Market Update Match Bpms Ven 239562

This research note is restricted to the personal use of mark.robichaux@itc.hctx.
net
This research note is restricted to the personal use of mark.robichaux@itc.hctx.net
G00239562
Market Update: Match BPMS Vendors to Your
Usage Scenarios
Published: 24 December 2012
Analyst(s): Janelle B. Hill, Jim Sinur, W. Roy Schulte, Nicholas Gall, Teresa Jones
This research provides an updated view of the BPMS market and reflects
recent changes and trends. It also categorizes BPMS providers based on
their focus on four BPMS usage scenarios.
Key Findings
Although the BPMS market is mainstream, the growth rate has slowed, largely due to worldwide
economic pressure and the maturing of the U.S. market segment.
In the past two years, significant changes in the BPMS marketplace have altered the market
landscape. These include growing interest in open-source BPM-enabling technologies, market
consolidation driven by several acquisitions, and the advent of next-generation intelligent
BPMSs (iBPMSs).
We expect the market to continue growing through 2014, but providers will increasingly
specialize their products and marketing based on one or more market segments.
BPMSs work best when matched to the needs of specific usage scenarios. The four usage
scenarios Gartner originally defined for BPMSs provide a useful, high-level means of
categorizing vendors to customer needs.
Recommendations
BPI leaders, senior IT executives, solution architects and business process owners:
Leverage Gartner's BPM usage scenarios to help define your BPMS/iBPMS needs.
Shortlist for further evaluation the providers that excel in your usage scenarios.
Resist defining an "enterprise standard" BPMS. Long-running processes exhibit a wide variety
of resource interaction patterns; this variety and complexity is better addressed with different
BPMSs.
Those selecting a BPMS in the near term should understand the IBO usage scenario before
deciding on a BPMS product. If IBO might be applicable during the life of the BPM solution, ask
potential providers how and when their product road maps will support the IBO use case, and
then decide how crucial a factor IBO support will be to your final decision.
Table of Contents
Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 2
BPMS Definition and Business Purpose............................................................................................3
Recent Changes in the BPMS Market...............................................................................................4
Four Primary Usage Scenarios for BPMSs........................................................................................ 6
Mapping BPMS Vendors to the Four Usage Scenarios..................................................................... 8
Listing of Vendors and Relevant Usage Scenarios...................................................................... 9
Other Vendors Considered............................................................................................................. 22
Conclusion and Recommendations................................................................................................ 22
Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................................23
List of Tables
Table 1. BPMS Vendor Overview..........................................................................................................10
List of Figures
Figure 1. BPMS Market Size (2009 Through 2016)................................................................................. 3
Analysis
Introduction
This research provides an updated view of the business process management suite (BPMS) market
landscape, and categorizes BPMS providers based on their focus on four BPMS usage scenarios.
The BPMS market is mainstream and experiencing continued, healthy growth. Total revenue in the
BPMS software market now stands at more than $2 billion, and is expected to grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 10% over the next five years (see Figure 1 and Note 1). Moreover, the market
continues to attract new entrants. However, since our 2010 BPMS market analysis, significant
changes have occurred that have collectively altered the market landscape. This research shares
our perspectives on those changes.
Page 2 of 25 Gartner, Inc. | G00239562
Figure 1. BPMS Market Size (2009 Through 2016)
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Millions of Dollars
Source: Gartner (December 2012)
For business process improvement leaders, business process directors, application managers,
solution architects and CIOs involved in the selection of BPMS providers, this research provides
input into their evaluations. This analysis will help clients develop a better shortlist of providers that
most closely match their usage scenarios today and in the next few years. Clients should not be
afraid to pick different BPMSs for different problems, even though this means some technical skills
will be split or duplicated across different projects and BPMS implementations; the business
process management (BPM) discipline skills will largely be the same for any choice, including
multiple choices.
BPMS Definition and Business Purpose
A BPMS is an integrated collection of software technologies designed to support the life cycle of
process improvement especially when frequent changes are desired (such as to sustain a
differentiated process, or to iteratively respond to business volatility) and to enable continuous
improvement. The technologies in a BPMS support process discovery, analysis, design,
development, execution, monitoring and optimization. BPMSs are used for designing, implementing
and orchestrating composite processes that include interactions among people, systems,
information and policies/rules. Composite processes with these characteristics are long-running
(see Note 2) and are most appropriate for a BPMS implementation.
A BPMS is also meant to empower business roles to participate more fully in the entire life cycle of
process improvement and innovation, exposing visual models to enable business and IT
Gartner, Inc. | G00239562 Page 3 of 25
professionals to better design and maintain the composite process solution collaboratively than is
possible in traditional coded applications. Market-leading BPMSs support a variety of process
styles, ranging from highly structured to highly unstructured.
The BPMS and its resulting process composition expose explicit process models (see Note 3),
which are used by business and IT professionals to directly monitor and adjust the process and
the work flowing through the process. The models in a BPMS-based solution address business
managers' desire to closely track and gain hands-on control of their operational processes to better
manage work outcomes. (For more on the definition of a BPMS, see "Magic Quadrant for Business
Process Management Suites" and "Selection Criteria Details for Business Process Management
Suites, 2009" [Note: These documents have been archived; some of their content may not reflect
current conditions].) A BPMS/iBPMS is the best technology for enhancing the visibility,
accountability and adaptability of the processes it orchestrates. Thus, it is the best technology for
supporting usage scenarios that fall within the BPM "sweet spot" that is, usage scenarios that
reflect a strong desire among business roles to directly change a process design, and to change the
behavior of in-flight work in the process (see "Two Factors That Help Identify the BPM 'Sweet
Spot'"). IBO also reflects businesspeople's desire to be involved throughout the process life cycle.
A BPMS/iBPMS also becomes more important as a solution platform as an organization advances
in BPM maturity (see "ITScore for Business Process Management, 2012").
Recent Changes in the BPMS Market
Although the BPMS mainstream market continues to grow, it is maturing and changing. According
to Gartner market research, the market grew at double-digit annual percentage rates for every year
between 2006 and 2010 before slowing to a single-digit rate of 9.7% in 2011 (see "Market Share: All
Software Markets, Worldwide, 2011"). This slightly slower growth can be attributed to economic
conditions and a maturing market, as well as to consolidation driven by recent acquisitions.
Several significant changes have occurred in the BPMS market during the past two years. For
example, Adobe, once a leader in this market, made a major step away from it in late 2011 when it
announced that it would ramp down its investment in its LiveCycle BPMS and restrict its focus to
the public sector and financial services segments (see "Reassess Adobe's BPM and CCA Platforms
as Its Strategy Has Shifted" [Note: This document has been archived; some of its content may not
reflect current conditions]). Progress Software made a similar shift in April 2012 with its announced
plan to divest Savvion, a Leader in Gartner's 2010 BPMS Magic Quadrant (see "Plans to Focus on
aPaaS Market Signal Challenges Ahead for Progress"). As public companies in a market full of
privately held companies, these exits have raised red flags for customers and prospects, and will
impact overall market revenue growth. Some of this installed base may be replaced in the two years
following these vendors' announcements.
Other significant changes include several acquisitions of BPMS vendors or products:
Enterprise content management (ECM) vendor OpenText acquired two Microsoft-centric BPMS
providers: Metastorm in February 2011 (see "OpenText Buys Metastorm to Compete in
Emerging Case Management Market") and Global 360 in July 2011 (see "OpenText/Global 360
Deal Further Consolidates Microsoft BPMS Segment").
Lexmark International/Perceptive Software acquired Netherlands-based BPMS vendor Pallas

