IBM has announced acquisition of Holosofx, a business process modeling products firm, which it will use to enhance the business process management capabilities of its Websphere product.
I've used Holosofx products in the past. The products--BPM Workbench, BPM Server, and BPM Monitor--go beyond simple process mapping to full-blown process modeling and simulation. Earlier this year, IBM acquired Crossworlds, one of the first Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) vendors. By combining Crossworlds and Holosofx with Websphere and its MQSeries messaging platform, IBM is creating an extended platform for enterprise integration.
The direction is timely. Over the past year, companies have been shrinking back from fork-lift replacements of legacy systems, in favor of a more piece-meal approach. Because of this, the need for integration has never been greater. As the Holosofx press release points out, companies already spend about 40% of their IT budgets on integration. EAI solutions, such as Websphere/Crossworlds/Holosofx provide an integration infrastructure, sitting as a layer above individual application systems, to provide both the integration as well as business process management functionality that cuts across multiple applications and organizational units.
Holosofx was founded in 1990, with headquarters in southern California and a development lab in Cairo, Egypt. Holosofx was used by RosettaNet in developing specifications for their Partner Interface Processes (PIP), so it already has strong ties to the high tech and IT industries. In addition, it is currently in use at big name clients such as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, AETNA, SBC, First Union, Toyota, and Telstra. Beyond, IBM its partnerships include Rational and Filenet.
More information can be found at Holosofx's web site.
