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IBM to acquire ILOG

IBM and ILOG announced today that IBM will be acquiring ILOG for €10/share, or about $US340 million in total.

IBM’s goal is to integrate ILOG’s business rules technology into their existing BPM and SOA offerings:

When completed, the acquisition of ILOG will strengthen IBM’s BPM and SOA position by providing customers a full set of rule management tools for complete information and application lifecycle management across a comprehensive platform including IBM’s leading WebSphere application development and management platform.

The funny part is that the IBM press release take two paragraphs to explain what BPM is, and how business rules are used in the context of BPM, indicating just how niche these technologies still are in the broader business scope.

This may not be good news for ILOG’s other BPM partners; one less independent BRMS company means less choice when it comes to putting your processes and rules together.

Business Rules Forum

The Business Rules Forum is coming up on October 26-30 in Orlando, and I’ll be back there again this year to speak. You can find my coverage of last year’s event here, and my presentation on BPM, BR and BI is available here. I found last year’s event definitely worthwhile, although I was left with the feeling that we still had a long way to go in terms of creating the necessary about of synergy between BPM and BR. A lot has happened in a year, and this year I’m speaking on mixing rules and process:

There are many techniques for combining rules or decisioning capability with business process management (BPM), ranging from using simple expression engines embedded within a BPM system to a full integration between separate BRM and BPM systems.

This session takes a close look at what rules functionality that the BPM systems offer, and the key characteristics that identify which rules and decisions should remain in the domain of the BPM system, and which should be entrusted to a full-strength business rules management system. What you will will learn:

The current state of BPM and BRM

How BPM and BRM interact

Where your rules belong

You can find the conference brochure/schedule here, and online registration here. The organizers have offered my readers 10% off the conference registration if you use the promotional code 8SPSK when you register, and you can also get an early bird discount if you register by September 19th. I don’t get a referral fee from this, it’s just there as a courtesy for any of you who are interested in attending, although in the spirit of full disclosure, my travel expenses to attend are covered by the conference since I’m a speaker.

Another new BPMN book

Another new BPMN book, this one by Stephen White (arguably the inventor of BPMN) and Derek Miers: BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide. It won’t be released until September, with a public launch at the Gartner BPM summit in DC. From the product description:

This book is for both business users and process modeling practitioners alike. Part I provides an easily understood introduction to the key components of BPMN (put forward in a user-friendly fashion). Starting off with simple models, it progresses into more sophisticated patterns. Exercises help cement comprehension and understanding (with answers available online). Part II provides a detailed and authoritative reference on the precise semantics and capabilities of the standard.

I wrote earlier this week about the just-released BPMN book by Tom Debevoise and Rick Geneva; this is obviously the year that BPMN goes mainstream, or at least makes the attempt. White and Miers’ book, although a bit longer than Debevoise and Geneva’s, is also more than twice the price, and also doesn’t seem to offer an e-book option: hard to become a staple of every process-oriented person in an organization at a $40 price point.

I’ll be very interested to read Bruce Silver‘s review of these books. Unless, of course, he’s writing his own. 🙂

Savvion’s Super-charged Partner Program

At the Gartner BPM summit in February, I met up with Dr. Ketabchi, the founder and CEO of Savvion. Shortly before that, Savvion had axed most of their marketing department, and I was eager for the bigger picture since I knew that a lot of those people were very good at their jobs. As he explained at the time and again in a recent briefing, the reason for this shift in team was a shift in direction, under wraps until now, towards much more of a solutions focus. They’ve done a pretty significant internal reorganization, and completely reset their strategy and goals.

Ketabchi believes that the potential for BPM is much larger than is now being achieved: many vendors have been focused only on the core BPM services of model/design, execute and monitor. The extended BPM space surrounding that includes additional tools such as process libraries and business rules — similar to the Gartner definition of a comprehensive BPM suite — and a still-larger ring of vertical applications built on that extended platform. The value to the customer with generic components is limited; domain knowledge is required to increase that value through the vertical applications.