Athena in October 2011.
1
Business process automation vendor Kofax purchased BPMS vendor Singularity in December
2011 (see "Kofax-Singularity Deal Reinforces Content Management Synergy With BPM").
Open-source software distributor Red Hat acquired a BPMS from Barcelona, Spain-based
Polymita Technologies in August 2012.
2
In October 2012, Trilogy Enterprises announced that it would acquire four Progress Software
technologies, each of which was a strong contender in its specialty: Savvion in BPM; Sonic ESB
in service-oriented architecture (SOA) and application integration; Actional in SOA governance;
and DataXtend Semantic Integrator (DXSI) in semantic transformation. Trilogy plans to combine
the products, market them through a new, wholly owned company named Aurea Software, and
compete in the emerging intelligent business operations (IBO) market segment (see "Trilogy
Uses Progress Deal to Create Intelligent Business Operations Firm").
Despite consolidation pressures, we also continue to see many new BPMS market entrants, many
of which are reflected in this research.
Another significant trend has been the growing interest in open-source, BPM-enabling technologies.
For example, BonitaSoft, which was founded just three years ago, has already reached more than
1.5 million downloads of its open-source BPMS (see "BPM Vendor Insights: BonitaSoft's Bonita
Open Solution BPM Suite"). In addition, the above-mentioned Polymita acquisition highlights Red
Hat's recent acceleration of its move into the open-source BPMS market with technology that
compliments jBPM. Also, Alfresco, an open-source ECM vendor, has a project called Activiti.org,
which is an open-source workflow engine. We have seen an increase in our BPM client inquiries
about these market developments, including the Activiti.org open-source project.
3
Our research recently has highlighted the advent of the next generation of BPMSs, which we call
iBPMSs (see "BPM Suites Evolve Into Intelligent BPM Suites"). The iBPMS is designed to address a
key challenge in today's business environment: Business managers and knowledge workers are
being asked to make faster and better decisions, and to "do more with less" in an ever-changing
business context; however, they cannot do so without improved visibility into their operations and
environments. To meet this challenge, leading organizations are seeking to make their business
operations more intelligent by integrating analytics into their processes and the applications that
enable them. Gartner has identified this trend as a new, fifth usage scenario for a BPMS, which we
call IBO (see Note 4 and "The Trend Toward Intelligent Business Operations").
A number of vendors have updated their products to become iBPMSs. An iBPMS expands
traditional BPMS capabilities by adding new functionality, such as near-real-time process
intelligence, advanced and embedded analytics, complex-event processing (CEP), support for
social collaboration and support for mobility.
IBO represents a significant shift in BPM tool capabilities, and the "Magic Quadrant for Intelligent
Business Process Management Suites" evaluates vendors on the new capabilities required to
satisfy the IBO use case. Our research indicates that the IBO use case represents the future of BPM
tools and is experiencing rapid adoption. Although the focus of this research is on vendor support
for our original four BPMS usage scenarios, we believe all organizations, not just early adopters,
need to consider the impact of IBO on their BPM plans. Clients making a BPMS purchasing
decision in the near term should examine the new IBO usage scenario before deciding on a
product. If IBO might be applicable during the life of the BPM solution, then clients should ask
potential providers how and when their products will support the IBO use case. Then clients can
decide how crucial a factor IBO support will be to their final decision.
Four Primary Usage Scenarios for BPMSs
BPMSs work best when matched to the needs of specific usage scenarios. The primary usage
scenarios for BPMSs continue to be those that Gartner first defined in "The Top Four Usage
Scenarios for a BPMS." (All four of these scenarios are defined from the perspective of BPMS
usage; however, they are also well-suited as common scenarios for applying BPM disciplines to
improve operational performance results.) Briefly, they are:
Scenario 1. Specific Process-Based Solutions: In this situation, a business manager recognizes
the need to coordinate a long-running process, and needs to improve business performance
through broader and better coordination of a mission-critical, industry-specific or company-specific
process. Solutions to these process domains are often unavailable as commercial packaged
applications because the area is often a differentiating or innovative process. However, since buyers
have some existing software assets for the process domain, they choose to implement an end-to-
end solution using the BPMS as a composition platform, which is often complemented by a process
template

