With the market for business process management software continuing to grow and BPM tools themselves rapidly maturing, large vendors of IT infrastructure software and enterprise applications have begun to take notice, as demonstrated by their acquisitions of several independent BPM providers in recent weeks.
For manufacturers, the acquisitions could spell good news in the form of more resources being poured into the development of BPM tools as well as tighter integration between BPM and event monitoring tools, leading to platforms that can help manufacturers improve operational responsiveness.
The latest in the recent string of BPM acquisitions came in January when application infrastructure software provider Progress Software Corp. acquired BPM software vendor Savvion Inc. for $49 million. That deal followed IBM’s December 2009 acquisition of BPM provider Lombardi Software Inc., and Software AG’s €482 million purchase of business process modeling software provider IDS Scheer AG last July. Before that, in spring 2007, Software AG had acquired WebMethods, whose portfolio of products included BPM tools.
Several factors explain the recent string of BPM acquisitions, experts say. First, even in a down economy, the BPM market has continued to grow. The market, estimated at $1.7 billion in 2009, is expected to expand 15% annually over the next four years, reaching $3 billion by 2013, according to IDC.