Fw: [wsbpel] Defining Business Process Fusion

["David RR Webber" <david@drrw.info>]

Keeping tabs with gartner-speak here.

DW
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howard N Smith" <howard.smith@ontology.org>
To: <public-ws-chor@w3.org>; <wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 7:06 AM
Subject: [wsbpel] Defining Business Process Fusion


> JC asked:
>
> >Gartner is pushing "Business Process Fusion (BPF)" buzz, which I view as
very synonymous to BPM.
> >What are the significant differences, if there are any? Or is BPF so
vague that it is hard to figure out
> >what it really is about? Please comment. Thanks,
>
> Analysts justify their existence by creating new acronyms to a large
degree. There is no law to
> stop them doing this, but introducing BPF just as the industry had settled
on BPM seems bizarre
> to me.
>
> Business Process Fusion is one of three Gartner "BPM" themes:
>
> Jim Sinur (a guy with rules background) has been most vocal about BPM,
done serious research and
> defines BPM as a convergence of technologies such as workflow, rules,
portal, EAI etc.
>
> David McCoy (a guy with integration background) was the BPM guy until Jim
took over. David continued
> to focus on integration/EAI solutions, and their evolution towards BPM.
Jim's MQ (magic quadrant) and
> David's MQ have different vendors on them as a result. To distinguish, Jim
called his "pure play BPM".
> In fact, on Jim's chart, many vendors there are far from pure play. Many
are re-badged workflow or rules
> products for example. But all the vendor use the term BPM to varying
degrees.
>
> Simon Heyward is the process fusion guy. He's into ERP. So, SAP Netweaver,
xapps, Oracle process
> connect, Siebel UAN, etc, are, for him, attempts to go beyond current
processes and digtize more and
> more business. He uses the word fusion, I use the word consolidation. PLM
is part of that, or any
> large scale cross enterprise process. It's all about making more and more
business digital, explicit,
> not necessarily just to automate, but to manage, and improve, and learn.
>
> At the heart of this, and influencing all these different strategies, is
BPMS. You can see the influence
> of BPMS on the ERP guys, and on the EAI to BPM transition, and on the
workflow to BPM transition.
> Each vendor is increasingly focussed on processes, with a different
emphasis on different aspects of
> the process lifecycle. BPMS is defined (by me at least) as a native and
new technology that puts
> process at the heart. Processes are as new as Objects were when we first
heard about them. But
> they work better than objects in my view in most respects. The
significance is that without an abstract
> data type to capture processes (in all their glory) and based on a firm
foundation in theory, process
> digitization, or fusion, or whatever we call it, cannot happen. This would
be like different RDBMS vendors
> having a different view of the relational model.
>
> BPMI.org was established to define a model for BPM, process fusion,
digitization, representation,
> management, call it what you like. BPEL has got wrapped up in that work
which BPMI was doing
> under the BPML moniker. The BPML spec was the first part of our work to
define that model.
>
> Howard
>
> ---
>
> New Book - Business Process Management: The Third Wave
> www.bpm3.com
>
> Howard Smith/CSC/BPMI.org
> cell +44 7711 594 494 (operates worldwide, dial UK)
> office +44 20 8660 1963
>
>
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