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Magic Quadrant for B2B Gateway Providers
Service-Oriented Architecture is also known as :
Service-Oriented Architecture,
Service Oriented Architecture SOA ,
SOA ,
Service Oriented Architecture SOA ,
Enterprise SOA ,
Global Business,
B2B Software,
B2B Solutions,
B2B Marketing,
Application Server SOA ,
SOA Business Intelligence,
Electronic Business Service Oriented Architecture,
Service-Oriented Architecture SOA Business,
Enterprise Service Bus ESB,
Enterprise Service Bus ESB Service Oriented Architecture,
ESB Service Oriented Architecture,
Paper B2B Monitoring,
Business To Business SOA ,
Business To Business B2B,
SOA Web Services,
SOA B2B Integration Web Services,
SOA B2B Commerce.
Service-oriented architecture, cloud computing, international ecommerce,
proliferating business-to-business projects and
changing user requirements are driving vendor innovation and
consolidation in the B2B gateway software market.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Most of the business-to-business (B2B) gateway software solutions rated in this Magic
Quadrant have matured to the point where they can support a wide range of B2B projects;
nevertheless, areas of substantial product functional differentiation remain, including overall
product maturity, scalability, service-oriented architecture (SOA) service enablement,
architectural coherence and community management. Vendors also differ substantially in terms
of price/value, market understanding, market share, industry domain expertise, international
strategies, global sales and support, and ' last but not least ' customer experience.
MAGIC QUADRANT
Market Overview
The B2B gateway software market is growing and dynamic, which reflects IT users" changing
(and increasingly challenging) requirements for more-capable B2B gateway software solutions
to support more (and increasingly sophisticated) B2B projects. Factors affecting the B2B
gateway software market include:
- Growing B2B gateway software market: Companies are implementing more
sophisticated B2B projects, and, therefore, will be spending more on B2B gateway
software during the next five years.
- Increasing B2B gateway software maturity: During the past two years, basic B2B
gateway software functionality, such as communications and transformation, has become
more common, so vendors are differentiating themselves more in areas such as business
activity monitoring (BAM) and SOA support.
- Community management: As companies scale-up their B2B projects, they"re challenging
B2B gateway software vendors to simplify the administration of all external business
partner profiles, connections, service-level agreements (SLAs) and trading partner
agreements.
- Cloud computing: As these scenarios (such as software as a service ' SaaS) emerge,
cloud-based service providers often will need B2B gateway software to link cloud-based
services to customers" internal IT infrastructures.
- SOA and application-to-application (A2A) extension: Many B2B gateway software
vendors are increasingly positioning their B2B gateway software solutions as simple
extensions of their internal (aka, A2A) integration middleware, such as SOA infrastructure
or an enterprise service bus (ESB).
- SOA governance technology will increasingly be
combined with or embedded in B2B gateway
software solutions to ensure users that assets
and artifacts in their SOAs are operating as
expected in B2B projects.
- B2B infrastructure modernization: One of the
most-important trends affecting the B2B gateway
software market is IT user modernization of their
B2B infrastructures to replace aging,
unmanageable, B2B point solutions.
- Vendor acquisitions: During the past two years,
the B2B gateway software market has been very
active; at least four vendors with B2B gateway
software offerings have been acquired, and
additional acquisitions are expected.
- Embedded managed file transfer (MFT):
Although there"s still an active market for standalone
MFT software solutions, B2B gateway
software vendors increasingly offer MFT
functionality as an embedded feature or "add on"
option for their B2B gateway software.
- EDI is dead ' long live EDI: Despite
industrywide predictions of its demise in the late
1990s, electronic data interchange (EDI) use in
many industries (such as automotive, retail and
manufacturing) continues to increase.
- Status of B2B in Europe: Backed by maturing
and proliferating cross-border B2B integration
projects, the B2B gateway software market in
Europe is active and growing rapidly, fueled by
several European-driven economic trends.
Market Definition/Description
B2B gateway software is a form of integration
middleware that"s used to consolidate and centralize a company"s
multienterprise data, application and process integration, and
interoperability requirements with external business partners. It"s
one of three types of B2B infrastructure software. Centrally
managing B2B projects via B2B gateway software:
- Gives companies economies of scale, a deeper insight into the
technical aspects of data integration, transaction delivery and
process integration (that is, consolidating, tracking, storing and
auditing files, messages, process events, acknowledgments,
receipts, errors and exceptions)
- Provides a central, reusable repository for external business
partner profiles and processes (valuable when dealing with
large numbers of external business partners, and when multiple
business units interact with the same partners or provision
partners with similar processes)
- Provides support for various data formats, mappings,
transports and communication protocols, and security
standards
Although many companies outsource some of their B2B
infrastructures (to integration-as-a-service [IaaS] providers ' a
different form of B2B infrastructure), B2B gateway software
continues (and will continue) to be in high demand from companies
of every size, and across all industries that need software to run
their B2B infrastructures. In particular, most midsize-to-large
companies eventually will deploy some form of B2B gateway
software to manage their B2B integration projects.