(see Note 5) from the provider. We see this pattern often in governments, charitable
organizations, education and utilities. Examples of processes in this pattern are grant and charitable
funds management, research and prevention of disease, and student life cycle management.
Key BPMS features needed to support this usage scenario include:
Strong workflow to coordinate a balance of human and system interactions
Good user interface (UI) generation capabilities to unify some of the existing software
applications into an end-to-end process
Support for simple rules to medium-complex business rules
Out-of-the-box process and task monitoring and reporting

Scenario 2. Redesign for a Process-Based SOA: In this scenario, the IT organization is promoting
BPM to the business. Often, we find that the IT organization has been unable to articulate the
business value of the SOA investment, and it recognizes that BPM-enabled business agility can be
dramatically enhanced by an SOA. BPM's enterprise process perspective can help rationalize the
application portfolio, prioritize business functionality that should be redesigned and modernized
using SOA, and align the business value of agile processes with the software services used to
execute them. The BPMS-orchestrated process will consume the SOA services to create a
composite process solution.
Strong support for composing SOA-designed Web services into the process orchestration
Strong integration capabilities to link process and SOA services, and other software assets
A strong registry/repository to hold metadata about all process and service artifacts to enable
reuse
A strong workflow engine to coordinate human and system interactions and service
orchestration
Scenario 3. Continuous Process Improvement (CPI): In this pattern, the business (rather than the
IT organization) has pursued process thinking for a while and has advanced to a CPI mentality. CPI
stems from well-understood process methodologies, such as lean and Six Sigma, which have been
extensively adopted by manufacturing industries for years. However, in the past decade, many
companies in industries such as financial services, healthcare and telecommunications have
brought their BPM programs to a CPI level, often adopting Lean Six Sigma as a methodology.
Various features to enable business and IT roles to share responsibility for easily making
changes to process solutions
Strong workflow, task monitoring, key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards and reporting,
with the ability to dynamically adjust in-flight items
reuse
Scenario 4. Business Transformation: In this scenario, senior business executives want to make a
"game changing" play by rethinking one or more business processes. We see this scenario in
organizations worldwide that are strained by significant industry changes brought about by
regulatory changes and the global economic recession. BPM technology buyers involved in such
transformative initiatives are seeking to redefine their businesses for survival. This scenario is, in
many ways, a culmination of the previous three. In recent years, we have seen this BPM scenario in
industries such as financial services, real estate development and automobile manufacturing.
Organizations pursuing this usage scenario may describe it as "business process re-engineering" or
"business transformation."
Strong ease of use and accessibility to sophisticated features for business and IT roles (as
appropriate)
Strong modeling for multiple aspects of the process, such as workflow, decisions, milestones,
rules, data mapping and the organizational model
reuse
Strong dashboards and business activity monitoring (BAM) capabilities to enable KPI, workflow,
and task monitoring and reporting, with the ability to dynamically adjust in-flight items to
achieve desired outcomes
In addition to these four scenarios, there are other usage scenarios for BPM-enabling technology,
including BPM platform as a service (bpmPaaS; see "Platform as a Service: Definition, Taxonomy
and Vendor Landscape, 2012"), case management (see "The Case for Case Management
Solutions") and IBO.
4
However, these additional usage scenarios are not the focus of this research,
which concentrates on the primary, mainstream BPMS segment.
Mapping BPMS Vendors to the Four Usage Scenarios
One BPMS usually does not address all usage scenarios equally well. A single "enterprise standard"
for BPMS often is not a good approach. Long-running processes, which are most suitable for
BPMS implementations, exhibit a wide variety of resource interaction patterns. The variety and
complexity of these interactions are often better addressed with different BPMSs. Therefore,
organizations in the market for a BPMS should evaluate vendors whose products are proven for
their organizations' usage scenarios.
With that need in mind, Table 1 provides a fairly comprehensive list of BPMS providers, and
categorizes them based on their focus on the four common usage scenarios described above.
Our criteria for including vendors in this research are:
The vendor is focused on at least two of our four usage scenarios for BPMS. We restrict the
table to vendors that clearly focus on at least two scenarios because every BPMS can address
at least one, and such a list would be less valuable to buyers.
By "focus," we mean:
The vendor markets itself as addressing these usage scenarios, and we hear from clients
that the vendor presents its product as appropriate for these scenarios.
In our ongoing research, we see clients implementing the product for these usage
scenarios.
In our ongoing research, we see clients evaluating, considering, shortlisting or implementing

