SOA Vendors Ready New Wares

Revamped software from Software AG, Sonic and other vendors shows the market for more mature SOA products is growing, says Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst at ZapThink. “We’re now at the point where the vendors have consolidated to a certain degree, the different markets have coalesced, and the standards are relatively mature, so the products are becoming more mature.”

Among users, SOA is seen as a less risky technology than it was in the past, he adds. Companies are looking beyond simply applying services interfaces to systems and thinking about how to build proper services atop a wellconceived runtime infrastructure. “We’re seeing a lot more companies really starting to take a look at planning — planning which services to build and how to build them in a secured, governed, reliable way.”

Read more at: NetworkWorld

Progress builds alternative SOA stack with Actional buy

“It’s probably one of the best non-platforms out there,” [Jason Bloomberg] said. “Progress has taken the heterogeneity story to heart, which is a better story for SOA. You don’t want to have a tightly-coupled product line.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

IT companies are hooking up like divorcees at a Vegas wedding chapel

The ZapThink guys have it right that this is only the second inning (given the weather, it can’t be too soon for baseball metaphors) of a nine-inning outing of SOA components and supplier consolidation.

Read more at: ZDnet

Progress Takes Actional

ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg said the acquisition makes sense for both companies.

For one, Progress is a safe haven for Actional, which was struggling to grow revenues and customer base as a standalone vendor in a market that includes IBM, CA, HP and other independent vendors like Amberpoint and SOA Software.

“From the point of view of Progress/Sonic, adding the SOA management capabilities rounds out the Sonic ESB product into a suite that more completely addresses the infrastructure requirements of SOA,” Bloomberg said.

With Systinet and now Actional being tucked into other companies, the SOA management space is a little tighter. Bloomberg expects consolidation to continue in 2006, as larger companies find it easier to buy SOA governance than build it.

Read more at: InternetNews

Progress to Acquire Actional for $32M

Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, Waltham, Mass., said: “This acquisition makes sense in many ways. From the point of view of Progress/Sonic, adding the SOA management capabilities rounds out the Sonic ESB product into a suite that more completely addresses the infrastructure requirements of SOA.

“From Actional’s perspective, the time of the stand-alone Web Services Management vendor has mostly come and gone, and Actional struggled to grow as an independent vendor in this dynamic marketplace. As part of the Progress team, which will soon include Neon Systems as well, the Actional technology will now be part of a much more complete SOA story.”

Read more at: eWeek

Progress nabs Actional for Web services tools

Zapthink analyst Ron Schmelzer said the acquisitions portend more to come in the Web services management arena.

“Faced with the prospects of competing with much-larger vendors, we believe that many will choose acquisition instead of trying to broaden their own capabilities or find deeper pockets,” Schmelzer said. “2006 will bear out to be the year of super-consolidation for the SOA markets.”

Read more at: CNet | News.com

Web services market consolidation continues

The deal makes “a ton of sense for Progress,” given Progress’s ownership of Sonic, said analyst Ronald Schmelzer, of ZapThink, in an email.

“Their ESB product has an ever-increasing footprint and [a] goal to provide as complete as possible infrastructure for running and managing SOA implementations. As such, one of the missing components of their runtime infrastructure was active management as well as more robust security. This is where Actional comes in,” Schmelzer said.

“On another note, I think this is a foreboding note for other startups in the industry. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to be a small Web Services or SOA-focused startup/pure-play. The larger vendors know that they have to have a comprehensive answer to SOA challenges,” Schmelzer said.

“Small companies will either be directly in the competitive path of these large vendors or will be acquisition fodder. Faced with the prospects of competing with much larger vendors, we believe that many will choose acquisition instead of trying to broaden their own capabilities or find deeper pockets. 2006 will bear out to be the year of super-consolidation for the SOA markets,” said Schmelzer.

Read more at: InfoWorld

SOA players targeting policy, governance

TrueBaseline is offering a “hybrid” between management and governance, said Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink LLC in Waltham, Mass. The multidimensional compliance is unique, he said. “There are a whole bunch of compliance tools, but most are focused on one task,” Schmelzer said.

TrueBaseline fills a hole in SOA management, he said, “but a lot of people haven’t realized they have a hole yet. If you do governance at design time, there are quite a few solutions out there, but for governance from runtime there is a smaller selection of tooling. As companies try to figure out runtime governance, they will evaluate TrueBaseline.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

IBM acquires DataPower

“DataPower’s product suite of integration, security and performance appliances will fill various holes within IBM’s broad SOA offering,” says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at research firm ZapThink. IBM is acquiring the sales leader in the application-oriented networking market — and a company that already has a solid relationship with IBM’s software, hardware and services groups, he says.

Read more at: NetworkWorld

Accelerating Demand for Systinet’s SOA Governance Solutions Spurs Record Growth

“The first half of 2005 has proved that an increasing number of enterprises are adopting SOA across their organizations to address the core business need for flexible, agile IT,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst with ZapThink LLC. “Enterprises and software vendors alike are increasingly realizing that businesses both large and small require SOA governance and lifecycle management to get value out of their SOA initiatives, and Systinet’s products are at the crux of this business-technology connection.”

Read more at: Systinet Press Release