Who’s Who in EAI

Here's how Tim Lind, senior analyst, investment management at TowerGroup, described some of the players in the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) market during a presentation at TowerGroup's recent conference. He also outlined the SWIFT footprints of some of the biggest names in technology. While not a comprehensive list, it's a good place to start.

Heliograph: Boutique financial services firm that "blurs integration and application." Also, look for their "interesting corporate actions system."

Vitria: "A pioneer." Which means they've been at it since 1997.

Tibco: The biggest EAI vendor, but because Reuters bundles its market data with Tibco's low-end integration services, the company cannot sell directly to financial services firms.

SunGard: Big in the capital markets arena. "Parentage brings stability."

WebMethods: B2B leader. A "newcomer," but second only to Tibco in size. Going for financial vertical focus, has SWIFT petition for its message library.

Mercator: "Generates more SWIFT messages than any other EAI. "Important player."

SeeBeyond: "Strong technology" at version 5.0, with J2EE integrated stack.

Sybase / Financial Fusion: "Great franchise in FIX engines."

THE BIG GUYS

IBM: "Makes more money in integration than anyone." WebSphere going vertical into financial services.

BEA Software: "Adding integration on top of application server." Has SWIFT petition for its message library.

Microsoft: With 94 percent share on the desktop, "Where else can they go?" To the securities market, evidently. Biztalk being used in market as STP bridge for capture of post-trade processes. Accessible "through tools like Outlook - there's just a lot of familiarity there."

Sun Microsystems: "Lowering the cost of getting in." "A potentially disruptive pricing model."

Also look for SWIFT-related activity from HP, Oracle and SAP, according to Lind.