The multienterprise/B2B gateway software market is composed of
middleware technology from multiple disciplines, including the
integration backbone (also called integration brokers), ESBs,
application servers, application platform suites (APSs), EDI
translators and the B2B-enabled integration middleware, which is
increasingly available with packaged applications (for example,
Oracle Fusion and SAP NetWeaver).
The B2B gateway software market can be called a "market"
because IT users are specifically looking for technology that
enables them to manage all aspects of multienterprise projects in a
way that"s abstracted from, but integrates with, other parts of their
IT infrastructures. As integration disciplines and technology mature,
many companies that have invested in integration middleware will
likely change, upgrade or augment that middleware. Because
automating B2B interactions is essential to bottom-line and topline
revenue, companies are increasingly seeking to implement an
abstract layer of functionality that enables e-commerce and other
forms of process and data execution on multiple layers, including
batch and bulk, message-oriented and service-centric.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
To be considered for the Magic Quadrant for B2B Gateway
Providers, a vendor must:
- Be sold and deployed as a stand-alone application.
- B2B gateway software can be optionally packaged as a
component of a larger "IT stack" of software, but must also
be deployable heterogeneously in conjunction with thirdparty
applications, middleware or operating systems.
- Substantially support comprehensive, general-purpose
B2B functionality.
- B2B gateway software must include support for B2B
protocols, community management, security,
transformation management, adapters and visibility tools
that enable users to consolidate and manage all aspects of
B2B interactions.
- Stand-alone AS2 (Applicability Statement 2) solutions or
custom B2B adapters that only support one protocol,
connect to only one application or external business
partner, or are otherwise unsuitable for consolidation B2B
projects weren"t considered in this evaluation.
- Generate at least $10 million in annual license revenue ...
- ... or the equivalent amount in foreign currency. Exceptions
may be made for vendors that don"t meet this particular
criterion, but otherwise have a substantial impact on the
B2B market.
- Have a substantial impact on the B2B gateway software
market.
- To be considered for this Magic Quadrant, vendors must
have sufficient impact on the B2B gateway software
market, as determined by buyer demand for their solutions,
Gartner client interest and other factors.
"Megavendors": During the past two years, via product
enhancements and increasing "mind share" and market share,
megavendors IBM and Microsoft have been gaining ground on the
relative leadership of prominent B2B vendors, such as Axway and
Sterling Commerce. This is understandable, given the increasing
importance of B2B as just another aspect of the IT stack offered
by those vendors. Two other megavendors, Oracle and SAP, are
notably absent. Although Oracle offers B2B gateway software in
association with Oracle Fusion, Oracle isn"t competing directly in
the B2B gateway software market (see below for a more-detailed
analysis of Oracle"s offering). Similarly, SAP"s B2B solution is limited
in functionality, and SAP prefers to rely on the offering of its
business partner, Seeburger, to address advanced B2B project
requirements.
Oracle offers a B2B gateway that, in conjunction with other Oracle
Fusion Middleware products, can be used to implement generalpurpose
B2B infrastructure. However, Oracle isn"t strategically
competing to "win" in the B2B software infrastructure market, per
se. Its B2B gateway is bundled with Oracle Application Server 10g
Enterprise Edition, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Business Integration
and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus. In each case, the B2B gateway
supports trading partner management (TPM) and document
management, and separate adapters are available for B2B
protocols, such as RosettaNet and the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In addition, the B2B gateway
natively supports XML translation via its XSLT-based BPEL engine,
but the B2B server lacks built-in support for essential B2B
infrastructure capabilities, such as EDI translation (technology Oracle
resells from Edifecs) and MFT. Oracle customers (particularly those
committed to Oracle Fusion overall) that need to implement generalpurpose
B2B infrastructure for small and midsize B2B projects
should consider Oracle SOA Suite (for B2B projects involving SOA)
or Oracle Integration and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus (for B2B
projects not involving SOA); otherwise, consider alternatives.
Smaller vendors: Several smaller vendors (for example, Cleo
Communications, eZCom Software, Basware, Kewill, Softshare,
Spe+EDI and Tie) weren"t rated because they didn"t meet all
acceptance criteria for this Magic Quadrant. However, because of
B2B market growth, they are being mentioned more often, so for
the next publication of this Magic Quadrant, some of them may be
included.
Added
- nuBridges acquired iSoft and is rated on this Magic Quadrant
for its nuBridges Exchange B2B gateway software.
- Software AG acquired webMethods and is rated on this Magic
Quadrant for its Trading Networks B2B gateway software.
- Sun Microsystems has entered the B2B gateway software
market with its Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite, which is
rated on this Magic Quadrant.
Dropped
- Click Commerce was acquired by Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and
hasn"t been competing aggressively in the stand-alone B2B
gateway software market.
- iSoft was acquired by nuBridges (see above).
- Oracle still offers a B2B gateway software solution, but is no
longer competing aggressively in the stand-alone B2B gateway
software market (see a more-detailed analysis above).
- webMethods was acquired by Software AG (see above).
- Cyclone Commerce was acquired by Axway; rated individually
before, but now rated as the combined vendor.
Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
Product/Service
Core goods and services that compete in and serve the market.
This category includes product and service capabilities, quality,
feature sets and skills that are offered natively or through OEMs as
defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria. For
B2B gateway software providers, we consider product/service in
the following categories:
Community management: Includes the initial external business
partner profile development (that is, defining approved
communication protocols, data formats and security), the
provisioning process (such as external business partner
registration, invitations, software deployment and testing), and
managing and maintaining these when they"re in production (for
example, certificate, user ID and password management; SLA
compliance monitoring and profile change management). The
community management application should include an easy-touse,
customizable portal that trading partners can use for selfprovisioning
and accessing other B2B gateway applications.
Translation is used to convert B2B data into a form that can be
consumed by internal business applications, such as SAP. There"s
still a separate market for stand-alone translation software, but
translation functionality is now an essential feature of B2B gateway
software, and is also available in most forms of middleware,
including ESBs, business process management (BPM) systems
and so on. Translation functionality should support "any to any"
syntactic and semantic transformation and mapping to process
EDI and XML-based standards, such as X12 and RosettaNet. The
mapping user interfaces for translation should be robust and easy
to use, and include common, predefined map templates and
graphical-user-interface- (GUI-) based map development. Best-ofbreed
translators should be able to support high-volume
translations (for example, a large number of translations per
second) and large file translations (for example, decomposing large
files into multiple, concurrent translation threads).
(Secure) Communications: The application for securing
communications should address the multiple layers of security,
including:
- Securing the physical connection by encrypting the "wire" via a
variety of methods, including Secure Sockets Layer (SSL),
Secure Shell (SSH) or virtual private network (VPN), Web
services security, or transport over leased lines or frame relays.
- Securing the data via encryption. This includes the use of
digital certificates and standards, such as Pretty Good Privacy
(PGP). The B2B gateway must be able to integrate with thirdparty
certificate authorities, handle X.509 certificates, and deal
with revocations and expired credentials.
- Accessing control from an external mechanism (LDAP, Active
Directory and enterprise asset management tools) or an
internal (to the B2B gateway) application.
In addition to security functionality, the B2B gateway should
support a variety of popular and legacy B2B standards and
protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP; Secure Multipurpose
Internet Messaging Extensions (S/MIME), HTTPs and FTPs;
X.25/frame relay; asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Systems
Network Architecture (SNA); IBM WebSphere MQ and Advanced
Stream Redirector (ASX); and popular XML variants (such as
ebXML and RosettaNet).
SOA: Best-of-breed B2B gateway software will be implemented
using SOA design methodologies, such that B2B gateway
software components (such as a communication server and
translation engine) can interoperate (and with third-partymiddleware-
using services). An ESB provides greater scalability via
distributed monitoring features, persistent queuing, guaranteed
delivery and other quality-of-service (QOS) features. SOA
governance technologies, such as a registry and policy
management, will provide governance of SOA services for the B2B
gateway software to directly manage SOA service publication or
consumption, or to enable the B2B gateway software to integrate
with SOA governance provided by third-party middleware.
Adapter technologies: B2B gateway vendors often provide various
adapters that make it easier to integrate their B2B gateway
software with internal business applications and systems. These
include using FTP to drop messages onto a file server, integrating
with applications using Web services, or using prepackaged
adapters to feed the message into the application programming
interface of middleware, a business application or a database.
MFT: Although there"s still a separate and growing market for
stand-alone MFT software, MFT functionality is increasingly being
offered as a feature of B2B gateway software. MFT functionality is
used to consolidate and manage the movement of large (at least
500MB) and bulky messages that are transported via FTP or
proprietary protocols. To achieve performance and high QOS,
best-of-breed MFT functionality uses streaming technology,
compression and restart functionality.
BPM: Mature B2B gateway software enables designers to use
process modeling and workflow to define B2B interactions. BPM
should enable the designer to invoke desired transport protocols,
security and translation based on trading partner profiles and other
business rules and requirements, such as document types (for
example, purchase orders). Conversely, the B2B gateway software
should enable external BPM middleware to invoke individual B2B
gateway services, such as transport and translation.
BAM and event management: Reports, repositories and tools used
to monitor B2B activity. At runtime, information about B2B events
(such as transactions, error notifications and acknowledgements)
are filtered, captured and analyzed. Ideally, such B2B events can
be correlated and present the user with a near-real-time, full life
cycle transaction view that may include (using the procurement
process as an example) purchase orders, acknowledgments,
receipts, advance shipping notices and settlements. In addition,
dashboards may graphically display real-time and historical data
about interactions, based on the user"s profile and permissions
(more focused on basic B2B interactions), and with key
performance indicators (such as the proportion of trading partners
that are in 100% compliance with purchase order response time
SLAs) to convey the state of B2B interactions from a business
point of view.
Portals and portlets: B2B gateway software may include portals to
support external business partners that aren"t IT-savvy enough to
support direct B2B integration. Other portal features, such as
WSRP (Web Service for Remote Portlets), may be available to
enable third-party portal solutions to integrate with B2B gateway
software.
Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy,
Organization)
Includes an assessment of the vendor"s overall financial health, the
financial and practical success of the relevant business unit, and
the likelihood of that business unit continuing to invest in and offer
the product from the vendor"s portfolio of products.
Sales Execution/Pricing
The vendor"s capabilities in presales activities and the structure
that supports them. This criterion includes deal management,
pricing and negotiation, presales support and the overall
effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness and Track Record
The vendor"s capability to respond, change direction, be flexible
and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop,
competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics
change. This criterion also considers the vendor"s history of
responsiveness.
Marketing Execution
The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to
deliver the vendor"s message to influence the market, promote its
brand and business, increase awareness of its products, and
establish a positive identification of its product or brand with buyers.
This mind share can be driven by a combination of publicity,
promotions, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience
Relationships, products, services and programs that enable clients
to succeed with the products evaluated. This criterion includes
how customers receive technical support or account support. It
also can include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and
their quality), availability of user groups and SLAs.
Operations
The vendor"s capability to meet its goals and commitments.
Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, such as
skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that
enable the vendor to operate effectively and efficiently.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding
The vendor"s capability to understand buyers" needs and translate
them into products and services. A vendor that shows the highest
degree of vision listens and understands buyers" wants and needs,
which it can shape or enhance with its own vision.
Marketing Strategy
A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated
throughout the organization and publicized via the Web site,
advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy
A strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of
direct and indirect sales, marketing, service and communication
affiliates to extend the scope and depth of a vendor"s market
reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy
A vendor"s approach to product development and delivery that
emphasizes differentiation, functions, methodologies and feature
sets in relation to current and future requirements.
Business Model
The validity and logic of a vendor"s underlying business proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy
A vendor"s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet
the needs of market segments, including vertical industries.
Innovation
Marshaling resources, expertise or capital for competitive
advantage, investment, consolidation or defense against acquisition.
Geographic Strategy
A vendor"s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet
the needs of regions outside the vendor"s "home" or native area,
directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as
appropriate for that region and market.
Leaders
These vendors are likely to have high revenue and commitment to
the market, high market share and installed bases, and products
that are of interest to large audiences. In addition, leaders have
demonstrated domain expertise and presented compelling
messages that have penetrated the market (intentionally or
unintentionally).
Axway has evolved significantly since the last Magic Quadrant.
During that time, it acquired and successfully integrated Cyclone
Commerce and the B2B assets of Atos Origin in Germany
(including a B2B gateway, Actis, which had a respectable
penetration in the German automotive industry). Cyclone"s
powerful TPM has been integrated into Axway"s main family of
products (Synchrony), which has been further enriched by a BPM
package and is now service-based, and supports multitenancy
(Axway partners with HP in North America for IaaS, and with Atos
Origin in Europe for IaaS and B2B project outsourcing). Axway has
based strong growth on the widening of its product offerings and
client base in other geographies or vertical industries. However,
Axway is still struggling with marketing traction and with getting its
brand name recognized worldwide, especially in North America. Its
move into the B2B service market is late; powerful alternatives
already exist and prosper in all geographies that Axway targets.
The widening of product offerings also comes with the additional
challenges of extending support capabilities, and suggested
customer migration strategies where acquired product lines
duplicate functionality. Axway growth is promising and its
leadership position is solid, but the challenges it faces must be
attacked effectively in the short term for continued success.
IBM WebSphere Partner Gateway (WPG) is a standard Java
Platform, Enterprise Edition application that"s been developed (and
has recently been certified) to run on an embedded version of
WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment (WAS ND).
Although, by itself, WPG can be used as a stand-alone B2B
solution, it"s an SOA-enabled framework that"s typically deployed
in conjunction with WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere
Business Modeler (for process orchestration and modeling), and
either WebSphere Transformation Extender (WTX, formerly the
Mercator product) or WebSphere Data Interchange (WDI, formerly
the EDI translator for the IBM value-added network ' VAN) and
other components (such as BAM), to implement user-specified
B2B infrastructure. WPG is field-proven in large B2B projects, and
its various components, including community management,
industry protocols, and WTX and WDI translation, are all mature,
reflecting the evolution of the software through several generations
of development. In addition to proven reliability and scalability,
WPG configurability and extensibility are key differentiators, but this
flexibility can make implementing B2B projects with WPG more
complex than with other solutions. For example, although the WPG
embedded translator will meet the needs of many new customers,
for various reasons, users also may choose to leverage any of the
three other translators offered by IBM for use with WPG, including
WDI, WTX or the IBM WebSphere DataPower appliance. Relative
to other B2B solutions, a typical WPG configuration can be
expensive. That, combined with WPG"s typical deployment in
conjunction with other components of the WebSphere IT stack, is
probably the reason why WPG isn"t as widely deployed, and
usually is shortlisted only by IBM WebSphere users.
