Industry Analyst Reports
A Technology Audit of the Progress SOA Platform
Butler Group profiled the expanded Progress Portfolio for SOA, writing that “the recent additions to Progress’s SOA platform capability will allow it to offer appropriate solutions to organizations across a wide spectrum of requirements, from simple integration projects to full-blown strategic SOA, supporting a range of organization sizes with varying degrees of SOA maturity. Commercial and open source elements can be combined to create the desired solution at an appropriate entry price.
Butler Group also noted the “strong interoperability across the range (of Progress offerings) and with competitive products, the economic stability and strong international presence of Progress Software, great scalability and high availability choices, and the availability of companion products that provide SOA governance, CEP and Data Interoperability.”
Magic Quadrant for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets
Progress Actional has been positioned in the Leaders' Quadrant of Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant report for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets, 2009
Noting that enterprises are requiring their technology partners to offer the full SOA governance lifecycle including SOA validation and monitoring, Gartner wrote, "Progress has done a good job of consolidating, amplifying, and executing on its marketing message about SOA governance technologies and lifecycle management. With its recent acquisition of Mindreef, Progress has extended its monitoring and policy enforcement capabilities to include validation and diagnostics. The acquisition also gives Progress a large base of customers to which it can cross sell its other SOA governance technologies. Progress has the potential to overtake other leaders in this space by exploiting the importance of monitoring in SOA governance."
Progress Actional 8.0 Brings Continuous Quality to SOA Management
In reviewing Progress Software’s Actional 8.0 Enterprise, Current Analysis noted that Actional 8 is the first enterprise software product on the market that merges a mature Web services management solution with competitive standalone SOA quality tooling. "No other WSM competitor has been able to infuse continuous quality functionality into its solution to this extent to date."
With Actional 8, Progress has upped the ante in terms of the depth of visibility available in the market via its Business Transaction Assurance capabilities. With a single click, users can get a full graphical view of a transaction path, complete with a timeline of topology changes.
The TEI of Actional for Interconnected Applications - Financial
Forrester used in-depth interviews and Forrester's powerful "Total Economic Impact" (TEI) methodology to model and analyze the costs, risks, resource usage, and payback period of a U.S. financial services company using Actional in production. Follow their calculations and find out the results. Download the FREE ROI Assurance E-kit to read the complete study.
Progress Apama Highly Rated in IDC Assessment of CEP Products
In this analysis and assessment of key Complex Event Processing (CEP) products on today's market, IDC authors characterize industry pioneering Apama as, "a highly sophisticated CEP offering, with high scores in all categories. Apama was early to recognize the importance of a non-IT professional development environment. As a result, the product is both technologically strong as well as useable by trained business users." The assessment further spotlights Progress Apama's innovative Risk Firewall built into the Apama Capital Markets Framework as a critical CEP element, given the strong demand in multiple markets for improved governance around risk.
The TEI of Actional for Interconnected Applications - Media Services
Imagine reducing problem repair efforts by 85% and production incidents by 20% over a year. One company did using Actional. Based on the Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology, frameworks and interviews, Forrester Consulting, in this commissioned study for Progress, measured the total economic impact and potential ROI that using Actional delivered in monitoring and managing the CRM system of a leading media and entertainment services provider. Read this case study and learn how you can manage the operations of your distributed, interconnected applications, and benefit from improved ROI and customer satisfaction.
The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Service Buses, Q1 2009
Independent research firm, Forrester Research, Inc., named Sonic ESB as a leader in the enterprise service bus (ESB) market with top scores in the current offering and strategy dimensions of "The Forrester WaveTM: Enterprise Service Buses, Q1 2009" Report. The Forrester Research report evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of 10 top commercial and open source ESB vendors based on a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. The report also identified IONA FUSE (now owned by Progress) as an "established and successful" ESB.
Worldwide Embedded Database Management Systems 2007 Vendor Shares
Progress Software is the leading pure-play embedded DBMS vendor, deriving most of its revenue in this market from its distributed systems RDBMS, OpenEdge RDBMS, and a little from its object-oriented DBMS, ObjectStore. The OpenEdge RDBMS is a network-based, multiuser RDBMS that supports applications that are typically deployed mostly on Unix, but also on Windows, Linux, and some legacy platforms. Progress has been a leading player in this space for over a quarter of a century, offering a range of products for ISVs to use in building and deploying their applications. Those products are to be found in the OpenEdge family.
