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Of all the markets that the rush to capitalize on Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) spawned, the space known as Web Services Management (WSM) is likely the most turbulent. Marked by a large number of new entrant vendors and cutthroat competition for a steadily increasing number of customers, WSM products have come to offer a core set of functionality as well as many of the key capabilities necessary for companies to build and run SOAs.
In spite of significant press and early adopter attention to the vendors in this space, there have been too many vendors chasing too few deals, and as a result, most WSM vendors have reconfigured their product and marketing strategies at least once, as they seek the right niche to build the customer traction so critical to their survival. As a result, the WSM market is filled with short-term fragmentation, as vendors jockey for position, and longer-term consolidation, as incumbent vendors make strategic acquisitions and build their WSM capabilities as the market matures.
This report provides WSM vendors with the perspective they need to focus their market and product strategies for the next one to two years, and it illustrates the complete WSM landscape for end-users, enabling them to understand which vendors will be able to provide the capabilities they require, both now and as they build out their Service-Oriented Architectures.
“Companies are coming to understand that Web Services Management is critical for both the operation of Web Services as well as SOAs,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst with ZapThink. “As a result, vendors in this space are finding customer traction by offering a range of different capabilities, from monitoring, to SOA enablement, to metadata management.”
Read more at: BusinessWireWhile Web Services have been getting the attention through 2003, in 2004 the IT computing story will be focused squarely on Service Orientation. Offering an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that provides greater business agility while enabling companies to use heterogeneous resources more efficiently, Service Orientation, based on established Web Services standards, is set to fundamentally change many different IT markets as enterprises transition to Service-Oriented Architectures.
In particular, the markets of application security, security appliances, system management, application integration, data integration, and business process management are six key markets that will become transformed as vendors in those markets Service-enable their products. Furthermore, there is a window of opportunity for new entrants in each of these markets to build Service-oriented offerings. Those windows will soon close, however, as the established, incumbent vendors in each space consolidate their respective markets.
These consolidation trends will continue through the rest of the decade, as large vendors round out their suites of software that support Service Orientation, resulting in a combined market consisting of vendors offering a full-function SOA Implementation Framework. These frameworks will offer enterprises all the functionality they need to build, run, and manage SOAs. The market for SOA Implementation Frameworks is still nascent as of 2004, but will dominate the distributed computing arena by 2010.
Jason Bloomberg, analyst with ZapThink LLC in Waltham, Mass., says one way to make sense of it is to separate the players into active and passive managers. “Amberpoint and Confluent are two of the better-known active management vendors,” he explains. Active management software is able to exert some control over the XML messages it monitors.
Swingtide and Service Integrity are passive players. “These guys just sit there and sniff,” says Bloomberg: “They listen to the XML going by and create reports and alerts.”
Read more at: Intelligent EnterpriseJason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, in Cambridge, Mass., said he views Swingtide as unique in its category.
“Instead of rushing the first version of their software product to market, they developed an extensive professional services offering to build relationships with their customers, build awareness within their selected target industry and to gather a detailed understanding of their customers’ needs,” Bloomberg said.
Read more at: eWeekService-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.
The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.
This report analyzes the market for SO
Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.
The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.
This report analyzes the market for SO
Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.
The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.
This report analyzes the market for SO
Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.
The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.
This report analyzes the market for SOA within professional services organizations from three perspectives: from the point of view of the consulting firm, who must understand how its business must change; from the perspective of the enterprise user, who must select and manage a consultant; and from the point of view of software vendors who wish to work with consultants to help them meet the needs of their customers.
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