IBM Offers Integration Software For Small BusinessesIBM Offers Integration Software For Small Businesses

IBM is bringing its WebSphere Business Integration Server to small and medium-sized businesses. But integrating the software infrastructure of a business even of that size remains a daunting task.

The light version of Business Integration Server, which is sold as part of the company's Express line designed for small and midsize companies, comes with about 10 connectors and adapters for generic linkages, such as tying a new Web application to an XML messaging system, a Web service, or a relational database via Java Database Connectivity. But if a company wants Business Integration Server Express to connect to enterprise applications, such as those offered by PeopleSoft or SAP, it'll have to shell out around $15,000 for the additional specialized adapter, says Shawn Willett, an analyst with Current Analysis.

The Express version of Business Integration Server comes with a low price tag of $5,999. It's positioned just below the price point of a competing Microsoft product for small and medium-sized businesses, BizTalk Server, listed at $6,999 for the standard version.

Business Integration Server Express is the latest of a growing list of IBM Express products. Express versions of WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Application Server preceded it, and, like them, Integration Server Express comes with many settings preconfigured for a small or medium-sized business. The customer is guided through those that remain via a visual user interface that shows a recommended setting, then helps the user decide whether to change it. Configuration wizards do the more-complex configuration work behind the scenes, says Scott Cosby, IBM's program manager for WebSphere Business Integration Server.

"Customers are telling us, 'Don't hand me a blank sheet of paper every time I go to install one of your products. Give me some choices,'" Cosby says.

Still, using integration software, with or without wizards, remains a complex task and will perplex some small and medium-sized businesses with small IT staffs, Willett says.

The biggest users of Express may be the value-added resellers and systems integrators whose skills mesh with the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

One such company, Rockwell Automation Inc., offers a factory-floor automation system with a manufacturing process package called Arena. Beth Parkinson, director of strategic alliances at Rockwell, says she would like to see Arena aligned with the business-process-modeling tools in Business Integration Server Express.

"These two are very complementary. We are talking to IBM about how we can combine them," Parkinson says.

The business-process modeling in the Express version is different from that in the full-bore Business Integration Server, Willett says. It's IBM's entry-level process-modeling tool, derived from its acquisition in early 2002 of CrossWorlds Software Inc. Its models will be more software-to-software business process based, such as when a messaging system passes along information to a database or application. It won't capture a business-process workflow that would include human interventions, sign-offs, or approvals, Willett says.

The Express modeling can be used to not only model current processes but to simulate business processes desired in the future, showing their potential bottlenecks, Cosby says. Other IBM partners that install Express include Gemini Systems and Netcom Systems.