Here is my comment in 'one run' to fitzecarraldo's comment here:
@fitzecarraldo: Likewise - nice meeting you. At this point it seems I cannot comment on my own blog.... need to debug what is going on between blogger, google, google+ etc.
Would be interesting to see the PI vs Tibco comparison - though they really are not in the same markets... Tibco vs other standalone integration tools would be interesting (and has real decisions behind it in the marketplace). SAP PI vs Oracle Fusion Middleware would be interesting (but not much of a marketplace interest as enterprises decide on their ERP package and then need to 'live' with the decision in respect of integration services offered).
@both: Also your examples are interesting and good - and to my point- they fall into the scenarios where not more than 2 key enterprise apps are running in the same package. By then the quality and capabiity of the integration platform is a matter of survival for the company, fully agreed.
Where I think I differ is in the assumption that we are moving more towards integration era or application suites era. Enterprises want to save on automation - and you can save more, if you buy integrated automation. Companies like Deutsche Post in your example don't go down the integration path because they want to - but because of a lack of pre-built automation solutions for their enterprise.
In my view there are two reasons the 'enterprise automation ice plates' can break and drift apart (or even melt and disappear) - that is technology and business innovation.
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So to stay with the ice plates analogy -- we have fewer ice plates than since a long time, and that reduces the market and need for integration. You may argue that there are new SaaS companies like salesforce, workday and NetSuite. But the interfaces to CRM and HCM systems are well understood and have been there since a long time (SAP customer to a Siebel system, Oracle customer to a Peoplesoft system) and NetSuite offers a 'closed' suite with integration tools themselves, they are an 'incarnation' of Oracle or SAP - only based on a cloud philosophy and architecture.
In conclusion: The integration need exists, but it ebbs and flows with the tides of 'automation ice plates' - and in that regards we have seen 'global cooling' in the last 20 years.
@fitzecarraldo: Likewise - nice meeting you. At this point it seems I cannot comment on my own blog.... need to debug what is going on between blogger, google, google+ etc.
Would be interesting to see the PI vs Tibco comparison - though they really are not in the same markets... Tibco vs other standalone integration tools would be interesting (and has real decisions behind it in the marketplace). SAP PI vs Oracle Fusion Middleware would be interesting (but not much of a marketplace interest as enterprises decide on their ERP package and then need to 'live' with the decision in respect of integration services offered).
@both: Also your examples are interesting and good - and to my point- they fall into the scenarios where not more than 2 key enterprise apps are running in the same package. By then the quality and capabiity of the integration platform is a matter of survival for the company, fully agreed.
Where I think I differ is in the assumption that we are moving more towards integration era or application suites era. Enterprises want to save on automation - and you can save more, if you buy integrated automation. Companies like Deutsche Post in your example don't go down the integration path because they want to - but because of a lack of pre-built automation solutions for their enterprise.
In my view there are two reasons the 'enterprise automation ice plates' can break and drift apart (or even melt and disappear) - that is technology and business innovation.
- Technology ruptures happen all them time - but the last time it really 'weeded out' applicaton vendors was the move from mainframe to client server (SAP is the only mainframe survivor and managed to do a re-write). All other technology ruptures - the thin client / web change, the web services changes and right now the cloud change - have not shed any past vendors. Somehow they managed to move their core over to the next platform, kept their TCO low, kept their customers 'happy' etc.
- The other aspect is business innovation. In the 2nd half of the 90ies e.g. Forrester declared 'ERP dead', the music was playing in CRM, SCM, SRM etc. At one point Siebel Systems had more license revenue than SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft and JD Edwards combined (!). But slowly the ERP vendors (SAP, Oracle and Peoplesoft) gained critical, 'good enough functionality' and they recovered lost customers, kept existing ones etc. Today all former CRM vendors are gone (Aurum (to Baan), Clarify (Nortel to SAP), Scopus (to Siebel), Siebel (to Oracle) and Vantive (to Peoplesoft), the SCM vendors are gone / a shade of themselves (I2, Manuguistics) and the SRM vendors (Ariba, CommerceOne - both SAP)... More recently vertically specialized ERP vendors disappeared (Lawson to Infor, Retek to Oracle), because their market was too small, they could not innovate fast enough.
So to stay with the ice plates analogy -- we have fewer ice plates than since a long time, and that reduces the market and need for integration. You may argue that there are new SaaS companies like salesforce, workday and NetSuite. But the interfaces to CRM and HCM systems are well understood and have been there since a long time (SAP customer to a Siebel system, Oracle customer to a Peoplesoft system) and NetSuite offers a 'closed' suite with integration tools themselves, they are an 'incarnation' of Oracle or SAP - only based on a cloud philosophy and architecture.
In conclusion: The integration need exists, but it ebbs and flows with the tides of 'automation ice plates' - and in that regards we have seen 'global cooling' in the last 20 years.