the vendor's BPMS product for these usage scenarios.
Gartner has sufficient knowledge and understanding about the vendor to provide commentary
on the vendor's BPMS.
The vendor sells a BPMS as an on-premises, licensed product (bpmPaaS products are not
included in this analysis).
The vendor offers a general-purpose BPMS, not an industry-specialized product.

Listing of Vendors and Relevant Usage Scenarios
Table 1 provides an overview of BPMS vendors that met the inclusion criteria above. Some of the
products are ones that we now consider to be iBPMSs (see "Magic Quadrant for Intelligent
Business Process Management Suites").
For each vendor, the table:
Shows the relevant BPMS product name
Indicates which of the four usage scenarios are focus areas for the vendor, based on our
exposure to end-user buyers
Provides additional comments on each product, based on the current version when this
research and analysis was conducted (4Q12)
Table 1. BPMS Vendor Overview
Vendor
(Website),
Product
Name Usage Scenarios Comments
Spe-
cific
Proc-
ess
Solu-
tion
Rede-
sign
for a
Proc-
ess-
Based
SOA CPI
Trans-
form
the
Busi-
ness
Active End-
points
ActiveVOS

ActiveVOS is a strong, integration-based offering that is good at straight-through processing

(STP), integration and exception management.
The product is most proven in SOA consumption-based processes. It also has primary hu-
man-interaction capabilities with rudimentary dashboard capabilities.
Active Endpoints is aimed at the integration and development audience, but has the potential
to reach into more business-focused roles. This will require a strong investment in more busi-
ness-driven features.
AgilePoint
AgilePoint
BPMS

AgilePoint is growing well in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
It is an innovative vendor that consistently focuses on transforming traditional programming-

intensive tasks into models within its process composition environment. Its AgileExtender
Framework is an example.
The product is appropriate for small-scale and large-scale BPMS usage scenarios.
Appian
Appian BPMS

Appian BPMS is one of the most user-friendly and highly integrated products in this market
for process composition and creation. It enables business users to take control of almost ev-
ery function of a BPMS offering.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
The product takes full advantage of the combination of social, mobile and cloud, and leads in
the number of implementations with this combination. The mobile experience leverages the
deep native capabilities of each mobile platform as well.
It leverages an in-memory data store for rapid access to process-centric information and
goals, which is beneficial for active and on-demand analytics.
Aquima
Aquima

Aquima is rule-driven and handles changing requirements well.
It has a strong presence in the financial and government verticals in the Netherlands.
A rapidly growing network of service and technology partners is bringing Aquima into more
deals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Be Informed
Be Informed

Be Informed is strong at rule-enabled STP and exception management.
It has expanded into human interactions and has a good number of implementations in the
Benelux region.
An increased marketing presence is bringing Be Informed into more EMEA deals, and giving it
new momentum.
Bizagi
Bizagi BPMS

Bizagi BPMS is available for Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and .NET environ-
ments, and appeals to mainstream buyers. It is predominantly used for human-centric pro-
cesses with some integration to SOA services.
KPIs and metrics can be easily assigned to tasks for reporting and tracking purposes, includ-
ing visibility into tasks that are about to become overdue. Automated warnings can alert the
person responsible for the task as well as management. A stopwatch capability allows part of
a process to be monitored more closely, supporting manual optimization.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
Prospects can download the suite, create process models and test execution for free. Pay-
ment is not required until executing a process in production. The full Business Process Model
and Notation (BPMN) process modeler is currently free as well.
Bosch Soft-
ware Innova-
tions
inubit Suite

