Software AG Picks Up Runtime Governance with Progress OEM Deal

| Sep 11, 2008 | Application Infrastructure | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Brad Shimmin

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

September 8, 2008 -- Software AG, a global provider of business infrastructure software, announced the availability of webMethods Insight, a new solution for the run-time management of heterogeneous SOA environments. The release builds upon a new strategic OEM partnership with Progress Software for the Actional line of enterprise-class SOA management products. webMethods Insight provides enterprises with a proven solution for the monitoring, policy enforcement and provisioning of run-time services.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Software AG releasing webMethods Insight, an OEMed and rebranded rendition of the well-regarded Actional SOA governance platform from Progress Software. This solution gives Software AG's overall SOA portfolio a significant boost, particularly with regards to the firm's ESB, BPM and registry/repository solutions. When bundled with Software AG's registry/repository (CentraSite), for example, Insight will offer Software AG customers deep visibility and transparency coupled with strong policy management and enforcement across both runtime and design-time environments.

• Vendor Importance: High to Software AG, as the company needed to form a runtime SOA governance go-to-market message that extended beyond its previous joint marketing and sales referral programs with both Progress Software and AmberPoint. This move is also important as it will give Software AG a point of differentiation for its BPM software, which has become a strategic area of focus for the company's overall SOA portfolio. This focus on BPM is also in line with an industry trend toward BPM-led SOA projects.

• Market Impact: High on the governance and management marketplace, because this move shakes up what has been a fairly stationary class of pure-play SOA governance solutions for direct and OEM sales from AmberPoint, SOA Software, and HP, with Progress now actively seeking OEM partnerships for its pure-play SOA product. From Software AG's perspective, this partnership and product launch will push SOA platform vendors (e.g., Sun, Oracle, IBM, SAP, and Microsoft) to strengthen their lifecycle SOA governance portfolios with either stronger in-house offerings or improved OEM solutions with deep ties into their respective product sets.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• AmberPoint should view this partnership as particularly threatening and a call to action – namely to work with SAP to create a runtime governance solution branded as NetWeaver. AmberPoint has thrived on third-party OEM agreements since its inception, but over the past twelve months it has seen a number of setbacks through acquisition (both Progress and Oracle). For example, even before this partnership evolved, IONA (which partnered with AmberPoint) was also considering OEMing Actional before its acquisition by Progress. AmberPoint should note also that this is only the first major Actional OEM agreement for Progress, which the company intends to build upon aggressively in the future.

• Rivals should point out that this agreement is simply an extension and further formalization of a longstanding partnership between the two companies. Both Progress and Software AG have had a formal referral program in place since late last year and have already established and are working on a significant joint sales opportunity pipeline. This announcement simply allows Software AG to market the Actional product in a more direct manner with a more cohesive, overall governance solution. Technological differentiation is still outstanding, as mentioned above.

• Once its acquisition of IONA has been finalized later this fall, Progress should publish a clear roadmap for Artix Registry Repository as it relates to and works with Actional. This will help the company avoid any unnecessary channel conflicts with Software AG. Though the product technically does not directly compete with CentraSite, customers will need to be educated on the differences between the two in terms of product interdependencies and areas of focus.

• Oracle should build upon its recent acquisition of ClearApp, focusing on an Oracle/BEA BPM offering linked to the composite application performance management functionality of ClearApp. BPM is a strong differentiator and distinct area of interest for Software AG going forward, which will pressure Oracle to keep pace in instrumenting and governing BPM-centric SOA environments. A focus on performance management will help Oracle create some intellectual space between itself and Software AG.

• All rival SOA companies should call attention to the fact that Software AG has chosen to only field one edition of Actional, though Software AG currently markets two different versions of CentraSite (license-based and community-supported). Further, Progress fields a number of use case-based Actional offerings (Actional for SOA Operations, Actional for Continuous Service Optimization, Actional for Active Policy enforcement and the governance integration module add-on), but Progress will only field the superset of these (Actional for Continuous Service Optimization).

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• Current Software AG customers should view this partnership as a favorable event with a tremendous upside that will evolve over the coming months as the company continues to technically integrate Insight into its portfolio. Given the company's decision to make its forthcoming adapters freely available to Insight customers, users interested in Insight should not hesitate to pull the trigger on a bundled purchase today.

• Potential Software AG customers with a distinct interest or current investment in AmberPoint technologies should not let this partnership dissuade interest in Software AG. The company intends not just to honor existing joint customer opportunities with AmberPoint, it will not diminish the role AmberPoint currently plays relative to its CentraSite Community edition software and associated online community.

• Potential Software AG customers with little or no investment in other Software AG solutions (BPM, ESB, registry/repository) looking to invest in SOA governance should invite in both Software AG and Progress to compete, since the two companies are able to leverage Insight/Actional in the service of their respective SOA portfolios. The ultimate decision (Artix+Actional or CentraSite+Insight) should be based upon the customer's anticipated long-term investment in one company or the other, not just on the current scope and focus of each product set.

• Existing CentraSite and potential Insight customers should note that while there is no unified installation and configuration toolset available for both products, they share a common technological base and are able to deploy across the same hardware and software footprints (e.g., Linux, Solaris, Windows, etc.) with very few exceptions (there are some esoteric support differences within some Linux distributions, for example).

• Potential Insight customers with an existing investment in CentraSite and webMethods Business Process Management Suite should note that even without a direct adapter, all BPM-built services can be instrumented, since the BPM solution runs on the webMethods ESB. If customers expose a BPM-built service, that service will be instrumented out of the gate.

• Existing Progress customers should push for a post acquisition roadmap from Progress concerning its intended use of and scope for its newly acquired IONA Artix Registry Repository relative to Actional. The company's ultimate plan for this solution as it relates to the Sonic product family (not just the Artix portfolio) will create either clarity or confusion for customers considering ESB solutions from both Software AG and Progress.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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