Most of the business-to-business (B2B) gateway software solutions rated in this Magic Quadrant have matured to the point where they can support a wide range of B2B projects; nevertheless, areas of substantial product functional differentiation remain, including overall product maturity, scalability, service-oriented architecture (SOA) service enablement, architectural coherence and community management. Vendors also differ substantially in terms of price/value, market understanding, market share, industry domain expertise, international strategies, global sales and support, and — last but not least — customer experience.

The B2B gateway software market is growing and dynamic, which reflects IT users' changing (and increasingly challenging) requirements for more-capable B2B gateway software solutions to support more (and increasingly sophisticated) B2B projects. Factors affecting the B2B gateway software market include:

• Growing B2B gateway software market: Companies are implementing more sophisticated B2B projects, and, therefore, will be spending more on B2B gateway software during the next five years.
• Increasing B2B gateway software maturity: During the past two years, basic B2B gateway software functionality, such as communications and transformation, has become more common, so vendors are differentiating themselves more in areas such as business activity monitoring (BAM) and SOA support.
• Community management: As companies scale-up their B2B projects, they're challenging B2B gateway software vendors to simplify the administration of all external business partner profiles, connections, service-level agreements (SLAs) and trading partner agreements.
• Cloud computing: As these scenarios (such as software as a service — SaaS) emerge, cloud-based service providers often will need B2B gateway software to link cloud-based services to customers' internal IT infrastructures.
• SOA and application-to-application (A2A) extension: Many B2B gateway software vendors are increasingly positioning their B2B gateway software solutions as simple extensions of their internal (aka, A2A) integration middleware, such as SOA infrastructure or an enterprise service bus (ESB).
• SOA governance technology will increasingly be combined with or embedded in B2B gateway software solutions to ensure users that assets and artifacts in their SOAs are operating as expected in B2B projects.
• B2B infrastructure modernization: One of the most-important trends affecting the B2B gateway software market is IT user modernization of their B2B infrastructures to replace aging, unmanageable, B2B point solutions.
• Vendor acquisitions: During the past two years, the B2B gateway software market has been very active; at least four vendors with B2B gateway software offerings have been acquired, and additional acquisitions are expected.
• Embedded managed file transfer (MFT): Although there's still an active market for stand-alone MFT software solutions, B2B gateway software vendors increasingly offer MFT functionality as an embedded feature or "add on" option for their B2B gateway software.
• EDI is dead — long live EDI: Despite industrywide predictions of its demise in the late 1990s, electronic data interchange (EDI) use in many industries (such as automotive, retail and manufacturing) continues to increase.
• Status of B2B in Europe: Backed by maturing and proliferating cross-border B2B integration projects, the B2B gateway software market in Europe is active and growing rapidly, fueled by several European-driven economic trends.

All these B2B gateway software market trends are described in more detail in "Market Update for Business-to-Business Gateway Software Vendors."

B2B gateway software is a form of integration middleware that's used to consolidate and centralize a company's multienterprise data, application and process integration, and interoperability requirements with external business partners. It's one of three types of B2B infrastructure software (see "Taxonomy and Definitions for the Multienterprise/B2B Infrastructure Market"). Centrally managing B2B projects via B2B gateway software:

• Gives companies economies of scale, a deeper insight into the technical aspects of data integration, transaction delivery and process integration (that is, consolidating, tracking, storing and auditing files, messages, process events, acknowledgments, receipts, errors and exceptions)
• Provides a central, reusable repository for external business partner profiles and processes (valuable when dealing with large numbers of external business partners, and when multiple business units interact with the same partners or provision partners with similar processes)
• Provides support for various data formats, mappings, transports and communication protocols, and security standards

Although many companies outsource some of their B2B infrastructures (to integration-as-a-service [IaaS] providers — a different form of B2B infrastructure), B2B gateway software continues (and will continue) to be in high demand from companies of every size, and across all industries that need software to run their B2B infrastructures. In particular, most midsize-to-large companies eventually will deploy some form of B2B gateway software to manage their B2B integration projects.

The multienterprise/B2B gateway software market is composed of middleware technology from multiple disciplines, including the integration backbone (also called integration brokers), ESBs, application servers, application platform suites (APSs), EDI translators and the B2B-enabled integration middleware, which is increasingly available with packaged applications (for example, Oracle Fusion and SAP NetWeaver).

