Since the company appointed Karl-Heinz Streibich as CEO late last year, it has narrowed its focus to two product lines: integration software based on its XML expertise, and an enterprise transaction systems line, which includes its legacy Adabas database and Natural development tools. The emphasis for new growth is very much with the integration product line, which already included the Tamino XML server, and Entirex integration middleware that includes Communicator for messaging and Mediator for XML-based information exchange.
Now the company has launched what it calls a portfolio of three integration software components, all drawing heavily on the XML standard. The first, Enterprise Legacy Integrator, is essentially Entirex Communicator with some additional wrappers for legacy systems. Legacy Integrator exposes existing data and logic locked in mainframe and other legacy systems as XML and web services, for integration into a service oriented architecture, the company said.
The second component is Enterprise Service Integrator, which is essentially the Entirex Mediator with Tamino being used as an underlying repository for rules and transformations. This component is said to be an enterprise service bus that uses XML messaging to connect IT assets exposed as web services.
The brand new component is Enterprise Information Integrator, which is said to offer a single view of information that is stored in multiple systems. This in turn enables business users to access data sources using business terms regardless of its system or format of the underlying data.
Jonathan Airey, VP of XML business integration for Software AG said the individual Tamino and Entirex products would still be available. Asked how the company’s integration portfolio could compete with similar offerings from long-term integration platform vendors such as Tibco, IBM, webMethods and SeeBeyond, Airey said that the company was sticking to its strengths in the handling of integrations at the data level. He also pointed to analyst figures that have shown that 20% of mission critical data comes from packaged applications, while the rest is not owned by a particular application. That means traditional EAI can only handle 20% of the integration challenge, he said. EII helps you to get to grips with that 20% as well as the other 80%.
Software AG’s XML Business Integration Portfolio is based on web servicesand Java and can run on major platforms including Windows, Unix, HP andLinux. The portfolio works with any .NET or J2EE compliant development tools, the company said. All of the products in the portfolio are shipping now.