Inovis" flagship B2B gateway software solution, BizManager, is an
innovative product that has evolved through several generations of
enhancements, and via additions from new developments: Extricity
Software for B2B process choreography; TrustedLink Windows
environment for EDI translation; IPNet Solutions for AS2; QRS
Reveal for BAM; and, more recently, BetweenMarkets for best-ofbreed
vendor compliance and data quality. BizManager (and the
still-widely deployed TrustedLink Windows environment) are reliable
and proven in high-performance B2B projects, and give IT users
the opportunity to combine BizManager for direct B2B with the
Inovisworks.net IaaS (VAN) solution for hybrid B2B projects that
leverage B2B software and services. Users also cite good product
documentation and support. Regardless, Inovis" challenge is to
increase mind share and market share ' particularly for large-scale
multinational B2B projects ' given its traditional small and midsize
business (SMB) focus and limited international footprint.
Microsoft has strengthened its position in the B2B market partly
via continued enhancements to the B2B capabilities of its flagship
integration middleware product, BizTalk Server 2006 R2. Morerecent
enhancements include community management, enhanced
EDI and metadata management technology that"s partly based on
technology Microsoft acquired from Covast. Microsoft also has
released BizTalk Server Accelerators for specific industry solutions,
such as Health Level Seven (HL7) and RosettaNet, and is
executing well in its alliance with GXS, whereby BizTalk users can
administer their entire B2B communities, including external
business partners to which they connect directly with BizTalk, and
external business partners to which they connect indirectly via the
GXS Trading Grid. One of Microsoft"s core strengths is value
pricing; its reasonably priced ($35,000) Enterprise Edition of BizTalk
Server 2006 R2 includes all B2B protocols, adapters and BizTalk
Accelerators, as well as low-cost "Branch" and "Standard" editions
to help contain the cost of large-scale B2B projects. Although B2B
isn"t a major, high-level Microsoft marketing message, and its B2B
solution isn"t best of breed in community management, EDI or
MFT, Microsoft is having a significant impact on the B2B market,
mostly because BizTalk is a reasonably priced and well-rounded
B2B solution. It"s sold through a wide range of distributors,
resellers and system integrators, and it"s increasingly shortlisted
and adopted for B2B projects, including a few early-adopter, largescale
projects.
Seeburgerw, another major European integration vendor, has
increased its North American presence and established itself as a
strong international player, mainly based on the excellence of its
technology (whose IP is completely owned by Seeburger). Its
customer base continues to expand and its financials still look
extremely healthy (Seeburger has been profitable for the 22 years
during which it"s been selling in the B2B market). Its Business
Integration Server, which we"ve evaluated for this Magic Quadrant,
contains a high-performance, any-to-any transformation engine
that"s especially well-suited for EDI, integration with BPM, several
vertical applications and, at its core, is a fully interoperable service
bus. Also notable is Seeburger"s Paper-to-ERP functionality (which
converts fax documents in and out of the gateway) that, when used
in conjunction with TPM, enables connectivity with partners of any
size or IT maturity. However, Seeburger now faces several tough
challenges: Its focus on internally developed technology excellence
limits its capability to grow through acquisition, or to further expand
a B2B service offering that started two years ago and never
properly "took off." Seeburger"s future as an independent company
has always been the subject of unconfirmed speculation; the
company is still privately held, but a recent, extensive management
turnover hasn"t helped "clear the air." It must be noted, however,
that good technologies typically survive acquisitions, because
acquiring leading functionality in an expanding market remains one
of the most-common reasons for takeovers.
Software AG (which acquired webMethods) has strengthened its
leadership position in the B2B market with its flagship B2B
gateway software offering, Trading Networks. It positions Trading
Networks as a way to B2B-enable internal SOA and integration
projects. During the past two years, Software AG has enhanced
Trading Networks" EDI and community management capabilities,
and the product has been proved in large-scale B2B projects that
often combine traditional EDI and e-commerce protocols with SOA
and Web services. Although Software AG is a software vendor, it
has demonstrated its understanding of the IaaS role in B2B
projects by selling its B2B software to be used in the data centers
of IaaS providers (such as Elemica, Exostar and GXS), and also by
its well-executed alliance with GXS (as a software partner for GXS
customers that wish to implement B2B software and services).
Software AG"s recently released Optimize for B2B gives IT users
best-of-breed, end-to-end BAM for internal and B2B projects.
Trading Networks is a strong, well-rounded B2B gateway software
solution, but it usually isn"t shortlisted for B2B consolidation
projects ' partly because of its price and because its MFT
capabilities aren"t best of breed, relative to other B2B solutions.
Sterling Commerce has maintained strong leadership and market
share with its flagship B2B gateway software solution, Gentran
Integration Suite (GIS), and with its still-widely used legacy EDI
translator, Gentran Server. Recent innovations build on GIS" bestof-
breed strengths in product scalability and translation, with addons
such as Advanced File Transfer (a best-of-breed MFT
functionality based on Sterling Commerce"s legacy Connect
product) and Supply Chain Visibility, as well as industry solutions
(such as Multienterprise Financial Gateway for financial services).
