Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00156427, Greta A. James, 17 June 2008
EA tools provide a repository to store, structure and relate a wide variety of information. The tools also support the analysis and presentation of this information to meet stakeholder needs. This document was revised on 30 June 2008. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW As organizations grapple with the need to understand and relate multiple aspects of their enterprise architecture (EA), the EA tool market continues to attract considerable interest and benefit from enhanced functionality. The dynamics of this market also continue to be affected by merger and acquisition activity. Although the Magic Quadrant is a view of the market as a whole, the best tool for a given organization might well be outside of the Leaders quadrant. When selecting an EA tool, organizations should consider a range of criteria and should weight these according to their current and future needs. Because we expect this market to remain volatile for some time to come, organizations should consider the viability of their preferred vendor.
MAGIC QUADRANT Market Overview As increasing numbers of enterprise architects grapple with the challenge of understanding and relating the wide range of relevant information, the EA tool market has continued to attract considerable interest. At the same time, the vendors have continued to add new capabilities to their products. In addition, merger and acquisition activity has continued, with IBM completing its acquisition of Telelogic in April 2008 and Metastorm buying Proforma in July 2007. Attracted by the current interest in enterprise architecture, new vendors continue to enter this market, particularly through enhancements to modeling tools. A characteristic of this market is the prevalence of small vendors. Of the 13 companies included in this year’s Magic Quadrant, only three companies (IBM, IDS Scheer and Sybase) are listed on a stock exchange, and most of the others are small private companies. Another characteristic of this market is the number of companies whose headquarters are in Europe – seven of the 13 vendors described in this research. Along with the small size of many of the vendors, this means that there is more regional allegiance than in many other software markets. With IBM’s extensive worldwide presence and effective services organization, its acquisition of Telelogic will have a major impact on this market. In addition, we expect Sybase to focus more attention on enterprise architecture and to leverage its position in the related database
2 design market where it has a 35% market share. However, because the market is still immature, with new capabilities being added constantly, we expect that there will continue to be opportunities for small, innovative vendors.
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools
Market Definition/Description Enterprise architects must bring together information on a variety of subjects, including applications, data (structured and unstructured), technology of various kinds, interfaces, business processes, and organization structures, and they must relate this content to the business strategy and to various environmental trends. The architects must understand and represent the relationships between all this information and to communicate this to their stakeholders. Many enterprises start off using diagramming tools and spreadsheets to document their architectures. Although this can be useful initially, ensuring the consistency of these documents becomes extremely difficult once artifacts appear in multiple places. For example, an application might appear on a diagram depicting a server, a diagram depicting a business process and a diagram depicting the application’s interfaces. Changes to the application might require updates in all diagrams, introducing opportunities for inconsistency and inaccuracy. The EA tool market consists of vendors that offer software products to store, structure, analyze and present information related to enterprise architecture. Source: Gartner (June 2008) The information stored in an EA tool must encompass business architecture, information architecture, technology architecture and solution architecture. Vendors usually offer related support, training, consulting and maintenance. In the vendor descriptions below, we highlight several strengths and cautions for each vendor. We have not attempted to mention The minimum requirements of an EA tool are: all strengths and cautions for each vendor. Rather, the purpose of • A repository. the comments is to provide guidance on the most salient, • A metamodel that supports the business, information and distinguishing points for each vendor. technology viewpoints, as well as solution architectures. The repository should also support relationships among and Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria between objects in these viewpoints or architectures. To be included in this Magic Quadrant, a vendor must have a • Ability to create or import models and artifacts. product (or integrated set of products) that meets the minimum requirements for an EA tool (described previously). All vendors • The ability to present repository information to support were required to demonstrate that they are being used in stakeholder needs, including in graphical, text and production to support EA work in at least 50 organizations, and executable forms. user references were checked. Additionally, when the list of
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted June 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. © 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although Gartner’s research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
3 vendors was finalized on 29 November 2007, the vendor must have derived at least $2 million in license and maintenance revenue during the previous reporting year from products that are used for enterprise architecture or have exhibited an innovative approach to addressing the market’s needs.
• Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor’s presales activities and the structure that supports them, including pricing, presales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Added
• Marketing Execution: The effectiveness of programs communicating the organization’s message to the market to increase awareness of its products and establish a positive identification with the product or brand and organization among buyers. We removed this criterion because these factors have been included in marketing strategy, market responsiveness and track record.
• IBM acquired Telelogic in April 2008, and Metastorm acquired Proforma in July 2007. As a result, IBM/Telelogic and Metastorm have been added to the Magic Quadrant. • A Dutch company, BiZZdesign, and a U.K. company, Salamander, have been added to this analysis, because they have both begun to establish a presence in the EA tool market.
Dropped • Proforma does not appear on this Magic Quadrant, because it was acquired by Metastorm in July 2007. • Telelogic does not appear on this Magic Quadrant, because it was acquired by IBM in April 2008. • Agilense has not been included in this Magic Quadrant, because it did not satisfy the inclusion criteria.
Evaluation Criteria Ability to Execute Vendors are evaluated on their ability to be competitive, efficient and effective, and to positively impact revenue, retention and reputation. Ultimately, technology providers are judged on their ability and success in capitalizing on their vision: • Product/Service: This includes the core products offered by the vendors that compete in this market. We looked at five aspects of the vendor’s EA product suite: • Ways to structure information meaningfully through the supplied metamodel, architecture frameworks and repository, as well as the ability to customize these structures
• Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond to changes in the market as customer needs evolve and market dynamics change.
• Customer Experience: This evaluates the customer’s experience with the vendor and its products. • Operations: The organization’s ability to meet its goals and commitments, including the vendor’s technical support, training and consulting operations.
Completeness of Vision Vendors are evaluated on their ability to convincingly articulate logical statements about current and future market direction, innovation, customer needs, and competitive forces and how well they map to the Gartner position. Ultimately, vendors are rated on their understanding of how market forces can be exploited to create opportunity for the provider: • Market Understanding: Ability to understand and accurately forecast buyers’ needs, and to translate these needs into products and services. • Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages communicated consistently throughout the organization and externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
• Information presentation, including variety, ease of use and publishing capabilities
Evaluation Criteria
Weighting
• Analytical capabilities related to EA, including gap analysis, impact analysis and the ability to apply business intelligence analysis to repository information
Product/Service
high
Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization)
standard
Sales Execution/Pricing
standard
Market Responsiveness and Track Record
standard
Marketing Execution
no rating
Customer Experience
standard
Operations
standard
• The ability to import information from relevant sources, such as design tools of various kinds, IT management tools and packaged applications, or to create that information within the tool, as well as to export information to facilitate stakeholder use • Tool administration, including configuration management, security and features to support the management of architecture, such as tracking of the use of future-statearchitecture principles and models, workflow, and discussion threads • Overall Viability: An assessment of the vendor’s financial health, the strength of its customer base and its presence in the market; for a large vendor, we also evaluated the relevant business unit and the likelihood that the vendor will continue to invest in and sell the product.
Source: Gartner (June 2008)
4 Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
strengthening their links to projects and their ability to better support the implementation of the future-state architecture, these capabilities have not been a differentiator for them. However, both are well-established in this market and are executing well.
Evaluation Criteria
Weighting
Market Understanding
standard
Marketing Strategy
standard
Sales Strategy
standard
Offering (Product) Strategy
standard
These vendors have demonstrated innovation in this market, but they have yet to exhibit the mix of overall viability, functional breadth, sales execution and track record that would place them in the Leaders quadrant. Casewise is the only vendor in the Visionaries quadrant.
Business Model
standard
Niche Players
Vertical/Industry Strategy
standard
Innovation
no rating
Geographic Strategy
low
Visionaries
Source: Gartner (June 2008)
Vendors in the Niche Players quadrant tend to have strengths in numerous aspects of EA without providing broader support. Alternatively, they tend to have more-limited experience with EA geographically, focus on a specific industry, lack a specific focus on this market or are new to the market.
