Update on The B2B Frenzy

In my recent post, Liaison and ADX Fuel The B2B Frenzy, I addressed a wide range of vendor landscape changes in B2B integration market segment. Here’s an update on related research:

• Tibco’s acquisition of Foresight on Friday — my colleagues and I are still working on that
• The GXS acquisition of Inovis — we just published a more detailed analysis (login req’d)
• SPS Commerce’ December IPO filing with the SEC — detailed analysis on that available soon
• Liaison acquired ADX in January — I recently published some analysis on that (public)
• Oracle’s alliance with E2open on Business Process Networks — research here (login req’d)

What’s happening? Well, as companies strive for operational efficiency and new revenue opportunities in a challenging economy, B2B continues to florish as a key IT initiative. And, larger B2B providers are snapping up bargains while the others continue to mature and expand their own operations in anticipation (and hope) for economic recovery. And finally, mega-application vendor Oracle is dancing with E2open and SAP continues to raise its stakes with Crossgate — for years we’ve wondered how long they would continue to treat B2B as a second-class IT citizen — its not likley this status-quo can last much longer.

Net-Net: The B2B vendor landscape has never been so volitale — or interesting. Expect it to remain so through 2010 and into 2011

– bjl