The inubit Suite's comprehensive enterprise service bus (ESB), 70-plus adapters, electronic
data interchange and connectivity middleware give it strong performance in SOA, application
integration and business-to-business scenarios.
Its business rule processing is exceptional because of the user-oriented visual capabilities of
Bosch Software Innovations' Visual Rules product.
It has good capabilities for CPI and business transformation through its extensive system in-
tegration practice, and from its own rigorous BPM-centric design and development methodol-
ogies.
Cordys
Cordys Busi-
ness Opera-
tions Platform

Cordys' product offers a strong platform for SOA-centric BPM projects.
Its multitenant capability is suitable for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners to use
as the foundation for third-party solutions. Cordys actively recruits such partnerships.
Its collaborative process design capability will help in ongoing transformative projects.
DST Systems
AWD

AWD has a very intuitive authoring environment largely based on configuration models
that supports technical and business roles working together. DST Systems' extensive domain
expertise in financial services is evident in its many prebuilt features, such as parsing of Twit-
ter feeds, quality control selection algorithms, prebuilt rules, strong work algorithms and rout-
ing patterns for separation of duties. These features make solution development easier and
faster.
Image capture and document and content handling features are strong, regardless of whether
DST stores the content in its own file system or an external ECM repository.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
It has a strong connectivity layer for system-to-system interactions, including Web services
orchestration, RESTful application programming interfaces and traditional integration adapt-
ers (all DST-owned).
Fujitsu
Fujitsu Inter-
stage BPM

Fujitsu offers seamless integration of its strong automated process mining and discovery
technology with its BAM and analytics.
It has an OEM alliance with Cordys for its global platform-as-a-service offering.
Fujitsu Interstage BPM provides solid support for BPM roles across the business process life
cycle, as well as a scalable software infrastructure and composition environment for organiza-
tions looking to move to SOA and BPM solutions.
HandySoft
BizFlow Plus

BizFlow Plus is well-suited for human-task-centric processes and case management.
It is a lower-cost option than many BPMSs.
This is an innovative solution for rapid, ad hoc process creation and execution, and it can be
used to support process discovery.
IBM
IBM Business
Process Man-
ager Ad-
vanced

IBM offers consistent delivery of innovative features to empower business roles to better
manage process performance outcomes.
Process Center and Decision Center provide elegant and intuitive governance for artifact life
cycle management, including a unique and highly collaborative approach to version manage-
ment. Very late binding and snapshots allow composers to easily navigate back in time to an
earlier snapshot, and many steps are semiautomated.
IBM offers a pure-play experience (Standard edition) and a stack-based BPMS experience
(Advanced edition).
Vendor
(Website),
Product
Intalio
Intalio BPMS

Intalio Process Explorer is a central repository for all process artifacts; it is accessible at de-
sign time and runtime. It offers full version control, using a publish/subscribe paradigm, with
check-in/check-out.
Intalio's Eclipse-based BPMN Designer is predominantly used by IT roles. It offers drag-and-

drop modeling, business rules, validation checking, prototyping and Web UI generation
Intalio incorporates a number of open-source technologies (such as BIRT) into its commercial
open-source-licensed BPMS, along with its own additional modules of functionality. It delivers
and supports the solution as a single package, including these open-source technologies. The
source code is accessible to customers.
Isis Papyrus
Software
Papyrus Plat-
form

The Papyrus Platform has strengths that align well with highly collaborative and adaptable
case management usage scenarios.
Isis Papyrus has strong mind share for knowledge-rich usage scenarios.
Isis is starting to gain traction as the market catches up with its knowledge-worker-friendly
features.
K2
K2 blackpearl

K2 significantly leverages the Microsoft technology stack to extend Microsoft-based workflow

capabilities, and integrates very deeply across a wide range of Microsoft products, including
CRM, SharePoint, Exchange, Office, SQL Server, Excel Services and Windows Server. This is
highly valuable in terms of skill reuse and ROI on existing Microsoft investments.
K2 SmartObjects abstracts structured or unstructured line of business data as business enti-

ties, enabling transparent reuse across processes, forms and reports without duplication. This
also enables less technical roles to contribute more to the total implementation of the applica-
tion.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
K2 SmartForms provides a declarative HTML forms technology that allows organizations of all
sizes to rapidly assemble simple and complex business forms (for stand-alone or process-
centric business applications) that can also be used on mobile devices.
Kofax
TotalAgility

The ability to have different "skins" for a process supports business process outsourcers pro-
viding comparable processes for different clients, and also the ability to have process variants
(for example, for different geographies) without having to copy whole processes.
The product is very business-role-friendly, enabling CPI. It also supports case management
processes quite well.
Strong integration with Microsoft technology makes this product suitable for organizations
that are using Microsoft products, such as Dynamics or SharePoint.
Metasonic
Metasonic
Suite

Metasonic is resource-centric (based on subject-oriented BPM, where subjects are resour-

ces/actors in a process) and handles the integrated view of each resource without a negative
impact on other resources. This allows for a concentration of modeling activities by resource,
and enables handling very large process scopes through isolation.
Metasonic has a networked execution capability that allows for maximum parallel activities.
Metasonic's internal architecture is appropriate for high-scale process volumes.