The B2B gateway software market can be called a "market" because IT users are specifically looking for technology that enables them to manage all aspects of multienterprise projects in a way that's abstracted from, but integrates with, other parts of their IT infrastructures. As integration disciplines and technology mature, many companies that have invested in integration middleware will likely change, upgrade or augment that middleware. Because automating B2B interactions is essential to bottom-line and top-line revenue, companies are increasingly seeking to implement an abstract layer of functionality that enables e-commerce and other forms of process and data execution on multiple layers, including batch and bulk, message-oriented and service-centric.

To be considered for the Magic Quadrant for B2B Gateway Providers, a vendor must:

1. Be sold and deployed as a stand-alone application.
   • B2B gateway software can be optionally packaged as a component of a larger "IT stack" of software, but must also be deployable heterogeneously in conjunction with third-party applications, middleware or operating systems.
2. Substantially support comprehensive, general-purpose B2B functionality.
   • B2B gateway software must include support for B2B protocols, community management, security, transformation management, adapters and visibility tools that enable users to consolidate and manage all aspects of B2B interactions.
   • Stand-alone AS2 (Applicability Statement 2) solutions or custom B2B adapters that only support one protocol, connect to only one application or external business partner, or are otherwise unsuitable for consolidation B2B projects weren't considered in this evaluation.
3. Generate at least $10 million in annual license revenue ...
   • ... or the equivalent amount in foreign currency. Exceptions may be made for vendors that don't meet this particular criterion, but otherwise have a substantial impact on the B2B market.
4. Have a substantial impact on the B2B gateway software market.
   • To be considered for this Magic Quadrant, vendors must have sufficient impact on the B2B gateway software market, as determined by buyer demand for their solutions, Gartner client interest and other factors.

"Megavendors": During the past two years, via product enhancements and increasing "mind share" and market share, megavendors IBM and Microsoft have been gaining ground on the relative leadership of prominent B2B vendors, such as Axway and Sterling Commerce. This is understandable, given the increasing importance of B2B as just another aspect of the IT stack offered by those vendors. Two other megavendors, Oracle and SAP, are notably absent. Although Oracle offers B2B gateway software in association with Oracle Fusion, Oracle isn't competing directly in the B2B gateway software market (see below for a more-detailed analysis of Oracle's offering). Similarly, SAP's B2B solution is limited in functionality, and SAP prefers to rely on the offering of its business partner, Seeburger, to address advanced B2B project requirements.

Oracle offers a B2B gateway that, in conjunction with other Oracle Fusion Middleware products, can be used to implement general-purpose B2B infrastructure. However, Oracle isn't strategically competing to "win" in the B2B software infrastructure market, per se. Its B2B gateway is bundled with Oracle Application Server 10g Enterprise Edition, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Business Integration and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus. In each case, the B2B gateway supports trading partner management (TPM) and document management, and separate adapters are available for B2B protocols, such as RosettaNet and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In addition, the B2B gateway natively supports XML translation via its XSLT-based BPEL engine, but the B2B server lacks built-in support for essential B2B infrastructure capabilities, such as EDI translation (technology Oracle resells from Edifecs) and MFT. Oracle customers (particularly those committed to Oracle Fusion overall) that need to implement general-purpose B2B infrastructure for small and midsize B2B projects should consider Oracle SOA Suite (for B2B projects involving SOA) or Oracle Integration and Oracle Enterprise Service Bus (for B2B projects not involving SOA); otherwise, consider alternatives.

Smaller vendors: Several smaller vendors (for example, Cleo Communications, eZCom Software, Basware, Kewill, Softshare, Spe+EDI and Tie) weren't rated because they didn't meet all acceptance criteria for this Magic Quadrant. However, because of B2B market growth, they are being mentioned more often, so for the next publication of this Magic Quadrant, some of them may be included.

• nuBridges acquired iSoft and is rated on this Magic Quadrant for its nuBridges Exchange B2B gateway software.
• Software AG acquired webMethods and is rated on this Magic Quadrant for its Trading Networks B2B gateway software.
• Sun Microsystems has entered the B2B gateway software market with its Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite, which is rated on this Magic Quadrant.

• Click Commerce was acquired by Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and hasn't been competing aggressively in the stand-alone B2B gateway software market.
• iSoft was acquired by nuBridges (see above).
• Oracle still offers a B2B gateway software solution, but is no longer competing aggressively in the stand-alone B2B gateway software market (see a more-detailed analysis above).
• webMethods was acquired by Software AG (see above).
• Cyclone Commerce was acquired by Axway; rated individually before, but now rated as the combined vendor.

