Comments on: Software AG to become webMethods?

By: Steve Craggs

Steve Craggs — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:38:53 +0000

There is now a free Lustratus Insight available from the Lustratus site, http://www.lustratus.com, that discusses the acquisition of webMethods by Software AG in more detai.

By: Steve Craggs

Steve Craggs — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:42:49 +0000

Good comments Tony and Michael. Lustratus will be issuing an advisory Lustratus Insight on Monday 16th April as guidance to Software AG and webMethods users and prospects.
In answer to your point about Sagavista, Tony, I think this is a little different. webMethods has a widely recognized brand in the SOA space already, so the risk is greatly reduced. On Michael’s point, everything you say is possible. However I confess I am a bit more optimistic as long as the hard decisions are taken up front.
Steve

By: Michael Kuhbock

Michael Kuhbock — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 04:27:25 +0000

Steve,
The question is will this be a seamless merger or a battle of wills and egos where time is wasted and any synergy is lost? I fear the latter. On paper, despite the overlap, both companies and their clients have much to gain from this union, the critical issue is now how quickly the new entity and offerings can get to market. In the SOA space the majors are working with billion dollar sales and marketing budgets and flooding the marketplace with branding and noise (propagating the general state of confusion if you ask me), thus it will be difficult for any player the size of Software AG + webMethods to effectively get into the game in an meaningful way. Rest assured the new Software AG will try to pony up the vending budget and throw money at the analysts and media to gain some market identity, thus unfortunately they will drown in the sea of the majors branding and messages. This is too bad as bigger is not always better for the customers and not everyone needs to buy everything they require at Wal-Mart.
Just my 2 cents….

By: Tony Baer

Tony Baer — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:45:52 +0000

Your colleague Ronan Bradley alerted me to your analysis.
If I were Software AG, I’d think twice about renaming. Remember Sagavista?