As we outlined in the last two Upside Update newsletters, Upside Research believes that 2004 will bring BPM products that are more business focused. With a surprisingly strong offering in its new release of Fuego BPMS 5.0, Fuego is set to up the ante in the BPM game, as well as providing a proof point for some of our predictions.
Incorporated as a US-based company in 1999, Fuego has emerged as a “pure play” BPM company, focused primarily on helping companies automate and manage their processes. Its previous offerings have been solid products that have delivered practical BPM solutions to a variety of companies. However, like most sophisticated BPM products, the Fuego solution required quite a bit of work to try out-even for prototyping purposes. For example, as with many BPM products, organizations interested in trying it out would typically have to involve DBAs to set up access to a database and/or the appropriate directory structure.
Fuego 5.0 is set to change all this. In 5.0, Fuego has not only abstracted and simplified the configuration, development, administration, and management aspects of modeling and deploying a business process, but they have also enabled almost any organization to download and model a BPM solution without extensive training. Fuego has also eliminated the risk of potential customers wasting their time by enabling them to turn their prototypes into production ready processes. With the release of 5.0, organizations can now download a free, fully functional evaluation copy of Fuego Process Orchestration Studio, Fuego’s new modeling, development, and testing interface for process development. With the Orchestration Studio, users can actually build and model processes they can run on a single machine. The Studio includes a full runtime capability (albeit for debugging and testing purposes only) and its self contained nature eliminates the need for developers to setup databases or directory structures. If the results of an organization’s prototyping efforts are favorable, users can move their process to a runtime environment by purchasing either the Fuego Express Engine (departmental) or Fuego Enterprise Engine.
In addition, Fuego has updated its traditional CIL development language with Fuego Business Language (FBL), eliminating the need to learn CIL as well as a fair amount of the coding that was traditionally required. Designed to make it easier for business analysts to model processes, the Orchestration Studio extends FBL capabilities by providing automated support for graphically developing process logic, through new procedures and screen flows that business users can use to design their processes.
Upside Uptake
At Upside Research, we were able to easily download, configure, and use Fuego 5.0 seamlessly from the Web, in contrast with the cumbersome configuration routines we’ve experienced with other BPM products. Upside Research believes that Fuego BPMS 5.0 is an innovative BPM solution that has significant advantages for both business analysts and IT developers. Fuego 5.0 has several new features that position Fuego in the forefront of pure-play BPM vendors.
Upside Research is impressed with the free availability and download of the Fuego Process Orchestration Studio (the development environment) and believes that this is a good strategic move that other BPM vendors will have a tough time responding to. The fact that Fuego Process Orchestration Studio can now be downloaded and used freely to develop production-ready processes is important because it means that it’s easier than ever for organizations to get started evaluating BPM solutions.
Fuego 5.0 also includes new simulation capabilities that are important for pre deployment analysis, enabling analysts to test their process models prior to release. In addition, the simulation can be used post-release to compare results with the anticipated results, and iteratively plan for the next release.
While it’s still early in the year, Upside Research believes that Fuego 5.0 is an important milestone in 2004 BPM developments. Let’s see if the other companies can catch up.
