The companies said the combination enables business processes spanning system-to-system integration and service orchestration with Cape Clear’s ESB platform, and advanced human-facing process management delivered by Appian’s BPM suite, Appian Enterprise.
By bridging the gap between human interactions and system interactions, the companies said, users of the combined solution will significantly improve their ability to change and modify enterprise process applications while leveraging the benefits of service oriented architecture (SOA).
Cape Clear and Appian have already engaged in multiple opportunities across a variety of industries in North America. Future plans will focus on implementation, and will support best practices, embedded components, and other new features that extend the capabilities of both products.
Clients are increasingly looking to bring together SOA and BPM in order to connect IT assets with the processes that ultimately consume them, said Ian Charlesworth, principal analyst at Ovum. This partnership plays directly to this market demand.
Samir Gulati, vice president, marketing at Appian, said: This partnership enables organizations to align their SOA and BPM objectives from the project start. Customers will realize a better long-term return on both investments.
Our View
This move will surely be welcome news for Cape Clear and Appian customers and prospects. But we have to say, BPM and integration technologies have been bedfellows for some time. BEA (thanks to its Fuego acquisition); Oracle; IBM; Software AG (thanks to its acquisition of webMethods and partnership with Fujitsu Software); Tibco (thanks to its Staffware acquisition); and others have all had ESB and BPM capabilities for a long while.
Cape Clear’s real strength lies in its elegant, relatively lightweight, standards-based middleware that can underpin SOA initiatives with a scalable and dynamic integration platform. Appian is best known for human-centric BPM capabilities, something the industry used to call workflow.
Cape Clear integration with BPM from Appian does make sense, and Appian’s real-time analytics may offer additional visibility into BPEL processes running on Cape Clear’s bus. For customers, the question is whether a partnership between Cape Clear and Appian better suits their needs than the (claimed) integration between BPM and SOA from the larger SOA suite vendors.
For many no doubt, the Cape Clear-Appian best-of-breed approach will be attractive. If it’s attractive for enough customers, don’t be surprised to see Cape Clear buy Appian or another BPM player.
