EAI = Enterprise Application Integration
There is a big push in EAI projects these days stimulated by the web when companies move to putting customer-oriented functions on their sites that need to interface to multiple, separate internal systems that never had to communicate before. The other big stimulus is doing something like the implementation of a new ERP package and needing to get it to interface to a flock of in-house or otherwise sourced apps.
My notes from about a year ago show this as a .6B$ market then heading to a projected $2B in 2002. Or, more to the point of the potential tornado, in 1998 there was about $135B spent on applications and $47B spent on integrating them. I.e., as the speaker (John Spiers of Forte) put it, a $50B problem with $500M of product sales, i.e., 99% services. (he projected $5B in 2002).
Part of the challenge here is interfacing to popular packages like SAP and Siebel, for which a number of companies offer solutions, part is interfacing to in-house and legacy applications, for which a few people offer meaningful tools, and part is that one is also often trying to introduce new functionality, e.g., web exposure or business process integration among the applications. So, it is a very complex market, but a vendor who can significantly reduce the amount of custom development, can make a major shift in implementation cost, so the incentive is high. |