Vendor Strengths and Cautions alfabet Strengths
• Sales Strategy: The strategy that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales channels, coupled with marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach for selling products. • Offering (Product) Strategy: A vendor’s approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and features as they map to users’ requirements. • Business Model: The soundness and logic of a vendor’s underlying business proposition. • Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including vertical industries. • Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic allocation of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes. We removed this criterion because innovation has been included in the market understanding and product strategy criteria. • Geographic Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the “home” or native region directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for that geography and market.
Leaders Leaders have a broad range of capabilities to support EA, combined with the ability to deliver this to a diverse group of stakeholders. All four leaders in this market have demonstrated innovation, with a growing focus on architecture implementation support.
Challengers Both challengers have good modeling capabilities – particularly with business process analysis (BPA). Although they are
• In January 2007, alfabet opened an office in the U.S., which rapidly generated interest, culminating in sales. Although its customers are still predominantly in Germany and neighboring countries, alfabet has established a North American beachhead. It continues to enhance its product in an innovative fashion and to maintain satisfaction with its existing customers, which include several large multinational corporations. • Alfabet’s planningIT solution is well-suited to organizations that want to track and manage the rollout and use of EA by projects. One attractive feature is the product’s ability to monitor and compare the solutions that projects propose and implement with the agreed-on future-state architecture. For example, planningIT has the ability to compare operational plans with architecture master maps and to calculate architecture adherence indicators. • Alfabet’s planningIT contains a rich metamodel out of the box, with coverage of business, information, technology and solution architectures, as well as business strategy. This provides a firm foundation on which to structure and relate the variety of information that is of interest to enterprise architects and then to track its use by projects. • There are also attractive capabilities for the management of EA processes, which will suit organizations that require more management rigor. For example, assignments enable user contributions to architecture artifacts to be tracked and have target dates to allow for expiration (for optional assignments) or escalation (for mandatory assignments). These contributions include updating information related to an artifact, as well as reviewing and approving artifacts. Cautions • Although having successfully created a presence in North America, alfabet now needs to scale up its operations to consolidate this expansion. To do this, it must strengthen its
5 sales and support organization, which will require a cultural change. This transition has proven difficult for many vendors. However, based on the maturity that it has shown in establishing its North American operation, we believe that alfabet can successfully negotiate this next phase.
ability to discover relationships through a list of possible matches and an associated probability. This is particularly useful for organizations that want to automate exchanges with other metadata stores.
• Like many in this market, alfabet is a small, private company, with estimated revenue from EA between $5 million and $25 million. Because it is experiencing very strong revenue growth, in our opinion, it is a tempting acquisition target. Although a new owner may retain key alfabet personnel and continue to enhance its valuable strategic IT planning solution, there is an element of uncertainty. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility.
Cautions
Adaptive
• ASG has recently introduced an EA starter pack with a list price of $60,000 for five concurrent users. Although this is a significant reduction of the initial investment required, many organizations at lower EA maturity levels will struggle to justify an upfront investment of this size.
Strengths • Adaptive’s repository has the ability to manage a wide range of metadata. This will be attractive to organizations looking for a single tool that enables them not only to understand their enterprise architecture but also to use the repository to support other activities, such as data management and solution development. • Adaptive customers’ feedback on satisfaction with technical support services has been excellent. Access to developers was cited as being particularly valuable. Cautions • Adaptive depends on Microsoft Visio to draw models in notations appropriate to various stakeholder needs. This results in an undue complexity, particularly when compared with other tools in this market. Organizations looking for integrated modeling capabilities in their EA tool should seek alternatives. • Adaptive is a small vendor with estimated revenue from EA of less than $5 million. Adaptive’s size constrains its ability to serve different geographies, which, when combined with its lack of product diversification, in our view, makes it vulnerable to acquisition. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility.
