iWay Software, an Information Builders company that provides business integration services, has been positioned as a "visionary" in Gartner`s Application Integration Vendor 2Q02 Magic Quadrant for integration broker suites.
"This is a positive advancement from the company`s previous Magic Quadrant appearance as a niche player," explains ICL marketing and communications manager Tony Cross.
Gartner`s overview of the integration middleware market identifies vendors active in this space and characterises their roles in the industry as of June 2002. It covers 29 software vendors that offer an integration broker as part of a suite of middleware products aimed at application integration.
All the products are centred on an integration broker, but Gartner ratings cover more than just the broker component. The ratings reflect all aspects of the suite, including its adapters, management tools, development tools, message-oriented middleware and business process management services.
"It is an honour to be recognised by Gartner as a visionary vendor, moving toward our goal of becoming a leader in this competitive space," said John Senor, president of iWay Software. "We are determined to distinguish ourselves from this crowded marketplace and this acknowledgement of our growing strengths is an true testament to our accomplishments."
Added Cross: "While the Gartner Magic Quadrant is intended to be used as one of several devices for product selection - it should not be used in isolation, because it does not reflect the detailed factors relevant to each particular business situation.
"In addition, the Magic Quadrant`s overall objective is to determine what vendors will dominate the middleware market for the next five years," he noted.
Gartner places each evaluated vendor in one of four categories: leaders, visionaries, challengers, and niche players. Leaders are most likely to have high revenue in this market, high market share, and products that are of interest to a wide audience. Visionaries understand the market and customer requirements well, but have fewer assets committed to the pursuit of this particular market than the leaders.
Competitors have focused significant resources on this market, but they have a narrower understanding of the market and a less-impressive product strategy, or they have deliberately chosen to limit the scope of their product lines. Niche players are limited to a particular geographical or industry segment, or have a smaller range of features or resources that, taken together, preclude them from competing across the board in many major segments of the integration market.
Determining factors driving vendor positioning included 'completeness of vision`, which represents the vendor`s vision with respect to the requirements and conditions that characterise the integration middleware market. Consideration of vision includes an assessment of how well each vendor`s management team understands the technical and marketing issues, as well as its ability to innovate, differentiate its products and grow its business.
'Ability to execute` rates the vendors on their ability to execute that vision. This assessment takes into account the technical expertise, technology assets and product features, and financial and marketing resources the vendor allocates to the development and support of the product.
Additional product and business criteria were also taken into account for vendor placement.
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iWay Software, an Information Builders company, is a market leader in middleware that accelerates business integration. With facilities to integrate systems in real-time, near-real time, or on a scheduled basis, iWay provides a complete reusable infrastructure for EAI, B2B, e-commerce, and mobile business.
iWay`s experience with complex information systems led to the development of pre-packaged Intelligent Adapters to connect to more than 200 packaged applications, transaction systems, legacy data, relational databases, and e-business formats without writing custom code. iWay Software integration solutions significantly reduce the time, cost, effort, and risk of integration projects throughout the enterprise.
ICL (South Africa) is the sole distributor of iWay Software in southern Africa. For more information, visit www.iwaysoftware.com. or contact Tony Cross on (011) 233 5067 tony.cross@iclafria.com.
ICL
ICL South Africa, a subsidiary of Fujitsu Services Plc (Formerly ICL Plc), is one of the leading IT services companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa. It has an annual turnover of lb2.4 billion (EUR3.9 billion), employs 15 500 people and operates in over 30 countries. It designs, builds and operates IT systems and services for customers in the financial services, telecoms, retail, utilities and government markets. Its core strength is the delivery of IT infrastructure management and outsourcing across desktop, networking and data centre environments, together with a full range of related services, from infrastructure consulting through integration and deployment.
Headquartered in London, Fujitsu Services is the European-centred IT services arm of the Fujitsu Group. The Fujitsu Group is a $38 billion (about EUR43 billion) leader in customer-focused IT systems and services for the global marketplace.
Prior to April 2002 Fujitsu Services operated as ICL.
Web site: services.fujitsu.com