Top-tier enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors are
aggressively embracing Web services to create a new generation of
tightly integrated collaborative applications.
SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle and JD Edwards are among those focusing on
using Web services to tighten links between their own suites while
simultaneously making it easier for customers to abstract data from
multiple applications to create new applications that make use of
XML.
The initiative should also make it easier for IT companies to
create new collaborative applications that combine data drawn from
financial, human resources, and supply-chain applications.
The ability to extract XML data from enterprise applications will
allow IT organisations to build new applications that span company
boundaries and tie together business processes. The application
integration process today is laborious, requiring millions of
dollars.
SAP detailed its xApps architecture at its Sapphire user conference
this month, pitching it as the start of a "new generation" of
application integration.
"We bring the different aspects of information we have stored on
our systems together within the context of the business to have
more intelligent collaboration between people and systems," said
SAP co-chairman and chief executive officer Hasso Plattner.
SAP's first xApp, Resource and Program Management, is designed to
allow customers to drive change throughout the company,
particularly around activities such as new product launches,
mergers, and acquisitions. Resource and Program Management is
slated to ship late this year.
SAP's core platform for running xApp is its Web Application Server,
which will include the Web Dynpro run-time for J2EE (Java 2
Enterprise Edition) and ABAP (Advanced Business Application
Programming) applications. SAP's suite project also includes a new
user interface for its mySAP CRM solution to aggregate business
processes from multiple data sources, both internal and
external.
Plattner said SAP's new exchange technology will be the
underpinning for business process integration. The SAP Exchange
Infrastructure uses XML messaging for process integration to
connect any component from any vendor or technology.
Oracle recently outlined a similar approach to business process
integration using Web services, and other ERP vendors, including
PeopleSoft, are expected to follow suit. But most ERP vendors don't
expect the advent of Web services to result in a return of
best-of-breed approaches to enterprise applications.
"People will continue to buy suites even with the advent of Web
services," said Michael Madden, chief technology officer of J.D.
Edwards. "Web services will provide a nice technology stack, but it
will not provide the business semantics necessary for different
pieces of software to talk to each other. We're going to see smart
companies continue to buy suites and then they will buy point
applications to fill out their portfolio."
Nevertheless, many third-party vendors, including Vitria,
webMethods, Tibco, Fuego, Fiorano, Microsoft, IBM, and WRQ are
building XML-based application architectures to facilitate the
integration of best-of-breed enterprise applications.
Some ERP vendors acknowledge the place for best-of-breed solutions.
"With Web services, best of breed becomes more feasible," said Rick
Bergquist, chief technology officer at PeopleSoft. "In a commercial
world, 80% of our sales are for one or two product lines as opposed
to all four that we carry. So best of breed exists today and people
are dealing with that in large organisations. We can point at
hundreds of customers that have a mixture of us and SAP. Web
services will make best of breed more cost effective."
Siebel brought Universal Application Network to market in early
April. It consists of an integration server that connects
applications and a set of prepackaged business processes to make
Siebel's software work with, for example, an SAP ERP application,
Siebel said.
Countering the tightly integrated suites of major ERP vendors,
Siebel's Universal Application Network is getting support from
integration server vendors, including IBM, webMethods, and Tibco,
which are updating their products around the offering.
Siebel is also working with system integrator partners to build a
library of industry-specific business processes and business
process flows.
The business processes and the flows in the library, which use Web
standards such as XML, are customised, extensible, and upgradable,
and can be used and reused independently of both the underlying
applications and the integration server, Siebel said.
"There is always a pendulum between best of breed and suites," said
Peter Solvik, a senior vice-president at Cisco, during the recent
Enterprise Outlook conference. "[But] the suites are now getting so
big that the pendulum will start to swing back [to best of breed].
It will be easier for people to buy portions of their product
line."