ASG Strengths • Allen Systems Group (ASG)-Rochade repository has the ability to manage a wide range of metadata. This will be attractive to organizations looking for a single tool that enables them not only to understand their enterprise architecture but also to use the repository to support other activities, such as data management and solution development. • ASG-Rochade has the ability to exchange information with a range of products, including a number of modeling, development and business intelligence tools. This includes the
• Although ASG-Rochade is a leading metadata repository, ASG has not been able to effectively communicate its benefits to enterprise architects. The ASG-Rochade home page demonstrates this, describing several technical features, such as extended name lengths and scalability, while remaining silent on anticipated business benefits. Organizations considering the use of ASG-Rochade for enterprise architecture must be prepared to make additional efforts to understand how to best use the product for this purpose.
BiZZdesign Strengths • BiZZdesign is focused on Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and has strong academic links in that region. In particular, it is one of the tools that support ArchiMate modeling language, which is now being transferred to The Open Group from the Telematica Instituut in the Netherlands where BiZZdesign is also based. This is complemented by BiZZdesign’s focus on training, with its materials, methods and tools being used by several universities. • Like several other products in this market, BiZZdesign can display the results of a query on the repository in a graphical format. It can also explore the relationships of objects on a diagram in a stepwise fashion. This will suit organizations wanting intuitive, visual impact analysis. Cautions • BiZZdesign is a small vendor, with estimated revenue from its EA product suite in 2007 of less than $5 million. BiZZdesign does not have a wide geographic presence because its customers are primarily located in the Netherlands and neighboring countries. Its small size, in our view, makes it vulnerable to acquisition. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility. • BiZZdesign users comment on its flexibility, including the ease of metamodel customization. However, this flexibility is achieved through the use of a scripting language and is not graphical. Consequently, organizations that are considering this product and needing flexibility must be prepared to acquire the relevant technical skills.
6 Casewise Strengths • Although having benefits across a wide range of vertical industries, Casewise offers focused frameworks and models for several industries, including telecommunications, utilities, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, which will suit organizations wanting to leverage these to kick-start their enterprise architecture work. • The feedback we have received about Casewise’s consulting services has been very positive. Referenced customers use adjectives such as “outstanding,” “wonderful” and “perfect,” resulting in a staunchly loyal customer group. Access to the development team has contributed to this satisfaction level. • Casewise contains a rich metamodel out of the box, with coverage of business, information, technology and solution architectures, as well as business strategy. This provides a firm foundation on which to structure and relate the variety of information that is of interest to enterprise architects. Cautions • Although providing an attractive EA tool, Casewise has yet to display leadership in specific areas of this market. This will not be a good fit for organizations that wish to be early adopters of new EA tool capabilities. • Casewise’s customers value the access that they have to the developers and their ability to influence future product capabilities. However, we believe that, as Casewise grows, this access will be reduced as the company attempts to balance its long-term product directions with the needs of an increasingly diverse customer base. We estimate that Casewise’s revenue from EA is between $5 million and $25 million.
browser interface to the live repository. Although in many cases, System Architect has not been the first tool to make these capabilities available, the development team had been very adept in prioritizing enhancements to meet the needs of this market. • As well as competing in the EA tool market, System Architect participates in several modeling markets, including BPA. This will appeal to organizations that prefer to acquire an EA solution that integrates a repository with modeling capabilities. Cautions • Telelogic has become part of IBM’s Rational software division. In our opinion, this is not ideal from an EA perspective, because Rational’s customers are mainly application developers and designers. In addition to these stakeholders, an EA tool must address the needs of business, information and technology architectures. IBM will need to ensure that enhancements to System Architect result in a balance between these various viewpoints. • Despite its extensive functionality for enterprise architects, two aspects of System Architect make it unduly complex. The first aspect is the way in which relationships are represented in the repository, which makes nonstandard reports and navigation of relationships more difficult than they need to be. Although System Architect has a number of capabilities that shield the user, moresophisticated users will encounter this issue. The second source of complexity is customization, which, although powerful, is not graphical, but is specified through a text file requiring knowledge of its syntax. Organizations considering any sophisticated use of System Architect must commit and train resources to deal with this complexity and to shield the rest of the EA team from it.
