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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mathemagician who wrote (21442)	3/26/2000 6:09:00 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Respond to of 54805

I was wondering if you could clarify. I can try... 1. Forte does not support wireless as far as I can tell. Not as such, no, although I am not sure I see any significant issue there because of the tools which one could incorporate for the purpose. It isn't an area I have looked at closely, though. 2. Forte does not seem to have a document server supporting the write once, distribute anywhere capability of WebSphere. Forte on its own doesn't really attempt to address the reportwriting or document publishing aspect, rather more the actual application logic. Forte does have a good working relationship with Actuate, however, that seems to me to cover this sphere nicely. Facilitating the creation of these wrappers is one of INTF's functions and it does not seem that Forte can provide this service. On the contrary. Forte has productized several interfaces so far including SAP and Vantive that I know off the top of my head and there is a list of other adapters under development. More importantly, perhaps, since most EAI projects involve interfacing to legacy applications, not just the currently popular ones, Forte has a tool kit for writing adapters and a strong consulting program to assist people in their development. Have I missed the point? Let me duck answering that directly. My point, though, was that the overall legacy to internet issue involves a great deal more than documents. In fact, the really interesting and complicated part is transaction capable interfaces so that, for example, a web application can create a new customer, enter an order, check status on and allocate stock, send pick information to the warehouse, etc., all of which may involve separate legacy applications. This is already something like a $3B market, if I remember my figures correctly and currently it is 99% services, i.e., there is a huge opportunity for someone to step to the plate with a product which either eliminates the need for some of those services or at least reduces the work required. I see INTF addressing one specific slice of that market. I see companies like CrossWorld providing the transactional interfaces, but only with a limited number of products and limited ability to add additional, possibly idiosyncratic packages, and certainly without Forte's management of the interconnections with an enterprise-class business process engine and the availability of a very high quality development environment for the new bits which are an almost inevitable part of such projects.

To: Mathemagician who wrote (21442)	3/26/2000 7:16:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Questions: Is INTF's product in the category that Moore and Gang refer to as "middleware?" If so, how does the following statement from page 147 of TRFM square with the interest in the company? "...despite all the tornado winds blowing around the category, it is typically not a candidate for the gorilla game." If you're wondering if I've taken the time to read any of the stuff presented here about INTF, the above questions should confirm for you that, sadly, I haven't. :) --Mike Buckley