Progress Acquires IONA to Strengthen Presence in AIM Market
This Gartner News Analysis states that the acquisition of Iona Technologies will be consistent with Progress’ strategy of building a large portfolio of SOA-enabling technology through internal development and technology acquisitions such as Actional and Apama. Further, “Progress has the potential to almost double its market share in the application infrastructure and middleware (AIM) market.” The analysis also notes that the deal will give Progress well-known and widely adopted open source products, and will allow Progress to offer both bus-centric and smart end-point-centric ESB architectures.
Progress Software Company Assessment for Data Management
In this Company Assessment of Progress Software, Current Analysis described Progress' diverse data-integration offerings found within Progress OpenEdge, Sonic, DataXtend SI, DataDirect Technologies offerings and Progress Apama. The author wrote, "Existing progress users should take comfort in the fact that the vendor has chalked up two decades of continued profitability, growth and diversification. Their investments in Progress products are safe, and the vendor's worldwide sales, marketing, distribution and support organization – and extensive partner ecosystem – will continue to serve enterprise customers' evolving needs. Existing customers of Progress' DM offerings should continue to rely on the vendor primarily to serve point requirements in such diverse areas as DBMSs (embedded, relational, XML, in-memory), data integration (database drivers, data connectors, data replication, data synchronization, data access, data caching, ESP), and natural-language query. Organizations should recognize that the widespread deployment of business intelligence can benefit the entire organization. They should consider the natural language syntax and "google" like search capabilities of Progress EasyAsk as a vehicle for making BI more pervasive."
Progress Software Snags IONA And Mindreef For SOA
Within one week, Progress Software announced its intention to acquire enterprise service bus (ESB) rival IONA Technologies and completed the acquisition of service-oriented architecture (SOA) testing startup Mindreef. The addition of Mindreef continues Progress' pattern of acquisitions that has broadened the Progress portfolio of best in breed products, extending its coverage to include a new category. The acquisition of IONA is a different matter; it adds to Progress' portfolio a competing product suite with strengths that complement Progress' own products' functionality. Application development professionals who are customers of either IONA or Mindreef will benefit from the backing of a financially stronger company, and those who are Progress customers will have more options to choose from. Prospective new customers will see a more complete product portfolio, albeit one with remaining gaps in SOA service life-cycle management and business process management (BPM).
Progress Software to Acquire IONA Technologies: "Doubling Down" on the SOA Marketplace
In this INSIGHT report, IDC comments, “By acquiring IONA, Progress adds to its portfolio a host of complementary offerings which in some cases add various dimensions that help extend the company’s reach to address an even more complex and varied landscape. This move should thus allow its customer and prospects additional choices regarding deployment, integration, and messaging mediation patterns for SOA. It also arms the company with more options to cross sell its solutions to gain a deeper footprint within the combined customer base.”
Progress' Pending Acquisition of IONA Improves Middleware Position
This IDC Link report states, “This was a good deal for Progress for the following reasons: 26% growth in (Iona) Artix SOA revenue helps accelerate Progress growth, $32 million maintenance business with high renewal rates, 75 field reps capable of selling a joint SOA portfolio, Complementary products, and increased market presence and share in SOA business, including the addition of a SOA registry and repository.” Noting that the Iona bus provides endpoint connectivity, the report concludes, “Therefore, it isn’t much of a stretch to market and sell this combined portfolio, particularly with the (Iona) Artix registry/repository product and Actional services management.”
Progress to Add IONA to its SOA Portfolio
This AMR Alert Article notes that “With the IONA acquisition, Progress will enhance its offerings for .NET and Java integration as well as add CORBA to SOA integration and an SOA registry of its own. Thanks to the architectural approach shared by the two product sets, we expect IONA’s SOA customers to be protected.” The article continues, “For Progress, this is another step on its way to building a broad SOA portfolio and a critical mass of revenue in its SOA business. The acquisition creates new opportunities to cross-sell SOA portfolio products to IONA’s customers and strengthens Progress’ hand in competitive SOA evaluations.”
Progress Acquires IONA in Play for SOA Leadership
In this report, Current Analysis deems the market impact of Progress’ pending acquisition of Iona Technologies as “Very High” and takes a positive perspective on the news. Current Analysis’ rationale includes, “the deal will create a number of immediate market opportunities and long-term technology advantages for Progress, stemming from strong technology and vertical industry synergies, existing cross-company interoperability, global market expansion, and mid-market options. As a result, this quickly moving acquisition will strengthen Progress’ position as a leading, independent standards-based heterogeneous SOA provider.