IDS Scheer IBM/Telelogic Strengths • IBM’s System Architect product suite pioneered enterprise architecture when it was developed by Popkin Software. The product has established a substantial presence and “mind share” in this market. This is illustrated by the fact that the majority of organizations evaluating EA tools that consult Gartner for advice include System Architect on their shortlists. System Architect is a good choice for organizations that are looking for a well-established and proven tool. • IBM completed its acquisition of Telelogic on 3 April 2008. With IBM’s extensive worldwide presence and effective services organization, this deal will have a major impact on the market. Although still in its very early days, discussions with IBM indicate that it understands the important role that EA plays in aligning business and IT. In particular, we believe that its plan to leverage the EA expertise in IBM Global Business Services will provide it with valuable guidance. It is also emphasizing the importance of making EA actionable and plans to build bridges between System Architect and other IBM and some third-party products to implement this. We believe that this acquisition makes System Architect a particularly attractive choice for organizations that extensively deploy IBM software. • System Architect has a rich set of functions to support enterprise architecture. Recent enhancements include the ability to have simplified views of the repository to facilitate reporting and analysis, the ability to view how a model changes through various future states and the ability to provide an updatable
Strengths • Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS) is wellknown for its long-standing leadership in the BPA market and its rich modeling capabilities. This makes it well-suited for organizations that want to use the same tool for EA and BPA and that want a repository with modeling capabilities. • IDS Scheer is one of the few companies in the EA tool market to be listed on a stock exchange. The reporting obligations associated with this, along with the associated scrutiny of equity analysts, provide increased visibility into the company, facilitating the due diligence process that we recommend potential tool buyers to undertake. • ARIS has the ability to exchange information with a range of products, including several modeling and development tools, as well as some integration middleware. ARIS also has the ability to exchange packaged application configuration information with SAP’s Solution Manager and to import similar information from Oracle’s Fusion middleware. This stems from IDS Scheer’s long-standing and close relationship with SAP and its more recent relationship with Oracle, which makes it a particularly attractive choice for organizations in which these vendors’ applications play an important role. • IDS Scheer’s ARIS products contain a rich metamodel out of the box, with coverage of business, information, technology and solution architectures, as well as business strategy. This provides a firm foundation on which to structure and relate the variety of information that is of interest to enterprise architects.
7 Cautions
Metastorm
• Without a consulting engagement, ARIS provides less flexibility than most other tools in this market for customizing the tool’s metamodel. However, IDS Scheer has made good progress in addressing this, including, in the latest release, providing the ability to add new metamodel attributes. Announcement of the English version of ARIS 7.1 is expected in June 2008. Organizations needing to add new objects to the ARIS metamodel, for the moment, must be prepared to engage IDS Scheer’s consultants or those from an approved partner.
Strengths
• In 2007, IDS Scheer derived 39% of its ARIS revenue from services – down from 45% in 2006. Although most users derive significant value from services related to the initial configuration and bedding down of an EA tool, organizations must ensure that proposals meet their needs. In particular, organizations should talk to the vendor’s referenced customers to assess their satisfaction with the scope, cost and quality of the services that were provided to them.
• Although having benefits across a wide range of vertical industries, Metastorm’s ProVision offers frameworks and models for several industries, including telecommunications, insurance, defense and supply chain management. These can provide a useful starting point for EA work and will be attractive to many organizations in these industries. • As well as competing in the EA tool market, ProVision participates in several modeling markets, including BPA. This will appeal to organizations that prefer to acquire an EA solution that integrates a repository with modeling capabilities. • ProVision has long been known for its ease of use, which has been maintained, while functionality continues to be added to the tool. Following the Metastorm acquisition in August 2007, we believe that this will continue. We also believe that Metastorm will continue to enhance ProVision’s support for enterprise architecture.
Mega
Cautions
Strengths
• Although ProVision’s metamodel has good support for business architecture and solution architecture, it is not as attractive in its support for information architecture and technology architecture. Organizations using ProVision for these aspects of enterprise architecture are likely to have to build their own metamodel extensions.