Newgen Soft-
ware Tech-
nologies
OmniFlow

Newgen offers strong support for content interactions within the process (due to its heritage
in the enterprise document management market).
OmniFlow is most proven for large-volume, document-centric workflows.
Newgen focuses on BPM requirements in many emerging geographies. Its consultants are
well-trained in the design and architecture of process solutions using its BPMS.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
OpenText
OpenText
MBPM

OpenText offers strong support for the entire life cycle of process improvement, from archi-
tectural planning using the OpenText ProVision for Enterprise Architecture and for Business
Process Analysis models, to moving these models directly into its BPMS for execution.
Ease of use for all IT and business roles is strong and there are many productivity aids, such
as visual scripting, prebuilt UI components and a multilanguage processing engine.
A sophisticated skills inventory helps in assigning cases and tasks. This inventory can be up-
dated in a distributed mode to keep it up to date with incremental experiences and skills.
OpenText
Process360

Persona-based access to capabilities in the process improvement life cycle provides an ad-
vanced user experience and interaction model, especially compared with other Microsoft-
based BPMSs, and reduces the development effort.
Process360 has excellent integration with SharePoint, delivering "out of the box" user appli-
cations, manager's dashboards, social BPM and collaboration features, which are most ap-
propriate for content-heavy usage scenarios.
The analystView Visio plug-in for process simulation and optimization provides a unique and
valuable approach to advancing simulation skills.
Oracle
Oracle Busi-
ness Process
Management
Suite

Oracle has leveraged its Service Component Architecture- (SCA-) compliant technology to in-
tegrate acquisitions from the inside (internal technology), and up and out to the UI layer, pro-
viding a unified BPMS.
The accessibility of composition capabilities for business roles continues to improve, with
new Web Forms, Player and other features enabling a business process analyst to completely
model execution-ready processes from Web Composer.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
Oracle has made significant investments in providing industry best practice processes and
process templates as Process Accelerators, as well as integration to adaptive case manage-
ment with enhanced business ease of use and more flexible management.
Pegasystems
Pega BPM

Pegasystems' BPMS has a unified object model that structures all process artifacts, including
processes, policies and UIs. This enables Pegasystems to deliver a declarative, model-driven
environment for composing solutions that can dynamically adjust to new situations and con-
texts.
Business role empowerment is delivered through many intuitive visualizations and social net-
working capabilities to enhance ease of use, to aid learning, to support cross-role and even
customer collaboration, and to focus attention on changes in real time. The updated design
environment is more role-appropriate and expands support for process discovery and case
management.
New analytic options, such as predictive and adaptive analytics, combined with the policy/
rule-driven results, make Pegasystems' BPMS ideal for intelligent business improvement cy-
cles. The next-best-action feature is appealing.
Perceptive
Software
Perceptive
Process

Perceptive Process offers the best technology and visualization we've seen for process ana-
lytics, including automated process discovery, process mining, social network analysis and
forecasting.
It offers strong support for process dynamism in production with governance.
It also offers strong support for the design and execution of case-management-style process-
es.
PNMsoft
Sequence

Sequence is a business-user-focused product that uses .NET and the Microsoft stack well.
PNMsoft has a number of vertical-specific templates and industry-neutral horizontal tem-

plates to help organizations realize business benefits more quickly.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
PNMsoft's Sequence Kinetics introduces HotChange technology for controlled changes of

devices, UIs, business logic and other BPM application components.
Red Hat
JBoss Enter-
prise BRMS
5.3 (with
jBPM)

Business users and developers have different interfaces, but share the same underlying repo-
sitory, allowing for good collaboration on projects.
The CEP capability extends to processes across real-time data feeds (for example, from Twit-
ter, Facebook and blogs), enabling rapid detection and response to business-impacting
events.
The subscription model means that costs can be expensed rather than capitalized. The costs
of commercial subscriptions are generally lower than other commercial BPMSs.
SAP
NetWeaver
Process Or-
chestration

The Eclipse-based, model-driven composition environment (including BPM) can be used to

create process-centric applications that leverage SAP SOA services, external SOA services,
rules and human workflows.
Collaborative modeling in SAP StreamWork (using a subset of BPMN) supports process-rela-

ted decision making. The resulting conceptual designs can be exported from the cloud envi-
ronment into NetWeaver BPM.
Tools follow standards-based integration approaches to connect to back-end applications

with SAP systems, integrating them into broader, model-driven, process-centric solutions.
Tibco Soft-
ware
ActiveMatrix
BPM

ActiveMatrix BPM combines Tibco's SOA and BPM capabilities based on SCA and OSGi,
Tibco's event-driven architecture, and Eclipse. Individually, the pieces of the suite deliver
strong functionality.
Tibco's separation of the organization model from the workflow and UI models enhances
work and resource management capabilities, such as analysis of workloads across process-
es, not just within one process.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
ActiveMatrix BPM has very strong human workflow with many out-of-the-box advanced pat-
terns, including separation of duties, "retain familiar" and round-robin allocation.
Trilogy Enter-
prises/
Aurea Soft-
ware
Savvion BPM
Suite

