Recently, Metastorm released an expanded and updated version of its BPM product line, Metastorm BPM Version 7.0. Metastorm is a well-established BPM company that has been working aggressively to expand its capabilities and customer base over the past few years. The company acquired transaction-oriented BPM vendor CommerceQuest in October 2005. The acquisition has added CommerceQuest’s strong system-oriented processing power to Metastorm’s existing human-centric business process management suite. The results are a “roundtrip BPM??? suite of tools that cover the full process lifecycle and are applicable to a wide range of deployment scenarios. Release 7.0 incorporates the technology acquisition (branded as Metastorm Integration Manager) with the Metastorm BPM suite and adds a Microsoft SharePoint client, enhanced Business Activity Monitoring features and integration with external event management engines. In addition, ease of use and the user interface capabilities have been streamlined and updated. With five consecutive years of growth, a track record of profitability, and more than 1,200 customers in 41 countries, Metastorm has grown to become a solid leader in the BPM market.
Upside Uptake
Upside Research believes that the combination of the human-centric and system-based solutions resulting from the acquisition of CommerceQuest by Metastorm gives Metastorm a competitive advantage in the market (see Upside Update from 10/15/05). Version 7.0 reflects the combination of the two products, and provides a clear basis for existing Metastorm customers to leverage the system-based strengths of Metastorm Integration Manager (MIM-the former CommerceQuest technology) in the Metastorm BPM suite.
Metastorm continues to grow its referenceable customer base. With more than 1,200 customers, the company is an established player in the Business Process Management market. The company has recognized the increasing popularity of Microsoft in the enterprise, and has made a strategic decision to align itself with support for Microsoft’s .NET platform and portal, while still maintaining an independence to support IBM WebSphere, Java, and web services. Upside Research believes this is an important balance to maintain. One key to Metastorm’s further success will be on capitalizing on this relationship and turning Microsoft-oriented customers into Metastorm customers. An important component of this will be the degree to which Metastorm can enable the use of Metastorm BPM components (and not necessarily the whole suite) in combination with Microsoft environments.
For more information on Metastorm BPM Version 7.0 and a complete Upside Reserach product brief on the product, visit the Upside Research Website – www.upsideresearch.com
