On 5 November 2007, Inovis, a provider of software and services for the multienterprise infrastructure and application market segment, announced that it has acquired BetweenMarkets. BetweenMarkets provides procurement performance management, deduction management and contract performance management applications to supply chain hubs. It also offers fulfillment management, chargeback avoidance management and real-time contact compliance management applications to suppliers.

Providers of integration as a service (IaaS) are seeking new ways to add value to their customers' multienterprise integration projects beyond basic connectivity and transport services (see "Sterling Adds Comergent E-Business Functions to Its Portfolio"). This acquisition includes TradeAccelerator, a comprehensive business process model-driven approach to data quality and compliance monitoring. It will be delivered as both software and software as a service (SaaS) along with Inovis' IaaS offering, Inovisworks.net. It includes pre-built solutions that can be used to detect noncompliance issues in supply chains to help suppliers avoid chargebacks.

The newly acquired BetweenMarkets capabilities are a good complement to Inovis’ core competency in product information cataloging and retail. The deal also strengthens Inovis' ability to market a multienterprise master data management capability. Inovis gains domain expertise and pre-built model-based business activity monitoring (BAM) solutions that are superior to its retail-focused Reveal product, which it will replace. (Pre-built multienterprise BAM solutions are superior to general-purpose process visibility tools when they solve specific business problems.) Inovis' challenges will be to help Reveal users migrate, and to effectively leverage its new BAM capabilities in other verticals. Applications such as TradeAccelerator are well-suited to be deployed as a multienterprise application, whereby all members of a community can share one version of the master data. Inovis will need to capitalize on this value proposition while positioning this capability as a form of community management that extends, rather than threatens, its customers' internal ERP applications.

• Inovis customers: Ask for a product road map that smoothly reconciles Inovis' catalog and Reveal solutions with the new data quality management (DQM) and BAM capabilities acquired via BetweenMarkets.
• Prospects looking for DQM and compliance management solutions: Add Inovis to your vendor selection shortlists, especially if you are looking to use these products in conjunction with other multienterprise integration solutions.