Savvion's modular SOA enables it to coexist and leverage other software infrastructure tech-
nologies, such as a portal server and an ESB.
Savvion is a comprehensive, model-based BPM product that was among the first to provide
extensive business process monitoring and event-processing features suitable for process-
based solutions and business transformation usage scenarios. Its Business Expert add-on
supports real-time analysis of in-flight processes, and dynamically suggests changes to proc-
ess conditions and rules to optimize running processes.
Sonic ESB, Actional and DXSI are advanced technologies that address the SOA and integra-
tion requirements of process-based SOA usage scenarios well.
Software AG
webMethods
BPMS

webMethods has excellent support for process discovery, process optimization, SOA, inte-
gration and active analytics, including a proven BAM tool, webMethods Optimize.
webMethods has market-leading capabilities for CPI and transformation, including an extensi-
ble registry/repository (CentraSite), mobile computing (webMethods Mobile), message-orien-
ted middleware (webMethods Nirvana Messaging), CEP (webMethods Business Events), in-
memory data grids (Terracotta BigMemory) and dashboards (Aris MashZone).
Software AG has solid financials and a large installed base, with more than 1,500 BPMS cus-
tomers.
Ultimus
Adaptive
BPM Suite

The Adaptive BPM Suite is strong at human interactions, and is used in many light-duty to
medium-duty process flows in many organizations.
Flobots are configurable process components that make many composition tasks easier,
such as integrations.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
With better visualization of results, Ultimus is delivering needed functionality to its client base.
USoft
USoft BPM
Suite

USoft has a metadata-driven and rule-driven architecture that is ideal for adaptable process-
es.
The company has a strong presence in the Benelux region.
With its latest release and management team, we are seeing more activity from USoft par-
ticularly around requirements management.
Whitestein
Living Sys-
tems Process
Suite (LSPS)

LSPS uses a unique modeling methodology with "goals" as the central semantic construct.
Situational information is defined in the process model and may be altered dynamically during
process execution. The runtime engine uses this information to determine the flow to execute.
The approach is meant for processes that need a high degree of agility and intelligence al-
though LSPS also supports BPMN modeling for processes that don't need much agility or in-
telligence.
LSPS uses multilevel modeling that separates the data, activity flow and organizational mod-
els, allowing models to be easily reused and associated across domains. For example, the
same organizational model can be shared across multiple solutions, and goal models can be
linked into a hierarchy.
BAM data collection, KPI creation and visualization are strong and extensible, enabling in-
flight impact analysis to locate process bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Reporting is basic, but
easy to configure out of the box.
XMPro
iBOS