Product/Service

Core goods and services that compete in and serve the market. This category includes product and service capabilities, quality, feature sets and skills that are offered natively or through OEMs as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria. For B2B gateway software providers, we consider product/service in the following categories:

Community management: Includes the initial external business partner profile development (that is, defining approved communication protocols, data formats and security), the provisioning process (such as external business partner registration, invitations, software deployment and testing), and managing and maintaining these when they're in production (for example, certificate, user ID and password management; SLA compliance monitoring and profile change management). The community management application should include an easy-to-use, customizable portal that trading partners can use for self-provisioning and accessing other B2B gateway applications.

Translation is used to convert B2B data into a form that can be consumed by internal business applications, such as SAP. There's still a separate market for stand-alone translation software, but translation functionality is now an essential feature of B2B gateway software, and is also available in most forms of middleware, including ESBs, business process management (BPM) systems and so on. Translation functionality should support "any to any" syntactic and semantic transformation and mapping to process EDI and XML-based standards, such as X12 and RosettaNet. The mapping user interfaces for translation should be robust and easy to use, and include common, predefined map templates and graphical-user-interface- (GUI-) based map development. Best-of-breed translators should be able to support high-volume translations (for example, a large number of translations per second) and large file translations (for example, decomposing large files into multiple, concurrent translation threads).

(Secure) Communications: The application for securing communications should address the multiple layers of security, including:

• Securing the physical connection by encrypting the "wire" via a variety of methods, including Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Secure Shell (SSH) or virtual private network (VPN), Web services security, or transport over leased lines or frame relays.
• Securing the data via encryption. This includes the use of digital certificates and standards, such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). The B2B gateway must be able to integrate with third-party certificate authorities, handle X.509 certificates, and deal with revocations and expired credentials.
• Accessing control from an external mechanism (LDAP, Active Directory and enterprise asset management tools) or an internal (to the B2B gateway) application.

In addition to security functionality, the B2B gateway should support a variety of popular and legacy B2B standards and protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP; Secure Multipurpose Internet Messaging Extensions (S/MIME), HTTPs and FTPs; X.25/frame relay; asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Systems Network Architecture (SNA); IBM WebSphere MQ and Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX); and popular XML variants (such as ebXML and RosettaNet).

SOA: Best-of-breed B2B gateway software will be implemented using SOA design methodologies, such that B2B gateway software components (such as a communication server and translation engine) can interoperate (and with third-party-middleware-using services). An ESB provides greater scalability via distributed monitoring features, persistent queuing, guaranteed delivery and other quality-of-service (QOS) features. SOA governance technologies, such as a registry and policy management, will provide governance of SOA services for the B2B gateway software to directly manage SOA service publication or consumption, or to enable the B2B gateway software to integrate with SOA governance provided by third-party middleware.

Adapter technologies: B2B gateway vendors often provide various adapters that make it easier to integrate their B2B gateway software with internal business applications and systems. These include using FTP to drop messages onto a file server, integrating with applications using Web services, or using prepackaged adapters to feed the message into the application programming interface of middleware, a business application or a database.

MFT: Although there's still a separate and growing market for stand-alone MFT software, MFT functionality is increasingly being offered as a feature of B2B gateway software. MFT functionality is used to consolidate and manage the movement of large (at least 500MB) and bulky messages that are transported via FTP or proprietary protocols. To achieve performance and high QOS, best-of-breed MFT functionality uses streaming technology, compression and restart functionality.

BPM: Mature B2B gateway software enables designers to use process modeling and workflow to define B2B interactions. BPM should enable the designer to invoke desired transport protocols, security and translation based on trading partner profiles and other business rules and requirements, such as document types (for example, purchase orders). Conversely, the B2B gateway software should enable external BPM middleware to invoke individual B2B gateway services, such as transport and translation.

BAM and event management: Reports, repositories and tools used to monitor B2B activity. At runtime, information about B2B events (such as transactions, error notifications and acknowledgements) are filtered, captured and analyzed. Ideally, such B2B events can be correlated and present the user with a near-real-time, full life cycle transaction view that may include (using the procurement process as an example) purchase orders, acknowledgments, receipts, advance shipping notices and settlements. In addition, dashboards may graphically display real-time and historical data about interactions, based on the user's profile and permissions (more focused on basic B2B interactions), and with key performance indicators (such as the proportion of trading partners that are in 100% compliance with purchase order response time SLAs) to convey the state of B2B interactions from a business point of view.

