In September 2008 I wrote here on ebizQ in a blog post titled "Oracle bites the "BPM in the name" bullet" that I was surprised that Oracle had not had a Business Process Management (BPM) suite before that time. Oracle had had an SOA Suite, an EDA suite, a WebCenter suite, a Data Integration suite, and so forth for some years before that but apparently no BPM suite.
Until that announcement, I gave Oracle credit for correctly recognizing that BPM was not a product type. BPM is a value proposition. You can manage business processes with EAI software, pureplay engines, Microsoft Outlook, Documentum ECM, an IBM CICS transaction monitor, or about a dozen other product types if you choose to. It's just a matter of what is best for your business.
Then in a September 22, 2008 headline Oracle claimed that by combining a bunch of its separate SOA and other technologies it is the "industry's most comprehensive BPM solution." Now with the July 1, 2009 announcement of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, Where BPM stands in the Oracle pantheon of buzzword gods is now undecided.
The announcement of the new version of its SOA Suite reads like a description of last year's BPM suite. In particular, Oracle says that the Fusion Middleware 11g SOA Suite includes updates of both Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and human-centric workflow capabilities (e.g., Microsoft Office integration), new Rules Engine capabilities (presumably as a result of the 2008 Hayes acquisition), and some high availability features. I have always felt that Oracle with its data mangagement technology knowhow was best postioned to bring a new level of stratight through processing to BPM but I do not see it yet in this announcement. From a BPM perspective, the 11g looks to be more about integrating Oracle's acquisitions than breaking new ground. And next it will hae to integrate the SeeBeyond and other Sun BPM capabilities.
Still--and most important--as I said last September:
"That's not to say Oracle is new to the BPM business. With the products it had on in its web site before the BEA merger and the functionality BEA/Fuego offered, Oracle has been a major player in meeting your needs for BPM as a value propostion for years."
-- Dennis Byron
Well, just like BPM is a value proposition, not a product... SOA is a software architecture, not a product... so I guess it is fitting that everyone has products for these buzzwords, and that Oracle is flirting with both in succession!