Metastorm Aquires Proforma

Posted by Mark Figley on Sep 11, 2007 08:34 PM

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In order to meet the demands of customers whose focus has moved beyond BPMS runtimes to broader concepts of business and process architecture, Metastorm acquired Proforma, the maker of the ProVision EA/Process Architecture tooling. An eWeek article covers the product merger:

The combination of the two companies could help Metastorm's customers move closer to the goal of a closed-loop process system that enables companies to model processes, simulate what-if scenarios and then convert the models back into processes on the fly.

The acquisition also helps Metastorm compete better in a rapidly consolidating industry where stand-alone BPM vendors are disappearing and bigger platform vendors are rapidly adding BPM capabilities to their portfolios. With the Proforma acquisition, Metastorm may be one of the only companies outside of IBM to offer BPM and modeling software together, according to Bill Swanton, analyst for AMR Research.

Metastorm, considered by many analysts to be a leader in the BPM suites category, builds software that helps companies plan and model an enterprise architecture to support business process analysis and management initiatives. It also has an execution engine that shifts process models to IT systems.

A Gartner report also summarizes the implications of the acquisition:

This acquisition underscores the ongoing convergence of EA and BPA tools, and the business process management suite (BPMS) market. A process-driven enterprise strives for greater collaboration across key process-centric roles, such as enterprise architects, process architects, business process analysts and process consultants. "Siloed" technologies supporting these roles undermine their efforts. While vendors such as IBM, BEA, Oracle and Software AG have been acquiring best-of-breed service-oriented architecture and BPM-enabling technologies to create best-of-brand BPM suites, this acquisition positions Metastorm to move beyond being a best-of-breed, cross-platform (that is, .NET and Java Platform, Enterprise Edition) BPMS tool provider to become a more comprehensive EA/BPM alternative platform provider.

...However, to deliver value greater than the sum of these parts, during the next 12 to 18 months Metastorm will need to change its product architecture to reconcile metamodels and move to a common repository, ideally built on ProVision's stronger capabilities. This will provide tighter integration than is possible now and more than is possible through either vendor's existing partnerships. This will also mean a future migration for users.

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