Portals and portlets: B2B gateway software may include portals to support external business partners that aren't IT-savvy enough to support direct B2B integration. Other portal features, such as WSRP (Web Service for Remote Portlets), may be available to enable third-party portal solutions to integrate with B2B gateway software.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization)

Includes an assessment of the vendor's overall financial health, the financial and practical success of the relevant business unit, and the likelihood of that business unit continuing to invest in and offer the product from the vendor's portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing

The vendor's capabilities in presales activities and the structure that supports them. This criterion includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record

The vendor's capability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution

The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the vendor's message to influence the market, promote its brand and business, increase awareness of its products, and establish a positive identification of its product or brand with buyers. This mind share can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotions, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience

Relationships, products, services and programs that enable clients to succeed with the products evaluated. This criterion includes how customers receive technical support or account support. It also can include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and their quality), availability of user groups and SLAs.

Operations

The vendor's capability to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, such as skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the vendor to operate effectively and efficiently.

Market Understanding

The vendor's capability to understand buyers' needs and translate them into products and services. A vendor that shows the highest degree of vision listens and understands buyers' wants and needs, which it can shape or enhance with its own vision.

Marketing Strategy

A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and publicized via the Web site, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy

A strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates to extend the scope and depth of a vendor's market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy

A vendor's approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functions, methodologies and feature sets in relation to current and future requirements.

Business Model

The validity and logic of a vendor's underlying business proposition.

Vertical/Industry Strategy

A vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the needs of market segments, including vertical industries.

Innovation

Marshaling resources, expertise or capital for competitive advantage, investment, consolidation or defense against acquisition.

Geographic Strategy

A vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the needs of regions outside the vendor's "home" or native area, directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for that region and market.

These vendors are likely to have high revenue and commitment to the market, high market share and installed bases, and products that are of interest to large audiences. In addition, leaders have demonstrated domain expertise and presented compelling messages that have penetrated the market (intentionally or unintentionally).

Axway has evolved significantly since the last Magic Quadrant. During that time, it acquired and successfully integrated Cyclone Commerce and the B2B assets of Atos Origin in Germany (including a B2B gateway, Actis, which had a respectable penetration in the German automotive industry). Cyclone's powerful TPM has been integrated into Axway's main family of products (Synchrony), which has been further enriched by a BPM package and is now service-based, and supports multitenancy (Axway partners with HP in North America for IaaS, and with Atos Origin in Europe for IaaS and B2B project outsourcing). Axway has based strong growth on the widening of its product offerings and client base in other geographies or vertical industries. However, Axway is still struggling with marketing traction and with getting its brand name recognized worldwide, especially in North America. Its move into the B2B service market is late; powerful alternatives already exist and prosper in all geographies that Axway targets. The widening of product offerings also comes with the additional challenges of extending support capabilities, and suggested customer migration strategies where acquired product lines duplicate functionality. Axway growth is promising and its leadership position is solid, but the challenges it faces must be attacked effectively in the short term for continued success.

IBM WebSphere Partner Gateway (WPG) is a standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition application that's been developed (and has recently been certified) to run on an embedded version of WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment (WAS ND). Although, by itself, WPG can be used as a stand-alone B2B solution, it's an SOA-enabled framework that's typically deployed in conjunction with WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Business Modeler (for process orchestration and modeling), and either WebSphere Transformation Extender (WTX, formerly the Mercator product) or WebSphere Data Interchange (WDI, formerly the EDI translator for the IBM value-added network — VAN) and other components (such as BAM), to implement user-specified B2B infrastructure. WPG is field-proven in large B2B projects, and its various components, including community management, industry protocols, and WTX and WDI translation, are all mature, reflecting the evolution of the software through several generations of development. In addition to proven reliability and scalability, WPG configurability and extensibility are key differentiators, but this flexibility can make implementing B2B projects with WPG more complex than with other solutions. For example, although the WPG embedded translator will meet the needs of many new customers, for various reasons, users also may choose to leverage any of the three other translators offered by IBM for use with WPG, including WDI, WTX or the IBM WebSphere DataPower appliance. Relative to other B2B solutions, a typical WPG configuration can be expensive. That, combined with WPG's typical deployment in conjunction with other components of the WebSphere IT stack, is probably the reason why WPG isn't as widely deployed, and usually is shortlisted only by IBM WebSphere users.