• Mega has the ability to exchange information with a range of products, including modeling and development tools, as well as the ability to export to a number of integration middleware suites. This benefits organizations that want to automatically incorporate this information into their repositories. Mega also has the ability to exchange application configuration information with SAP’s Solution Manager, making it attractive to organizations that have significant usage of SAP. • As well as competing in the EA tool market, Mega participates in several modeling markets, including BPA. This will appeal to organizations that prefer to acquire an EA solution that integrates a repository with modeling capabilities. • The Mega Modeling Suite contains a rich metamodel out of the box, with coverage of business, information, technology and solution architectures. This provides a firm foundation on which to structure and relate the variety of information that is of interest to enterprise architects. Cautions • Estimated revenue from EA was between $5 million and $25 million during 2007, and Mega derived 45% of this from services. Although most users derive significant value from services related to the initial configuration and bedding down of an EA tool, organizations must ensure that proposals meet their needs. In particular, organizations should talk to the vendor’s referenced customers to assess their satisfaction with the scope, cost and quality of the services that were provided to them. • We have spoken to several organizations having large numbers of users that use Mega, with one reporting that the number of concurrent users on a single repository reached 60. However, these organizations also have large numbers of repositories, which they use to manage objects and security. When an object’s status changes (for example, if it is baselined), it is typically moved to another repository to reflect this, with an accompanying administrative workload. If an organization plans to use Mega in a complex environment with multiple repositories, it will need staff to perform the required administration tasks.
• With estimated revenue from EA between $5 million and $25 million in 2007, Metastorm derived 47% of its revenue from services. Although most end-user clients derive significant value from services related to the initial configuration and bedding down of an EA tool, organizations must ensure that proposals meet their needs. In particular, organizations should talk to the vendor’s referenced customers to assess their satisfaction with the scope, cost and quality of the services that were provided to them.
QualiWare Strengths • As well as competing in the EA tool market, QualiWare participates in several modeling markets, including BPA. This will appeal to organizations that prefer to acquire an EA solution that integrates a repository with modeling capabilities. • QualiWare products contain a rich metamodel out of the box, with coverage of business, information, technology and solution architectures, as well as business strategy and environmental influences. This provides a firm foundation on which to structure and relate the variety of information that is of interest to enterprise architects. Cautions • Some QualiWare users that we have spoken to have remarked on the complexity of the tool and the length of time it takes to become productive. This is exacerbated by the rudimentary help documentation in the tool and lack of tutorials and worked samples. Organizations seeking ease of use should consider alternatives.
8 • QualiWare has enjoyed considerable success in its Scandinavian base and has successfully established a presence in North America. However, with estimated revenue from EA between $5 million and $25 million, QualiWare is still a relatively small, private company that earns most of its revenue in Europe. In our opinion, this lack of scale results in vulnerability to a takeover. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility.
• Although we get glowing reports about the support provided by many of the small vendors in this market, retaining high satisfaction levels on a much larger scale is very challenging. However, the Sybase customers we’ve spoken to have been very happy with the support services that they have experienced and have rated it highly. This attention to customers positions Sybase well in its plans to provide moreextensive EA capabilities and will appeal to organizations that value excellent support.
Salamander
Cautions
Strengths
• PowerDesigner has few features that assist with the management of architecture activities – features such as associating development status (for example, in development, baselined or being retired) with an object or managing discussions related to objects. Organizations wanting moreextensive support for the management of their architecture work should consider alternatives.