Although Sterling Commerce has recently refocused its GIS
marketing message onto SOA, its GIS solution still doesn"t offer an
SOA governance technology or a user-accessible ESB. Although
Sterling Commerce still benefits from B2B mind share and market
share, particularly regarding large-scale B2B consolidation projects
involving high-performance EDI, its strength relative to other
vendors has slipped, due to its perception as a "traditional" B2B
vendor (partly because of its sluggish response to SOA), its
inconsistent quality in account management and the sometimesonerous
migration of Gentran users to GIS.
Tibco Software positions its flagship B2B gateway software,
BusinessConnect, as an extension (in fact, it"s a native application)
of its flagship (and best-of-breed) internal integration middleware,
BusinessWorks. Tibco"s primary focus is on SOA, and it positions
BusinessConnect primarily as a way for its customers to B2Benable
internal SOA projects. BusinessConnect is highly portable,
has strong community management capabilities, and has proved its
quality and scalability in large-scale projects. However, its suitability
for general-purpose B2B consolidation projects is still challenged by
its relatively small market share (relative to other leaders in the B2B
market); its limited, built-in MFT capabilities; and its reliance on
third-party EDI technology (from Edifecs). Although users have said
that BusinessConnect is "worth it," and have cited excellent product
support relative to most other B2B gateway software products,
BusinessConnect is expensive, which is probably one reason why
Tibco is rarely shortlisted for B2B projects.
Challengers
These vendors have focused significant resources on the market,
but they have a narrower understanding of it, as well as a lessimpressive
product strategy, or they"ve deliberately chosen to limit
the scope of their product lines or commitment to the market.
iWay Software: During the past three years, iWay entered the B2B
market with capabilities including support for popular B2B
protocols, such as AS2 and ebXML Message Service (ebMS), and
its new iWay Trading Manager for community management.
Collectively, these new capabilities effectively B2B-enable iWay"s
SOA middleware, based on iWay Service Manager. iWay"s
approach to B2B is similar to Oracle"s, Software AG"s and Tibco"s:
These vendors treat B2B primarily as an extension of internal SOA
infrastructure projects. iWay"s differentiation is value-priced, "good
enough" B2B capabilities that enable its users to incrementally
B2B-enable and extend their SOA infrastructures as their IT
projects evolve. This value proposition, combined with iWay"s
strong parent (Information Builders) and its large international
footprint, substantiates iWay"s new position in this Magic Quadrant
as a challenger to the more well-established B2B vendors.
However, when compared with the B2B market leaders, iWay"s
B2B solution is functionally less mature and less proven in largescale
projects, and the company still has more to learn about EDI,
e-commerce and B2B projects in general.
Visionaries
These vendors understand market and customer requirements
well, but have fewer assets available or committed to the pursuit of
this particular market than the leaders do. Specific to the B2B
gateway market, visionaries offer the functionality requirements
often requested by Type A (aggressive technology adopter)
companies, such as integrated service environments, ESBs, strong
community management and support for advanced Web services.
However, visionaries often compete in multiple markets, stretching
limited resources as they balance/juggle resources and marketing
messages.
GXS: During the past few years, GXS has developed its flagship
B2B gateway software solution, Enterprise Gateway, mostly by
licensing and incorporating new middleware functionality from
Software AG (formerly webMethods). In particular, GXS
modernized Enterprise Gateway by integrating webMethods Fabric
(for SOA infrastructure and BPM) with webMethods Optimize (for
BAM) and GXS" legacy Application Integration (for highperformance
EDI translation), as well as its original Enterprise
Gateway EDI mailboxing and community management capabilities.
(Although not directly relevant to this Magic Quadrant, note that
GXS also incorporated the webMethods functionality into the GXS
Trading Grid.) This approach has enabled GXS to quickly and
effectively modernize its B2B gateway software solution and reestablish
Enterprise Gateway as a viable, technically innovative
B2B gateway software solution. On the surface, it seems like this
would make GXS and Software AG direct competitors in the B2B
software market, but actually the two companies are executing
effectively in an alliance, whereby they work with IT users on joint,
hybrid B2B projects that combine Software AG"s B2B gateway
software solution for direct B2B with GXS" integration services
(such as IaaS or B2B project outsourcing) for intermediated B2B
connectivity. Although GXS still sells Enterprise Gateway into new
accounts, it usually sells Enterprise Gateway into its own B2B
service customer base when users wish to implement hybrid
software and service-based B2B projects. GXS" approach to
modernizing its B2B gateway software has been effective, and it
has some strong references for Enterprise Gateway, but the
combination of its heavy reliance on third-party B2B gateway
software technology and its primary focus on B2B services are
conspiring to limit GXS" ability to be a leader in the B2B gateway
software market.