Inovis' flagship B2B gateway software solution, BizManager, is an innovative product that has evolved through several generations of enhancements, and via additions from new developments: Extricity Software for B2B process choreography; TrustedLink Windows environment for EDI translation; IPNet Solutions for AS2; QRS Reveal for BAM; and, more recently, BetweenMarkets for best-of-breed vendor compliance and data quality. BizManager (and the still-widely deployed TrustedLink Windows environment) are reliable and proven in high-performance B2B projects, and give IT users the opportunity to combine BizManager for direct B2B with the Inovisworks.net IaaS (VAN) solution for hybrid B2B projects that leverage B2B software and services. Users also cite good product documentation and support. Regardless, Inovis' challenge is to increase mind share and market share — particularly for large-scale multinational B2B projects — given its traditional small and midsize business (SMB) focus and limited international footprint.

Microsoft has strengthened its position in the B2B market partly via continued enhancements to the B2B capabilities of its flagship integration middleware product, BizTalk Server 2006 R2. More-recent enhancements include community management, enhanced EDI and metadata management technology that's partly based on technology Microsoft acquired from Covast. Microsoft also has released BizTalk Server Accelerators for specific industry solutions, such as Health Level Seven (HL7) and RosettaNet, and is executing well in its alliance with GXS, whereby BizTalk users can administer their entire B2B communities, including external business partners to which they connect directly with BizTalk, and external business partners to which they connect indirectly via the GXS Trading Grid. One of Microsoft's core strengths is value pricing; its reasonably priced ($35,000) Enterprise Edition of BizTalk Server 2006 R2 includes all B2B protocols, adapters and BizTalk Accelerators, as well as low-cost "Branch" and "Standard" editions to help contain the cost of large-scale B2B projects. Although B2B isn't a major, high-level Microsoft marketing message, and its B2B solution isn't best of breed in community management, EDI or MFT, Microsoft is having a significant impact on the B2B market, mostly because BizTalk is a reasonably priced and well-rounded B2B solution. It's sold through a wide range of distributors, resellers and system integrators, and it's increasingly shortlisted and adopted for B2B projects, including a few early-adopter, large-scale projects.

Seeburger, another major European integration vendor, has increased its North American presence and established itself as a strong international player, mainly based on the excellence of its technology (whose IP is completely owned by Seeburger). Its customer base continues to expand and its financials still look extremely healthy (Seeburger has been profitable for the 22 years during which it's been selling in the B2B market). Its Business Integration Server, which we've evaluated for this Magic Quadrant, contains a high-performance, any-to-any transformation engine that's especially well-suited for EDI, integration with BPM, several vertical applications and, at its core, is a fully interoperable service bus. Also notable is Seeburger's Paper-to-ERP functionality (which converts fax documents in and out of the gateway) that, when used in conjunction with TPM, enables connectivity with partners of any size or IT maturity. However, Seeburger now faces several tough challenges: Its focus on internally developed technology excellence limits its capability to grow through acquisition, or to further expand a B2B service offering that started two years ago and never properly "took off." Seeburger's future as an independent company has always been the subject of unconfirmed speculation; the company is still privately held, but a recent, extensive management turnover hasn't helped "clear the air." It must be noted, however, that good technologies typically survive acquisitions, because acquiring leading functionality in an expanding market remains one of the most-common reasons for takeovers.

Software AG (which acquired webMethods) has strengthened its leadership position in the B2B market with its flagship B2B gateway software offering, Trading Networks. It positions Trading Networks as a way to B2B-enable internal SOA and integration projects. During the past two years, Software AG has enhanced Trading Networks' EDI and community management capabilities, and the product has been proved in large-scale B2B projects that often combine traditional EDI and e-commerce protocols with SOA and Web services. Although Software AG is a software vendor, it has demonstrated its understanding of the IaaS role in B2B projects by selling its B2B software to be used in the data centers of IaaS providers (such as Elemica, Exostar and GXS), and also by its well-executed alliance with GXS (as a software partner for GXS customers that wish to implement B2B software and services). Software AG's recently released Optimize for B2B gives IT users best-of-breed, end-to-end BAM for internal and B2B projects. Trading Networks is a strong, well-rounded B2B gateway software solution, but it usually isn't shortlisted for B2B consolidation projects — partly because of its price and because its MFT capabilities aren't best of breed, relative to other B2B solutions.

