Event
Summary
NextSet, a provider of open, high-performance Internet trading
exchange solutions, and Talarian Corporation (NASDAQ: TALR),
a vendor of real-time infrastructure software, announced today they have
entered into a partnership that will allow the two companies to offer
complete Internet exchange solutions. According to a joint press release
by the two vendors, "the combined platform is designed to allow customers
faster time-to-market when combining NextSet's Evolution open
B2B platform and Internet exchange applications with the reliability,
scalability and security found in the Talarian SmartSockets product."
"Talarian
welcomes the opportunity to partner with NextSet, offering complete Internet
exchange solutions to the e-Business world," said Tom Laffey, Chief Technical
Officer for Talarian. "Our products have successfully provided security
and scalability for a variety of real-time revenue critical environments
found in the leading financial exchanges. We see NextSet as a key partner
in helping us provide reliable Internet exchange solutions for business-critical
problems across all industries."
General
availability of the integrated products is scheduled for early 2001.
Market
Impact
Once
again, an enterprise application integration vendor has seen the growing
market for integrated business-to-business exchanges and is looking for
a place at the table. Undoubtedly, other EAI software houses will be closely
examining this new product and using what they learn to catch up quickly.
The EAI and B2B markets are moving at such a rapid pace that the "keep
up or die" syndrome has set in with a vengeance. This development coincides
with announcements by webMethods, Tibco, and other leading
EAI vendors regarding product releases along the same lines.
User
Recommendations
Companies considering creating business-to-business trading exchanges
should include the Talarian/NextSet solution on a long list of candidates.
The vendors appear to understand that the customer's environment is likely
to be non-transactional, unreliable (stateless) and low-performance (at
least for a portion of the unit of work). The fact that they are aiming
to create a product that solves these problems is a good starting point
for a dialog between prospective customers and the vendors.
In
addition, since the product will not be available until early 2001, customers
may be able to negotiate price based on willingness to be a beta customer.