To serve these needs, Savvion is extending their BPM platform both horizontally and vertically. First of all, version 7.5 (shipping in August) will include the following enhancements:

Business process library
Multi-channel routing engine, allowing for the inclusion of multiple interaction channels including voice, fax and internet
Model-monitor-improve cycle
Content management, either through a direct bundling of Alfresco (open source), or through links to Documentum or IBM-FileNet
Business rules, with their own rules engine, allowing processes to invoke rules but also (CEP-like), rules can initiate processes
Multi-tenanted to allow for on-demand BPM

The new release will include the Business Process Center, where all process assets are managed: models, operational procedures, references and everything else needed to build and execute a business process.

There’s also some interesting project management-like visualizations, for bringing together the concepts of project portfolio management and BPM. This tabular view provides an alternative representation of the process that make it easier to pinpoint critical paths and areas requiring optimization.

Vertically, they’ll extend with on-demand and on-premise business applications:

Accounts payable
Telecom order processing
Clinical trial management
Mobile asset management
Customer on-boarding

This vertical expansion is more challenging than horizontal expansion, since Savvion doesn’t have the necessary domain knowledge, so that’s where their new Business Solutions Alliance Program comes in: they’re partnering with resellers, customers and other companies that do have domain knowledge in a sort of crowdsourcing development model. Savvion is building the application platforms, then vertical applications are built on top of the frameworks; since they applications share a common framework, they will be better integrated. But Savvion provides more than a technology framework: they’ll provide sales and marketing, support and a host of other services, while the partners develop the thin, uppermost application layer using their domain expertise, and provide an entry point into the vertical market through their existing customer contacts. This allows the Savvion-centered ecosystem to target a larger portion of the vertical market, since vertical applications can be developed more easily, while still providing a fairly consistent and well-integrated set of applications built on a common framework.

They visualize this application development ecosystem as a mindmap, with the foundation (first level from the root) being developed by Savvion, and the “leaf” applications being built by partners. The goal is to make the leaf-level development as much of a cookie-cutter process as possible, and Savvion is expecting — possibly optimistically — to bundle and integrate the applications within a branch into a cohesive suite, even if built by different partners. Since the new core engine will be multi-tenanted, these applications can be hosted either by Savvion or their partners.

When a vertical solution ecosystem works well, it’s a win-win all around: the vendor makes more sales of the underlying platform, the partners leverage their unique knowledge to build and sell reusable apps rather than just selling services, and the customers can buy mostly off-the-shelf solutions at a lower price point than custom solutions. It’s an interesting model for a partner program: leverage domain knowledge from partners, whether professional services firms or customers, without them having to be crack application development shops or have the capabilities to market and sell the solutions. It’s also a pretty big gamble for Savvion, who are now betting the whole farm on this vertical partner-assisted model instead of the more common horizontal model that we see in the BPMS marketplace.

Appian funding

Appian, a self-funded company until now, is taking on $10M in venture from Novak Biddle, who primarily fund IT startups. Appian plans to use the funding in four areas:

On-demand: enhance their Appian Anywhere on-demand BPM platform, including the application marketplace.
Channel and vertical applications: work with the partner ecosystem to build vertical applications in areas where the partners specialize.
Sales and services: expand geographically, particularly in EMEA and APAC.
Marketing: invest in targeted brand marketing and improve technology partnerships.

I took part last week in an analyst call with Matt Calkins, Appian’s CEO, and Samir Gulati, VP Marketing, about the announcement. They’ve generated $140M in revenue over the 9 years that they’ve been in business, so the big question is why go for VC now?

Calkins sees this as a way for them to move up the food chain, not just competing with vendors their own size (he mentioned Lombardi and Savvion specifically), but taking on the BPM behemoths like IBM and Oracle. The marketing investment is a big part of this, since you can’t play with the big kids unless you look the part. They’ve doubled their marketing budget and added 15 people to their professional services team, and Calkins stated that “we now have the budget to be the company that we wanted to be”. When I asked if this was the first step on the road to an IPO, he confirmed that they were moving towards that goal.

The VCs that they spoke with were impressed by what they’ve done, coming a bit late to the BPM market but being opportunistic and building a leadership position while still generating significant revenue. $10M doesn’t sound like a lot these days, especially given the ambitious scope of their plans, but they have a reputation for doing good things on a shoestring and hopefully the influx of cash won’t turn their heads. Remember, this is the conservative east coast, not the excesses of the Valley.