Sterling Commerce has maintained strong leadership and market share with its flagship B2B gateway software solution, Gentran Integration Suite (GIS), and with its still-widely used legacy EDI translator, Gentran Server. Recent innovations build on GIS' best-of-breed strengths in product scalability and translation, with add-ons such as Advanced File Transfer (a best-of-breed MFT functionality based on Sterling Commerce's legacy Connect product) and Supply Chain Visibility, as well as industry solutions (such as Multienterprise Financial Gateway for financial services). Although Sterling Commerce has recently refocused its GIS marketing message onto SOA, its GIS solution still doesn't offer an SOA governance technology or a user-accessible ESB. Although Sterling Commerce still benefits from B2B mind share and market share, particularly regarding large-scale B2B consolidation projects involving high-performance EDI, its strength relative to other vendors has slipped, due to its perception as a "traditional" B2B vendor (partly because of its sluggish response to SOA), its inconsistent quality in account management and the sometimes-onerous migration of Gentran users to GIS (see "Think Twice About Migrating From Sterling Commerce's Gentran:Server to Gentran Integration Suite").

Tibco Software positions its flagship B2B gateway software, BusinessConnect, as an extension (in fact, it's a native application) of its flagship (and best-of-breed) internal integration middleware, BusinessWorks. Tibco's primary focus is on SOA, and it positions BusinessConnect primarily as a way for its customers to B2B-enable internal SOA projects. BusinessConnect is highly portable, has strong community management capabilities, and has proved its quality and scalability in large-scale projects. However, its suitability for general-purpose B2B consolidation projects is still challenged by its relatively small market share (relative to other leaders in the B2B market); its limited, built-in MFT capabilities; and its reliance on third-party EDI technology (from Edifecs). Although users have said that BusinessConnect is "worth it," and have cited excellent product support relative to most other B2B gateway software products, BusinessConnect is expensive, which is probably one reason why Tibco is rarely shortlisted for B2B projects.

These vendors have focused significant resources on the market, but they have a narrower understanding of it, as well as a less-impressive product strategy, or they've deliberately chosen to limit the scope of their product lines or commitment to the market.

iWay Software: During the past three years, iWay entered the B2B market with capabilities including support for popular B2B protocols, such as AS2 and ebXML Message Service (ebMS), and its new iWay Trading Manager for community management. Collectively, these new capabilities effectively B2B-enable iWay's SOA middleware, based on iWay Service Manager. iWay's approach to B2B is similar to Oracle's, Software AG's and Tibco's: These vendors treat B2B primarily as an extension of internal SOA infrastructure projects. iWay's differentiation is value-priced, "good enough" B2B capabilities that enable its users to incrementally B2B-enable and extend their SOA infrastructures as their IT projects evolve. This value proposition, combined with iWay's strong parent (Information Builders) and its large international footprint, substantiates iWay's new position in this Magic Quadrant as a challenger to the more well-established B2B vendors. However, when compared with the B2B market leaders, iWay's B2B solution is functionally less mature and less proven in large-scale projects, and the company still has more to learn about EDI, e-commerce and B2B projects in general.

These vendors understand market and customer requirements well, but have fewer assets available or committed to the pursuit of this particular market than the leaders do. Specific to the B2B gateway market, visionaries offer the functionality requirements often requested by Type A (aggressive technology adopter) companies, such as integrated service environments, ESBs, strong community management and support for advanced Web services. However, visionaries often compete in multiple markets, stretching limited resources as they balance/juggle resources and marketing messages.

