The Insider's Guide to Next-Generation BPM
By Tony Baer, Senior Analyst, Ovum , 05/14/2006
Print this article
Email this article
Talk Back!
Write to Editor
Last week, SAP and Microsoft proved what was possible when you get a couple of 16-ton gorillas to march in sync. They introduced what's for now, the enterprise's ultimate mashup: ERP and Microsoft Office. And today, SAP is making similar announcements with IBM.
Duet, the official name of the joint SAP/Microsoft offering, is designed to push SAP's installed base past the core 10 - 20% of the enterprise. The value proposition is, wouldn't it be great if a manager who needs budget rollups once or twice a week gets them fed to the Excel spreadsheets that is his/her de facto standard? Or what about the road warrior who would rather stay in Outlook than fiddle with the CRM system?
Clearly, people are more productive when they work with the software they know, and don't have to go elsewhere to cut and paste data or rely on a custom interface. And the idea of an all-in-one desktop is nothing new. It drove emergence of the first word processor/spreadsheet/calendar bundles 20 years ago, and got a shot in the arm once the Mac GUI enabled you to cut and paste data from one app to another.
But finding a way to mass-produce enterprise mashups encompassing business functionality has remained elusive.
The emergence of services-oriented architectures, which supported loosely coupled and dynamic connections, moved the integration ball off dead center. SOAs enabled SAP and Microsoft to do Duet, and for IBM to knit SAP into IBM Lotus Workplace and WebSphere Portal.
While SOA makes integration easier, it's still not easy. Duet, which is actually more of a conventional packaged product with specific functionality that you install and configure, required two years of development for its first modest HR-focused release. By contrast, IBM, which took a toolkit approach, got the offering out in only six months, but it leaves actual integration to the customer.
Either way, you can't just pick the pieces you need on the fly; either the vendor must prepackage them or you must integrate them yourself.
In large part this explains the popularity of Ajax-style mashups. That's Zimbra's approach to groupware, which seeks to unify two of the most popular enterprise apps: email and web browsing. Because Ajax focuses on rich UI rather than transaction integration, and because it uses some of the best-known web languages around, it's a pretty fast way to make enterprise mashups.
-1-
Best Practices in Moving Processes to the Clouds
How Can the Cloud Fit Into Your Applications Strategy?
Cloud Data Integration Best Practices
The Economics of Cloud Computing
Data Services Insight: Successful implementation of Canonical Information Models
Building a Metadata Repository on a Shoestring Budget 
SOA What? Services Thinking Goes to Work
Intel Takes Expressway to SOA, SaaS and Cloud With Sarvega, Conformative Deals
BPM VIEWPOINT: Is SharePoint Floor Wax or Dessert Topping?
March 10, 2011
The sixth annual BPM in Action 2011 Virtual Conference will explore cutting-edge market developments in BPM and describe how to leverage them for improved business operation and performance. More
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:13:00 PM
ET- (17:00 GMT)
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
In part two of Joe McKendrick's recent podcast with Miko Matsumura, chief strategist for Software AG, they talk about how SOA and IT systems need to change and grow and adapt with the organization around it.
Listen Now
Phil Wainewright interviews David Vap, VP of products at RightNow Technologies, and finds out how sharing best practices can help businesses understand how best to engage with online communities.
Listen Now
Scott Hebner, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for IBM Rational, discusses a topic on the top of every company's mind today: getting the most from IT investments.
Listen Now
In BI, this tough economy and the increasing role of Web 2.0 and MDM are certainly topics on people's minds today. WiseAnalytics' Lyndsay Wise addresses each of them in this informative podcast.
Listen Now
Deepak Singh, President and CTO of Adeptia, joins ebizQ's Dennis Byron in a podcast that gets its hand around the trend of industry-specific BPM.
Listen NowSmart event processing can help your company run smarter and faster. This comprehensive guide helps you research the basics of complex event processing (CEP) and learn how to get started on the right foot with your CEP project using EDA, RFID, SOA, SCADA and other relevant technologies. Learn More
A lot of people are talking about Enterprise 2.0 as being the business application of Web 2.0 technology. However, there's still some debate on exactly what this technology entails, how it applies to today's business models, and which components bring true value. Some use the term Enterprise 2.0 exclusively to describe the use of social networking technologies in the enterprise, while others use it to describe a web economy platform, or the technological framework behind such a platform. Still others say that Enterprise 2.0 is all of these things. Learn More
|
|
This new publication from our sister site SearchSOA.com explores workflow, business activity monitoring (BAM) and complex event processing (CEP) issues. |
|
|
