light!

IBM has always been a major player in the BPMS market and just maybe we’ll see them come up with a really clever approach like building a portfolio of BPMS tools to address different target groups and requirements. As I’ve always maintained, the ‘one size fits all approach’ has ill-served the BPMS industry over the years, either leading to overly complex and expensive IT solutions or not getting through to potential customers at all. IBM might well be taking a step in the right direction here. (Though I remember receiving some very nasty mails from sales and marketing people after writing an article for a major german IT publication some years ago on using a portfolio of BPMS products.)

Progress and Savvion is a different proposition, as Progress could be perceived to be a new entry to the market, though again, it’ll come down to what strategy they’ll follow. Contrary to some more critical comments, I do see a large business potential for both Progress and the Savvion suite, as the DataExtend offering does go some way to address a commonly found issue in process data mapping. That by itself might by a good reason for Progress to get more involved (and visible) in the process solution market.

So, if anything, at the moment I’d regard these market movements (together with the Software AG/IDS Scheer deal) as a sign of trust in the market. Will they improve things for the customers? Let’s leave that decision to the customers who have after all in the past punished the likes of SAP and Tibco for their ill-managed (or at least badly communicated) BPMS strategies.

Of course, were I to be cynically inclined, I’d also question the implications to the analysts. Does having fewer vendors willing to pay for inclusion in waves, quadrants and multi-coloured tables mean that a re-branding of the product category from BPMS to something else is on the cards?