GXS: During the past few years, GXS has developed its flagship B2B gateway software solution, Enterprise Gateway, mostly by licensing and incorporating new middleware functionality from Software AG (formerly webMethods). In particular, GXS modernized Enterprise Gateway by integrating webMethods Fabric (for SOA infrastructure and BPM) with webMethods Optimize (for BAM) and GXS' legacy Application Integration (for high-performance EDI translation), as well as its original Enterprise Gateway EDI mailboxing and community management capabilities. (Although not directly relevant to this Magic Quadrant, note that GXS also incorporated the webMethods functionality into the GXS Trading Grid.) This approach has enabled GXS to quickly and effectively modernize its B2B gateway software solution and re-establish Enterprise Gateway as a viable, technically innovative B2B gateway software solution. On the surface, it seems like this would make GXS and Software AG direct competitors in the B2B software market, but actually the two companies are executing effectively in an alliance, whereby they work with IT users on joint, hybrid B2B projects that combine Software AG's B2B gateway software solution for direct B2B with GXS' integration services (such as IaaS or B2B project outsourcing) for intermediated B2B connectivity. Although GXS still sells Enterprise Gateway into new accounts, it usually sells Enterprise Gateway into its own B2B service customer base when users wish to implement hybrid software and service-based B2B projects. GXS' approach to modernizing its B2B gateway software has been effective, and it has some strong references for Enterprise Gateway, but the combination of its heavy reliance on third-party B2B gateway software technology and its primary focus on B2B services are conspiring to limit GXS' ability to be a leader in the B2B gateway software market.

Sun Microsystems is a relative newcomer to the B2B gateway software market. Its Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite is implemented as a Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS), and is positioned (as is the case for many other integration middleware vendors) as a B2B-enabler for Sun's SOA infrastructure. Sun Java Business-to-Business Suite is typically deployed in conjunction with one or more of Sun's Protocol Managers (for example, AS2, ebXML and HIPAA), eInsight BPM, SeeBeyond eBAM Studio and Sun Java Identity Management Suite. The Sun Java Identity Management Suite provides security infrastructure, including single sign-on capabilities, to help manage secure SOA provisioning and compliance. Sun's open-standards-based software and worldwide sales and support help position it to effectively address B2B project requirements, particularly for its own integration middleware user base, but Sun's relatively late entry to market, limited adoption and limited B2B gateway software functionality (for example, no MFT and EDI mailboxing capabilities) will probably prevent it from capturing a significant share of the overall B2B gateway software market.

These vendors are limited to particular geographical or industry segments, or have a smaller range of features or resources, or holistically have a limited impact on the B2B gateway software market — all of which preclude them from competing in many major market segments.

nuBridges: Its flagship B2B gateway software, nuBridges Exchange, is the integration of innovative community management technology developed in-house by nuBridges (and formerly called truExchange eBusiness community management suite), and technology from companies that nuBridges acquired, including TrailBlazer Systems (with its AS/400-based FTP and AS2-focused B2B gateway software) and iSoft (with its Windows-based AS2 Commerce Suite). Most nuBridges customers still run TrailBlazer or iSoft point products, but all these are an upsell opportunity because, at some point, many of these customers may want to modernize and scale-up their B2B infrastructures, and would benefit from additional B2B protocols, as well as the BPM-based choreography and community management functionality that's available in nuBridges Exchange. The nuBridges solution is differentiated by its strong community management and flexible, on-premises or on-demand delivery model — the latter enables IT users to deploy any combination of direct connections (using nuBridges Exchange software) and intermediated connections (using nuBridges Exchange IaaS). nuBridges also offers complementary security software for data-at-rest, which it's integrating with nuBridges B2B gateway software and MFT technology. Although nuBridges' capable solutions and deep domain expertise (nearly everyone on nuBridges' executive team is some kind of EDI or B2B veteran) make it a viable regional partner for B2B projects, its late entry to market, limited international footprint and limited B2B mind share have constrained its capability to capture a significant portion of the B2B infrastructure market.

Extol continues to target its flagship B2B gateway software, Extol Business Integrator (EBI), primarily at companies with limited IT skills for B2B projects, which are typically driven by e-commerce mandates issued by external business partners, such as retailers and manufacturers. Extol positions its solution as an "outside-in" integration middleware, meaning it's designed to perform internal integration to support e-commerce mandates. EBI is reasonably priced and portable (that is, it runs on SMB-friendly platforms, including AS/400, Windows and Linux), and the base product is a complete solution (that is, it comes with technology adapters for internal integration, B2B protocols such as AS2 and FTP, translation for EDI and XML, and support for SOA, Web services and essential features, such as MFT) so customers can implement B2B projects with direct internal application integration. Although unproven in large-scale B2B projects, Extol's "rightsize" B2B gateway software is a viable alternative to more-expensive and more-complex solutions to support SMB B2B projects.

