In an interview with ComputerWire, Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive IBM Software, said: These are the taunts of 13-year-old schoolboys. I know we do [have an ESB], in fact I’ve been delivering ESB functionality for many years.
You can’t always call things by what they are – you don’t always call your database the IBM Database, he said, and we don’t call something the IBM ESB. But the WebSphere Business Integrator product handles the transactional flow control – both synchronously and asynchronously – and everything else you need in an ESB.
He dismissed the pure-play ESB competitors who accuse IBM of treating the ESB concept as an architecture instead of a product, saying those companies are not impacting my business and that IBM Software is outgrowing all of them.
Pure-play Sonic Software claims it invented the ESB concept and shipped the first commercially available ESB in March 2002. In a recent interview with ComputerWire, Sonic Software’s Tim Dempsey, vice president of marketing, said: IBM in an ESB context is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They have products that you can weave together given the right expertise and then tick some of the boxes of an ESB. Our approach is that an ESB is not a pattern that you cut out with the help of professional services, for us it is a product in its own right.
Meanwhile, last week fellow ESB vendor PolarLake announced the availability of a free proof-of-concept program for IBM customers wishing to use PolarLake’s ESB product alongside their existing IBM technology investment. Launching the program, PolarLake said that, Owing to IBM’s decision to classify the ESB as an ‘architecture’ rather than a ‘product’, IBM customers are currently unable to leverage the benefits associated with ESB deployment.
PolarLake offers a strong and proven product suite which delivers a new approach, uniquely supplying the missing pieces of IBM’s integration jigsaw, the company added.
But IBM’s Mills said: I am never bothered by the envy of the competition. They lack the features and functionality to meet the needs of the market, so they are disparaging about our broad suite. We have more of the capabilities that are required than any other vendor. There are many pieces required for services-oriented architecture. Now when I have all the pieces, the competition says IBM has too many pieces. These are just schoolboy taunts.