• Although Salamander has customers across a range of industries, it has considerable focus on EA support in the military and intelligence community, and it has had considerable success with this constituency – particularly in its U.K. home base. It also has a team dedicated to the natural resources sector. For these reasons, Salamander is an attractive choice in these two industries. • Salamander’s variants allow the representation of different architecture configurations. Variants are powerful, because they can be structured as a tree, showing divergences from a common heritage. The differences between variants can be displayed graphically. This is particularly useful in a federated organization, with business units sharing some aspects of the architecture and being independent in other aspects of the architecture. Cautions • Salamander does not have a wide geographic presence, with customers primarily located in the U.K. and other western European countries. Although the Internet and electronic communications have reduced the impact of distance, organizations outside Salamander’s home base should clarify ongoing support arrangements. • With estimated revenue from EA between $5 million and $25 million, Salamander is growing rapidly, although it is still a relatively small, private company. In our opinion, this lack of scale results in vulnerability to a takeover. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility.
Sybase Strengths • As well as competing in the EA tool market, Sybase’s PowerDesigner participates in several modeling markets, including database design, in which it has a 35% market share. This will appeal to organizations that prefer to acquire an EA solution that integrates a repository with modeling capabilities – particularly those with a strong focus on information architecture.
• Sybase’s marketing materials give no visibility to the use of PowerDesigner for enterprise architecture. Organizations considering the use of PowerDesigner for enterprise architecture must be prepared to make additional efforts to understand how to best use the product for this purpose.
Troux Technologies Strengths • During the past five years, Troux Technologies has established itself as a major vendor in the EA tool market. A key contributor to this success is the company’s unwavering focus on strategic IT planning, of which enterprise architecture is a major element. Troux has been able to effectively articulate this vision to appeal to enterprise architects. It has also been able to translate this vision into innovative product capabilities and to bring these to market. Troux is a good choice for organizations seeking sophisticated support for their enterprise architecture. • Troux has the ability to provide advanced architecture configuration management capabilities through the recently introduced Troux Initiatives product. Troux Initiatives enables a range of programs to be described, with each program permitted multiple future options that can be explored. Furthermore, within each of the options, there is the ability to track how an object, such as a server or an application, changes over time. This will be attractive to large, complex organizations – particularly federated organizations. • Troux Collection provides starter sets for importing information from a range of sources that include runtime environments, such as middleware and server directories. However, the real value of Troux Collection is that it allows rules to be configured to resolve conflicting information from multiple sources and to validate and aggregate information, as well as providing automatic scheduling of data collection. This is particularly useful for organizations that want to regularly refresh the current-state-architecture information in the repository from the actual runtime environment.
9 • A range of capabilities foster EA collaboration and governance. These include the ability to remind users of their obligations to refresh information in the repository. There is also the ability for architecture stakeholders to make journal entries or blog posts about various information within the repository. This will suit those organizations that require management rigor in their EA processes, as well as fostering collaboration between architecture contributors. Cautions • Despite its leadership in the EA tool market and adequate cash from investors, Troux has an estimated revenue from EA of between $5 million and $25 million and has yet to achieve profitability. Combined with its attractive product capabilities, in our opinion, Troux is a tempting takeover target. Although a new owner may retain key personnel and continue to enhance its solution, there is an element of uncertainty. Buyers should negotiate contract conditions that bind successor companies to protect them against this possibility. • We have received some reports of Troux’s sales force lacking responsiveness. This is particularly so for midsize organizations in locations that are remote from Troux’s offices in Texas, the U.K. and Germany. Although the new CEO, David Hood, is strengthening the sales force, midsize organizations remote from Troux’s locations may need to be particularly persistent to get its attention.
Vendors Added or Dropped We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a vendor.
Acronym Key and Glossary Terms ASG BPA EA
Allen Systems Group business process analysis enterprise architecture
10 Evaluation Criteria Definitions Ability to Execute Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that compete in/serve the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria. Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization’s financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue investing in the product, to continue offering the product and to advance the state of the art within the organization’s portfolio of products. Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor’s capabilities in all pre-sales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, pre-sales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel. Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor’s history of responsiveness. Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization’s message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This “mind share” can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities. Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so on. Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis. Completeness of Vision Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers’ wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen and understand buyers’ wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision. Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements. Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base. Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor’s approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and future requirements. Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor’s underlying business proposition. Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals. Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes. Geographic Strategy: The vendor’s strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the “home” or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.