By William Fellows
New Era of Networks Inc is making a big deal of a patent it was awarded this week for its rules engine technology. Why? Because its competitors in the EAI enterprise application integration market had sworn blind that Neon couldn’t do what it now has a patent for. Neon says the technique means that it can examine each rule in the engine independently and at the same time send out thousands of messages per second via content-based routing. Neon uses the mechanism in its MQSeries Integrator application and claims it enables uses to define more rules and run bigger programs than competitive messaging products. It doesn’t think anyone is infringing the patent.
Neon is currently setting up a business unit that will spearhead its drive into the telco market. On the competitive landscape, Neon says that Software Technologies Corp’s claim to be out- installing Neon by a large margin could be true as STC plays further down the market in the departmental space. There are also an awful lot of instances of STC being de-installed, Neon claims. The MicroScript and HIE are getting STC thrown out of accounts, it claims. Neon says Vitria Technology’s latest gambit, a version of its EAI suite which is claimed to be able to integrate two simple applications in 21 minutes, is yet another stab at trying to find the sweet spot in the market for its BusinessWare suite. It’s a take it or leave it product, Neon says.
