Good article from Connie Moore of Forrester yesterday, on assessing the BPM market the day after the Savvion news broke.

As she points out, these deals are important because of:

• Convergence of BPM types
• Clear signs of expanded interest in BPM by big players
• Closer integration of several business technologies (BPMS, BAI, etc.)
• Better BPMS from IBM
• More acquisitions and consolidation to come

Connie goes on to give her impressions of Pega, Appian, and other pure plays and innovators.

Like Connie, I think there’s still a lot of room for innovation in the market as the creative-destructive capitalistic processes continue.  She also took time to point out that many of the acquirers do not understand that there is more to BPM than software- there is a methodology and discipline of continuous improvement that most software vendors simply don’t have, and don’t appreciate (at least, as it pertains to their customer engagements – they may very well practice continuous improvement inside their own organization). I think this acquisition activity is going to put further demands on service companies to bridge the gap.

Connie Moore’s (of Forrester) recent posting on collaboration and BPM got my attention primarily for the following quote:

But I’ve been a voice crying in the wilderness. I’m not kidding.  Whenever I would talk about collaboration with BPM vendors, they would somehow think I was talking about straight through processes between companies. That’s collaboration, right???  And whenever I would talk about BPM with content and collaboration vendors, they would look at me blankly and mumble something about using simple workflow for approving documents.  It felt like two disconnected worlds that desperately needed to find each other.

I can very well imagine this conversation with these vendor communities.  Connie sees reason for optimism, and I agree – but we still have a long way to go on this front.  Keep fighting the good fight!