Sun Microsystems is a relative newcomer to the B2B gateway
software market. Its Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite is
implemented as a Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite
(Java CAPS), and is positioned (as is the case for many other
integration middleware vendors) as a B2B-enabler for Sun"s SOA
infrastructure. Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite is typically
deployed in conjunction with one or more of Sun"s Protocol
Managers (for example, AS2, ebXML and HIPAA), eInsight BPM,
SeeBeyond eBAM Studio and Sun Java Identity Management
Suite. The Sun Java Identity Management Suite provides security
infrastructure, including single sign-on capabilities, to help manage
secure SOA provisioning and compliance. Sun"s open-standardsbased
software and worldwide sales and support help position it
to effectively address B2B project requirements, particularly for its
own integration middleware user base, but Sun"s relatively late
entry to market, limited adoption and limited B2B gateway
software functionality (for example, no MFT and EDI mailboxing
capabilities) will probably prevent it from capturing a significant
share of the overall B2B gateway software market.
Niche Players
These vendors are limited to particular geographical or industry
segments, or have a smaller range of features or resources, or
holistically have a limited impact on the B2B gateway software
market ' all of which preclude them from competing in many major
market segments.
nuBridges: Its flagship B2B gateway software, nuBridges
Exchange, is the integration of innovative community management
technology developed in-house by nuBridges (and formerly called
truExchange eBusiness community management suite), and
technology from companies that nuBridges acquired, including
TrailBlazer Systems (with its AS/400-based FTP and AS2-focused
B2B gateway software) and iSoft (with its Windows-based AS2
Commerce Suite). Most nuBridges customers still run TrailBlazer or
iSoft point products, but all these are an upsell opportunity
because, at some point, many of these customers may want to
modernize and scale-up their B2B infrastructures, and would
benefit from additional B2B protocols, as well as the BPM-based
choreography and community management functionality that"s
available in nuBridges Exchange. The nuBridges solution is
differentiated by its strong community management and flexible, onpremises
or on-demand delivery model ' the latter enables IT users
to deploy any combination of direct connections (using nuBridges
Exchange software) and intermediated connections (using
nuBridges Exchange IaaS). nuBridges also offers complementary
security software for data-at-rest, which it"s integrating with
nuBridges B2B gateway software and MFT technology. Although
nuBridges" capable solutions and deep domain expertise (nearly
everyone on nuBridges" executive team is some kind of EDI or B2B
veteran) make it a viable regional partner for B2B projects, its late
entry to market, limited international footprint and limited B2B mind
share have constrained its capability to capture a significant portion
of the B2B infrastructure market.
Extol continues to target its flagship B2B gateway software, Extol
Business Integrator (EBI), primarily at companies with limited IT
skills for B2B projects, which are typically driven by e-commerce
mandates issued by external business partners, such as retailers
and manufacturers. Extol positions its solution as an "outside-in"
integration middleware, meaning it"s designed to perform internal
integration to support e-commerce mandates. EBI is reasonably
priced and portable (that is, it runs on SMB-friendly platforms,
including AS/400, Windows and Linux), and the base product is a
complete solution (that is, it comes with technology adapters for
internal integration, B2B protocols such as AS2 and FTP,
translation for EDI and XML, and support for SOA, Web services
and essential features, such as MFT) so customers can implement
B2B projects with direct internal application integration. Although
unproven in large-scale B2B projects, Extol"s "rightsize" B2B
gateway software is a viable alternative to more-expensive and
more-complex solutions to support SMB B2B projects.
Generix Group: A French system integrator operating in retail,
wholesale and distribution, Generix acquired a long-standing
European B2B software player, Influe-Illicom, in November 2006.
Influe-Illicom had a reasonable-size customer base, mostly in
France, as well as successful operations in Portugal and Spain
(Iberia). In recent months, as per the European Commission"s
directive, Generix has been rationalizing its product line (before the
acquisition, Generix and Influe-Illicom shared many customers) to
focus specifically on multienterprise issues (such as the
dematerialization of the invoice) in vertical industries where it"s been
operating since its inception in 1990. Generix is only starting to
attack the international market; a mature technology foundation is
a good start, but wide-ranging challenges (mainly in terms of
international recognition, the capability to enrich an aging product
line, the startup of B2B services and strong competition) are
standing in front of Generix.