The iBOS platform has strengths that align well with highly collaborative and adaptable case
management usage scenarios.
XMPro has process discovery capabilities that help identify better practices occurring in a col-
laborative environment.
Vendor
(Website),
Product
It also has social analytics and can help determine sentiment patterns.
Source: Gartner (December 2012)
Other Vendors Considered
The following BPMS vendors were considered for, but not included in, Table 1 because they did not
meet all the inclusion criteria:
Adeptia
Appway
Apriso
AuraPortal
BonitaSoft
BP Logix
Consilience International
EMC
East-Gate
iActive
MicroPact
Northrop Grumman
OpTier
Provenir
SunGard
Tedial
Resultmaker
Vitria
Conclusion and Recommendations
Gartner believes that there are currently more general-purpose BPMS vendors than this market can
reasonably support. Buyers should anticipate that the market will eventually fragment as providers
increasingly specialize their products and marketing based on one or more market segments. The
market segments might be defined by usage scenario, geography and industry or cross-industry
solution area. Buyers should evaluate the evolutionary path of providers of interest (see "Signs That
a BPMS Vendor Is Following One or More Technology Evolutionary Paths").
Other recommendations for BPMS buyers include the following:
Leverage Gartner's BPMS usage scenarios to help define your BPMS needs.
Shortlist for further evaluation the BPMS providers that focus on your usage scenarios, and use
this research to accelerate your efforts.
Recognize that adopting a single "enterprise standard" for BPMS often is not a good approach,
and plan on having different BPMSs to support different usage scenarios.
If you are making a BPMS purchasing decision in the near term, examine the new IBO usage
scenario before deciding on a product. If IBO might be applicable during the life of the BPM
solution, ask potential providers how and when their product road maps will support the IBO
use case, and then decide how crucial a factor IBO support will be to your final decision.
Recommended Reading
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
"Balance Process Agility and Process Integrity Choices Along the Application Continuum"
"What Types of Model-Driven Applications Are Most Appropriate for a High Pace of Process
Change?"
"Process Templates Broaden Application Options in a Pace-Layered Application Strategy"
Evidence
1
See "Lexmark Acquires Pallas Athena," 18 October 2011.
2
See "Red Hat Acquires BPM Technology From Polymita," 28 August 2012.
3
Open-source inquiry trend data.
4
For a description of the IBO usage scenario and our evaluation of iBPMS providers, see "The
Trend Toward Intelligent Business Operations" and "Magic Quadrant for Intelligent Business
Process Management Suites."
Note 1 BPMS Market Size Data
These Gartner market share estimates and forecasts include the sum of BPMS-related revenue from
vendors that sell software in this market. This includes revenue generated from appliances, new
licenses, updates, subscriptions and hosting, technical support, and maintenance. Professional
services revenue and hardware revenue are not included. For more information, see "Forecast:
Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 3Q12 Update" and "Market Share: All
Software Markets, Worldwide, 2011."
Note 2 Long-Running Processes Explained
A "long-running process" is any process in which it takes at least one hour, and usually much
longer, to settle the work item. It takes longer because there are human-performed steps. Our "long
running" characterization reflects a shift in focus in BPM on the amount of work to be managed. For
example, it takes longer than an hour to decide whether to pay an insurance claim, and how much.
For years, the automation of work has focused on "transaction processing" and shortened the unit
of work managed to the payment transaction. If the primary management concerns are scaling the
business volumes and consistent, efficient handling of the transaction, then online transaction
processing applications work very well. However, in a process-centric organization, management is
concerned with coordinating all the information-gathering efforts and decision-making steps that
lead up to the decision to pay or not. Thus, the unit of work to be managed is the process and is
longer-running.
Note 3 Explicit Versus Implicit Process Management
Explicit processes are visible, usually via nontext models, and are independent of the physical
resources used in their execution. For years, explicit process models have been used as design
aids, as end-user training tools and as part of operations manuals. (Business process analysis tools
are a good example.) However, a BPMS takes explicit process management to a higher level of
value; its explicit process model is actually metadata that is associated with physical resources at
runtime. In this way, the model is not just static documentation; it is directly executable. At runtime,
the model is interpreted and bound to the referenced physical resources. This approach keeps the
model synchronized with the actual execution of work. In market-leading BPMSs, models are
intuitive (understandable by business and IT stakeholders), real (reflecting the actual processes in
play) and active (implemented directly from process metadata for easier manipulation).
Note 4 iBPMSs
For more information, see "Magic Quadrant for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites."
Note 5 Process Templates Defined
Process templates are prebuilt solution assets, based on BPM platforms, that support changes to
business processes without application customization. Like commercial applications, process
templates are immediately deployable, but most customers will tailor them to meet their unique
needs.
With process templates, there is no application (in a traditional sense) of a precompiled set of code.
Process templates don't result in customized applications because they are based on metadata and
a model-driven BPM platform. The metadata artifacts in a process template typically include
process flow definitions, rule sets, forms, organizational structures and KPIs. The execution engine
in the BPM platform executes the processes defined by the metadata artifacts (see "What Types of
Model-Driven Applications Are Most Appropriate for a High Pace of Process Change?"). Process
templates dynamically compose process-centric applications because the platform selects the
services and objects that need to be executed based on the metadata model. Ideally, this selection
would be enabled through late binding.
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Lexmark International/Perceptive Software acquired Netherlands-based BPMS vendor Pallas

Strong workflow to coordinate a balance of human and system interactions

Support for simple rules to medium-complex business rules

Out-of-the-box process and task monitoring and reporting

In our ongoing research, we see clients evaluating, considering, shortlisting or implementing

The vendor offers a general-purpose BPMS, not an industry-specialized product.

Shows the relevant BPMS product name

ActiveVOS is a strong, integration-based offering that is good at straight-through processing

AgilePoint is growing well in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

It is an innovative vendor that consistently focuses on transforming traditional programming-

Aquima is rule-driven and handles changing requirements well.

Be Informed is strong at rule-enabled STP and exception management.

Cordys' product offers a strong platform for SOA-centric BPM projects.

BizFlow Plus is well-suited for human-task-centric processes and case management.

It is a lower-cost option than many BPMSs.

Intalio's Eclipse-based BPMN Designer is predominantly used by IT roles. It offers drag-and-

K2 significantly leverages the Microsoft technology stack to extend Microsoft-based workflow

K2 SmartObjects abstracts structured or unstructured line of business data as business enti-

Metasonic is resource-centric (based on subject-oriented BPM, where subjects are resour-

Metasonic's internal architecture is appropriate for high-scale process volumes.

OmniFlow is most proven for large-volume, document-centric workflows.

It offers strong support for process dynamism in production with governance.

PNMsoft has a number of vertical-specific templates and industry-neutral horizontal tem-

PNMsoft's Sequence Kinetics introduces HotChange technology for controlled changes of

The Eclipse-based, model-driven composition environment (including BPM) can be used to

Collaborative modeling in SAP StreamWork (using a subset of BPMN) supports process-rela-

Tools follow standards-based integration approaches to connect to back-end applications

The company has a strong presence in the Benelux region.

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