Current Analysis Takes Positive Stance on Progress Software Corporation
Tech Industry-watcher Current Analysis took a positive stance on Progress Software, reflecting its “unstack” approach and full SOA Portfolio of products. The report notes, “Progress refers to these solutions as the “unstack” because although the products are closely integrated, they are not interdependent. In all, Progress has positioned itself as a strong integration vendor with numerous SOA-scale capabilities that will appeal to enterprises focusing on both data and process integration. The company is a solid competitor on price and scalability compared with even larger vendors such as IBM and BEA.”
Breaking up the Stack - The SOA Strategy of Progress Software
This Butler Group White Paper shows the breadth of Progress Software's SOA portfolio and the unique manner by which it delivers these technologies to the marketplace. "Progress takes a refreshingly pragmatic view of the SOA market, recognizing that for most organizations (and certainly for most large and very large enterprises) the SOA infrastructure will itself be heterogeneous, either by design or by evolution and necessity. It provide its solutions in a form that can be readily implemented to enhance an existing SOA implementation, providing missing elements, or potentially replacing elements that are a less than optimal fit with the requirements of the organization."
SOA Adoption: Technology Diversity Accelerators
Although it is no surprise to say that technology diversity drives adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA), Forrester's survey data shows patterns in the use of development platforms, development languages, and application platform vendors that affect how rapidly certain IT segments adopt SOA. For example, enterprises with four or more application platform vendors have significantly higher SOA adoption than enterprises that use three or fewer. Small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) that use three development platforms have significantly higher SOA penetration than those using only one. By finding the patterns that match their organization's technology environment, architects can bolster their case for SOA with industry adoption numbers that correspond closely with their peer organizations' adoption rates.
The 2008 Service-Oriented Architecture Software Market Landscape
This Market Services Report from AMR Research makes the point that "While most of the attention in the SOA market has been on the suites offered by major vendors, none of these are truly complete, and customers have more alternatives than what lies on the surface." The authors note that tools for SOA enabling such existing IT assets as legacy applications, messaging systems, and databases are now available and will play a crucial role for companies that can't afford to rewrite their systems from scratch. Regarding the Progress Software SOA Portfolio, they report, "Progress remains committed to being the independent choice for infrastructure. The company has assembled a portfolio of SOA products to address the most common integration challenges customers and software vendors face." Progress meets its customers' needs with independence, interoperability, and best-of-breed functionality. "Whatever the success of the big SOA suite vendors, there will always be a market for best-of-breed products like Progress."
Progress Actional Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in Magic Quadrant
Progress Actional was positioned in the leaders quadrant in Gartner's 2007 Magic Quadrant for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets. This recognition from Gartner follows another influential industry analyst report that named Actional the top current offering among standalone SOA and Web services management solutions.
Progress Software's Depth And Extensibility Lead In Stand alone SOA Management Solutions
In our Forrester Wave™ analysis of standalone service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web service management solutions, Progress Software's solution rated within our Leader category, with broad and deep visibility into SOA implementations, strong active management of services, and a strong architecture for extensibility.
Progress Software Named Largest Pure-Play Embedded Database Management System (DBMS) Vendor in IDC Report
The Progress OpenEdge business application development platform was recognized for worldwide leadership in the pure-play embedded database management systems market by IDC in the firm's Worldwide Embedded DBMS 2007-2011 Forecast and 2006 Vendor Shares Report. The report also cited Progress Software's strong ISV channel relationships and continuous product development as key contributing factors for its leading market share.
Data Services Platforms: Searching for their Place in the Markets
This Burton Group report analyzes how data services promise easy access to enterprise data strewn across redundant databases, trapped inside commercial software applications, and scattered in semi-structured and unstructured formats. Explaining how Progress DataXtend Semantic Integrator helps answer the increasing demands for data services tooling, the authors note that, "Although the synergies between DSP and semantic integration are obvious, only one DSP vendor, Progress Software, provides semantic integration capabilities as part of its product."
The Forrester Wave: Standalone SOA And Web Services Management Solutions, Q4 2007
To assess the state of the standalone SOA management solutions market and see how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the top standalone SOA management solutions vendors. Progress Actional was #1 in Current Offering and Strategy. Register to download The Forrester Wave.
Bloor BPMS Market Update
Business process management (BPM) is a holistic management practice that models an enterprises' human and machine tasks, and the interactions between them, as processes with the goal of improving agility and performance. It is a structured approach that employs methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize an organization's activities and processes.
