Large suppliers of packaged business-automation suites and smaller niche players are poised to squeeze out specialist vendors such as webMethods in the integration-software market, research firm Gartner says.
Gartner predicts this will become more apparent in the next few years as enterprises choose to buy low-cost alternatives to more expensive integration-technology sources.
However, webMethods co-founder, chairman and chief executive Phillip Merrick said this forecast had failed to take into account that his company's business-integration system had become more affordable and was built to open standards.
'We continue to lead the application integration market with a deep commitment to the success of our customers by providing the industry's most complete and powerful integration suite,' he said.
He also said that Gartner, in November, ranked webMethods as a leader in the application market, 'underscoring the company's consistent execution, corporate vision and commitment to delivering the most comprehensive end-to-end integration platform'.
Still, Gartner predicts that the adoption of integration technologies inside packaged business-automation suites from large vendors such as IBM and Microsoft will increase significantly from last year to 2006.