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
Axway
Strengths
- Well-established customer base worldwide
- Mature technology, service-based
- Leveraging acquisitions at best
Cautions
- Limited Axway brand awareness (especially in North America)
- Just entering B2B service market
- Reconciling acquired products" functional overlap
- Low horizontal product marketing effectiveness
Extol
Strengths
- Portable, well-integrated, rightsize solution
- SMB-friendly ' for example, installation "wizards"
- Supports internal and B2B integration
- Flexible pricing and packaging ' for example, appliances
Cautions
- Unproven in large-scale B2B projects
- Limited mind share and market share
- Limited international footprint
Generix Group
Strengths
- Historical player in Europe (through Influe-Illicom)
- Good presence in France and Iberia
Cautions
- Aging product line; just starting an SOA revamp; weak around
the mature base functionality
- Must grow internationally
- Low product marketing effectiveness
- Getting its IaaS/B2B business process offering to succeed
commercially
GXS
Strengths
- Modern enterprise B2B gateway software
- Effective leverage of Software AG technology and alliance
- Domain expertise with large-scale B2B projects
- Best-of-breed international footprint
- Strong references
Cautions
- GXS" primary focus on B2B services
- Declining B2B gateway software market share and mind share
- Migration from older versions of Enterprise Gateway
iWay Software
Strengths
- Incremental, SOA-based approach to B2B
- Strong domain expertise in all patterns of integration
- Large international footprint
- Value pricing
Cautions
- Maturity of B2B functionality
- Unproven in large-scale projects
- Limited mind share and market share
IBM
Strengths
- SOA-based WPG configurability and extensibility
- Proven in large-scale, high-performance B2B projects
- Product quality, reliability and scalability
- Strength of IBM
Cautions
- Only certified on IBM WAS
- Product complexity ' for example, four different translators
- Price
Inovis
Strengths
- Proven product quality and scalability
- Capability to combine BizManager with Inovisworks.net (IaaS)
- Best-of-breed BetweenMarkets compliance and data quality
management
- Sustained profitability
Cautions
- Shrinking mind share and market share
- Limited international footprint
- Sustainable differentiation
Microsoft
Strengths
- Well-rounded B2B solution
- Large, growing BizTalk customer base, including adoption via
distributors, resellers and system integrators
- Worldwide sales and support, as well as Microsoft Developer
Network, Technical Adoption Program and other self-service
support and training
- Value pricing
Cautions
- Not best of breed at community management, EDI or MFT
- Limited number of large-scale deployments
- Only runs on Microsoft platform
nuBridges
Strengths
- Innovative community management
- Upsell opportunity for iSoft and TrailBlazer SMB customer base
- Flexible on-premises and on-demand nuBridges Exchange
delivery model
- Experienced management tea
- Strong security focus and expertis
Cautions
- Relatively late to marke
- Limited B2B market share and industry penetration
- Limited marketing and mind share
Seeburger
Strengths
- Large, loyal customer base: most customers in Europe;
foothold in the U.S.; good presence in Asie
- Healthy financials: in the B2B market for 22 years; always
profitabl
- Effective, functional ERP integration (SAP and Oracle)
- Well-integrated; life ownership of intellectual property
Cautions
- Limited to organic growth
- Not focused on IaaS
- Very aggressive European competition
- Middle management turnover in 2007; uncertainty of long-term ownership
Software AG
Strengths
- Product quality, reliability and scalability
- Proven in large B2B projects and at IaaS providers
- Strong SOA capabilities, including CentraSite
- International footpring
- Optimized for B2B
- Software AG"s viability
Cautions
- Limited MFT capabilities
- Migration from older releases of software
- Not often shortlisted for B2B consolidation projects
- Price
Sterling Commerce
Strengths
- Large B2B software customer bass
- GIS quality, portability and scalability
- Hybrid approach to B2B software and service
- Strong parent (AT&T) and commitment to B2B marked
Cautions
- Inconsistent quality of account management
- Relatively weak SOA capabilities
- Company focus on applications
- Gentran migration
Sun Microsystems
Strengths
- B2B gateway software solution effectively leverages Java
CAPS platform
- Open-standards- (Java-) based solution
- Extensible B2B protocole
- Foothold in healthcare
Cautions
- Functionally limited B2B gateway software functionality
- Small B2B gateway software user base
- Late to marke
Tibco Software
Strengths
- Strength in SOA
- BusinessConnect effectively leverages BusinessWork
- Proven product quality, portability and scalability
- Strong community management
Cautions
- Limited B2B market share and mind share
- Limited MFT capabilities and reliance on third-party EDI
- Last large, stand-alone middleware company
- Price
Vendors Added or Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants
and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these
adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or
MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a
Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does
not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that
vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and,
therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a
vendor.
Evaluation Criteria Definitions
Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that
compete in/serve the defined market. This includes current
product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills, etc.,
whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as
defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy,
Organization): Viability includes an assessment of the overall
organization"s
financial health, the financial and practical success of the business
unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue
investing in the product, to continue offering the product and to
advance the state of the art within the organization"s portfolio of
products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor"s capabilities in all pre-sales
activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal
management, pricing and negotiation, pre-sales support and the overall
effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as
opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the
vendor"s history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy
of programs designed to deliver the organization"s message in order
to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase
awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification
with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This
"mind share" can be driven by a combination of publicity,
promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs
that enable clients to be successful with the products
evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive
technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary
tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof),
availability of user groups, service-level agreements, etc.
Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and
commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational
structure including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other
vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and
efficiently on an ongoing basis.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers" wants and needs and to translate those into products and
services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen and understand buyers" wants and needs, and can shape or enhance
those with their added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and
externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the
appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service
and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market
reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the
customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor"s approach to product
development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation,
functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and
future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor"s underlying
business proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor"s strategy to direct resources,
skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual
market segments, including verticals.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts
of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation,
defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor"s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies
outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that
geography and market.
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted May 2008 by Gartner, Inc.
and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical
representation of a
marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner"s
analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that
marketplace, as defined by
Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service
depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to
select only those
vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is
intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific
guide to action. Gartner
disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this
research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a
particular purpose.
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change without notice.