TIBCO Software launches in SA

Today, TIBCO Software Inc, a leading enabler of real-time business and the world`s largest independent business integration software company, officially announced that, in line with its recent acquisition of Staffware plc, it is launching TIBCO Software (South Africa) in place of the previous Staffware (South Africa) and that it intends to make its full suite of products immediately available to the South African and African markets.

The acquisition makes TIBCO Software one of the top 20 software companies in the world, with over 1 200 staff around the world.

Plans are already in place to expand the staff complement in SA in order to cope with the expected increase in business, with the cross-skilling of ex-Staffware SA personnel on the entire TIBCO solution set intended to be complete by the end of 2004. International support is already available to those customers who have existing TIBCO implementations.

Mark Ehmke, MD of the newly formed TIBCO Software (South Africa), says the acquisition happened from a position of strength within both companies, and has led to the market leaders in BPM and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) being joined into a single, financially sound, rapidly growing, profitable company.

"Combining the two companies has been a good fit, both in terms of products and geographical spread of the company. The two product sets complement one another perfectly, and have helped us to create a single solution for businesses in the enterprise backbone, business process management (BPM), business integration and business optimisation fields."

Hollis Bischoff, vice-president of Technology Research Services with META Group, says: "In business process management, systems-to-systems integrations and human-to-human interactions within the context of a process are equally critical, therefore a TIBCO-Staffware integration is complementary and a very natural fit. BPM is still a greenfield market. Vendors that capitalise on this by providing first-class management of process components (systems, humans, tasks) will lead the market."

Ehmke notes that analysts have long defined BPM as comprising of three elements: application integration, process automation and management, and business activity monitoring. "Until now, no single vendor was able to supply a BPM solution that fulfilled all three of these criteria. However, TIBCO is now able to offer such a solution."

He explains that the integration of the Staffware products into the TIBCO product suite will be approached in three phases. The first phase is a Quick Win phase, where existing products can be cross-used by customers. The Staffware BPM solution thus gains access to TIBCO`s Business Activity Monitor, Enterprise Application Connectivity and TIBCO Portal Builder, which can all be used in existing Staffware environments. Plans are also in place to tailor these products specifically for closer integration with Staffware products by the end of 2004. By the end of 2005, the second phase, which will include the merging of the technologies into a single platform, should be complete. The third and final phase, when the two product sets will become a single product, is planned for completion during 2007.

The TIBCO BPM product offering broadens solutions for automating and optimising business processes. Detailed plans for integration include:

* An initial principal offering ideal for standalone BPM: TIBCO Staffware Process Suite - the `Independent Process Layer` - a platform independent solution delivering enterprise-wide BPM functionality including the capability to develop service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions encompassing process design, a powerful process engine and related components.

* The optimising of the TIBCO Staffware Process Suite to seamlessly interoperate with TIBCO`s real-time business integration platform via new standards-based connectivity, which should be available during Q4 2004.

* The adding of new capabilities to the TIBCO Staffware Process Suite: TIBCO Staffware Process Suite 3.0, which will provide enhanced Microsoft .NET support, additional database and systems management integration, a new look process definer and for the first time, a Linux version. TIBCO Staffware Process Suite will be augmented with business activity monitoring (BAM) and enterprise portal capabilities, and will offer enhanced design and administration functionality; available in Q1 2005.

* Providing new TIBCO BusinessWorks capabilities for integration-driven projects: TIBCO BusinessWorks Manual Activities Plug-in - supporting exception processing and long lived application-specific integration processes; TIBCO FormBuilder - supporting the design/deployment/management of real-time contextual forms and business interfaces, available during Q4 2004.

Looking forward, Ehmke is extremely optimistic. "We are cross-selling like mad at the moment internationally, with the likes of Bell South and Lehman Brothers both finding useful additions to their solutions. Locally, we have also had tremendous interest from various financial services organisations," he concludes.