It’s a good sign when a niche technology starts getting a lot of coverage in mainstream IT press. I don’t consider BPM “niche” any more (okay, maybe “niche-ish”), but it’s still not as widespread as it could be. Judging by the popular press, however, we’re slowly creeping across the chasm.
Case in point: BPM is all over Intelligent Enterprise the past few months. An article by Bruce Silver discusses five reasons to invest in BPM: simplification, efficiency, compliance and control, agility, and continuous improvement (I think that his first two are actually the same, but no matter, the point is the same). Other articles discuss the incredible number of BPM vendors and the inevitable impending consolidation, the move to BPM suites (now that Gartner claims that “pure-play” BPM is dead), and the inclusion of BAM (business activity monitoring) in the BI (business intelligence) space.
As BPM, SOA, mashups and other integration technologies overlap more both from a technology and usage standpoint, it will drive all of them to greater recognition.