Copyright 1999 CMP Media Inc.
Computer Reseller News
July 5, 1999
LENGTH: 448 words
HEADLINE: Integrating legacy applications tops CIO challenges
BYLINE: Heather Clancy
BODY:
New York - Enterprise customers are desperately seeking enterprise application integration skills in their partners, but no one vendor or integrator yet offers the magic formula, according to roundtable attendees.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) refers to the complicated process of building interfaces that tie together different process-related systems such as inventory management, accounting and invoicing. The segment currently is populated with companies such as New Era of Networks Inc., Vitria Technology Inc. and CrossWorlds. IBM Corp. also has made this area a major part of its "business intelligence" marketing push, through products such as the MQ Series.
"Two, two-and-a-half years ago, we embarked on building our own infrastructure to integrate all of our legacy and architected apps," said Arthur Prifti, vice president of Global Relationship Banking at New York- based Citibank N.A. "Here we are, two-and-a-half years later, and the market is starting to swell up with these guys. But you know what? Not one of them is ready for prime time that I've seen."
"It's harder and harder to distinguish between different products," said Janie Tremlett, vice president of IT Strategy Services at Boston-based Breakaway Solutions Inc. "What makes or breaks, I think, many buying decisions is the integration issues with legacy systems and the data migration issues. Those are the killers. And I think that's becoming, you know, the key driver, and I think also it's not anymore so much a product-by- product decision."
Roundtable attendees said they are eager to find VARs and integrators that can first look at their business integration problems from an operational standpoint and then focus on the technical challenges.
SolutionBank Inc., a Salt Lake City-based VAR specializing in enterprise resource planning applications, said it is much easier to make a sale related to enterprise middleware when the focus is on strategy, not product.
"When you have a good CIO, it's much easier for us to talk to them about the process," said Karl Wilhelm, executive vice president at the integrator.
Many chief information officers prefer to deal with smaller partners that have specific knowledge of their overall business, rather than a bigger integrator that has a broader, less specialized focus and can only talk about product specifications, said Breakaway's Tremlett.
"It turns out we actually go to integrators to get the answers because vendors just can't give them to you," added Prifti. " Vendors give you pieces, and it's up to you to put them together. Frankly, who's got the time for that?"
Copyright (c) 1999 CMP Media Inc.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: July 3, 1999
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