In response to a question about the difficulty in moving from selling software licenses to selling on-demand software, Calkins responded that they’re creating a separate Appian Anywhere sales force and developing a sales model that will compensate them based on projected 3-year revenues, which makes it easier to compare the on-demand and enterprise sales teams. They plan to shift to a SaaS “metabolism” for Appian Anywhere, allowing for frequent code releases in the on-demand platform, while only occasionally freezing that code base for the Enterprise edition. This keeps the two versions in sync, but provides a functionality advantage to the Appian Anywhere customers, who will see the new features earlier.

Microguide to BPMN

I noticed in one of Tom Debevoise’s posts last week that he recently co-authored the book The Microguide to Process Modeling in BPMN, and on closer examination, I see that his co-author is Rick Geneva of Intalio, with Ismael Ghalimi writing the foreword.

From the product description on Amazon:

With over fifty implementations listed, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly successful Object Management Group (OMG) standard. Whether you are in government, manufacturing or retailing you can accurately depict your processes in BPMN! Yet, OMG BPMN specification 1.1 is abstract, lengthy and complicated. So, learning to use BPMN can be daunting. So you will need the strait forward [sic] information in this book. This guide gathers all the ideas, design, and problem solving of BPMN into one simple, focused book, and offers concrete true-life examples that explain BPMN’s approach to process modeling.

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet so can’t compare it to the many other sources of BPMN instruction out there, such as the recently-released BPMN, the Business Process Modeling Notation Pocket Handbook. Unfortunately, Debevoise and Geneva’s book doesn’t appear to be available as an e-book.

The people part of SOA

I was going to just link to Mike Kavis’ post on the Top 10 Reasons Why People Are Making SOA Fail, but I wanted to added some of my own comments. By the way, he’s talking primarily about IT people, not business people, in the fail part of the equation.

Number 1 reason: they fail to explain SOA’s business value. Kavis recommends (and I completely agree) starting with business problems first, specifically using BPM as the “killer app” to justify the existence of SOA.

He continues with a number of cultural and organizational issues, such as change management and executive sponsorship, then discusses a few of the flat-out IT failure points: not having the skills to actually do SOA (and not getting the outside help required), trying to do it on the cheap, thinking of SOA as a one-time implementation project rather than an ongoing architecture, and neglecting SOA governance.

His final reason for failure is allowing the vendors to drive the architecture:

[T]he vendors promise flawless integration if you purchase all of your tools within their stack. The reality is, they have purchased so many products from other companies that their stacks do not deliver any better integration than if you bought the tools from a variety of vendors.

In the face of recent acquisitions, this could not be more accurate.

Where the hell is Matt?

Want to improve your mood? Turn the sound up and watch this, preferably in high-quality mode:

Matt Harding traveled the world doing a goofy dance, and somehow it became an uplifting video, spotlighting both differences and similarities around the globe. Yes, it’s sponsored by a chewing gum company (who have only a small mention at the end of the credits), but it’s still amazing. Every time I watch it, I get a thrill when I see the places that I’ve visited, and hanker for many more of the ones that I haven’t.

The hauntingly beautiful music is available for purchase on iTunes.

BPMN 1.1 poster

Previously, I posted about the free BPMN 1.0 poster available for download from ITPoster.net, and now the Business Process Technology Group at the Hasso Plattner Institute has published one for BPMN 1.1. Both provide a good quick reference; the BPT version has just the graphical object notation, while the ITPoster version also includes some patterns and antipatterns.

Also, check out BPT’s BPMN Corner, which has a number of good BPMN links, including Oryx, a web-based BPMN editor, and BPMN stencils for Visio and OmniGraffle.

Business Rules Management and Business Process Management: Turning Policies into Action

Recently, I wrote a white paper for Corticon Technologies on the synergy between BPM and BRM. From the introduction:

The mantra of today’s business environment is “build for change”, driving many process improvement initiatives. Businesses must realize, however, that the decisions within the business processes are at least as critical in the search for agility, since the decisions change more frequently than the processes. Combining business rules management and business process management provides that agility by allowing the decisions, and their underlying rules, to be changed independently from the processes, often in real-time by business managers.

This white paper examines the intersection of business rules management and business process management: what they are, how they interact, and why this is important to the agility, accuracy, cost and compliance of your business processes.

You can find the white paper on their site here (available as a link from their Solutions / Business Process Management page), no registration required.