Generix Group: A French system integrator operating in retail, wholesale and distribution, Generix acquired a long-standing European B2B software player, Influe-Illicom, in November 2006. Influe-Illicom had a reasonable-size customer base, mostly in France, as well as successful operations in Portugal and Spain (Iberia). In recent months, as per the European Commission's directive, Generix has been rationalizing its product line (before the acquisition, Generix and Influe-Illicom shared many customers) to focus specifically on multienterprise issues (such as the dematerialization of the invoice) in vertical industries where it's been operating since its inception in 1990. Generix is only starting to attack the international market; a mature technology foundation is a good start, but wide-ranging challenges (mainly in terms of international recognition, the capability to enrich an aging product line, the startup of B2B services and strong competition) are standing in front of Generix.

• Well-established customer base worldwide
• Mature technology, service-based
• Leveraging acquisitions at best

• Limited Axway brand awareness (especially in North America)
• Just entering B2B service market
• Reconciling acquired products' functional overlap
• Low horizontal product marketing effectiveness

• Portable, well-integrated, rightsize solution
• SMB-friendly — for example, installation "wizards"
• Supports internal and B2B integration
• Flexible pricing and packaging — for example, appliances

• Unproven in large-scale B2B projects
• Limited mind share and market share
• Limited international footprint

• Historical player in Europe (through Influe-Illicom)
• Good presence in France and Iberia

• Aging product line; just starting an SOA revamp; weak around the mature base functionality
• Must grow internationally
• Low product marketing effectiveness
• Getting its IaaS/B2B business process offering to succeed commercially

• Modern enterprise B2B gateway software
• Effective leverage of Software AG technology and alliance
• Domain expertise with large-scale B2B projects
• Best-of-breed international footprint
• Strong references

• GXS' primary focus on B2B services
• Declining B2B gateway software market share and mind share
• Migration from older versions of Enterprise Gateway

• Incremental, SOA-based approach to B2B
• Strong domain expertise in all patterns of integration
• Large international footprint
• Value pricing

• Maturity of B2B functionality
• Unproven in large-scale projects
• Limited mind share and market share

• SOA-based WPG configurability and extensibility
• Proven in large-scale, high-performance B2B projects
• Product quality, reliability and scalability
• Strength of IBM

• Only certified on IBM WAS
• Product complexity — for example, four different translators
• Price

• Proven product quality and scalability
• Capability to combine BizManager with Inovisworks.net (IaaS)
• Best-of-breed BetweenMarkets compliance and data quality management
• Sustained profitability

• Shrinking mind share and market share
• Limited international footprint
• Sustainable differentiation

• Well-rounded B2B solution
• Large, growing BizTalk customer base, including adoption via distributors, resellers and system integrators
• Worldwide sales and support, as well as Microsoft Developer Network, Technical Adoption Program and other self-service support and training
• Value pricing

• Not best of breed at community management, EDI or MFT
• Limited number of large-scale deployments
• Only runs on Microsoft platforms

• Innovative community management
• Upsell opportunity for iSoft and TrailBlazer SMB customer base
• Flexible on-premises and on-demand nuBridges Exchange delivery models
• Experienced management team
• Strong security focus and expertise

• Relatively late to market
• Limited B2B market share and industry penetration
• Limited marketing and mind share

• Large, loyal customer base: most customers in Europe; foothold in the U.S.; good presence in Asia
• Healthy financials: in the B2B market for 22 years; always profitable
• Effective, functional ERP integration (SAP and Oracle)
• Well-integrated; life ownership of intellectual property

• Limited to organic growth
• Not focused on IaaS
• Very aggressive European competition
• Middle management turnover in 2007; uncertainty of long-term ownership

• Product quality, reliability and scalability
• Proven in large B2B projects and at IaaS providers
• Strong SOA capabilities, including CentraSite
• International footprint
• Optimized for B2B
• Software AG's viability

• Limited MFT capabilities
• Migration from older releases of software
• Not often shortlisted for B2B consolidation projects
• Price

• Large B2B software customer base
• GIS quality, portability and scalability
• Hybrid approach to B2B software and services
• Strong parent (AT&T) and commitment to B2B market

• Inconsistent quality of account management
• Relatively weak SOA capabilities
• Company focus on applications
• Gentran migration

• B2B gateway software solution effectively leverages Java CAPS platform
• Open-standards- (Java-) based solution
• Extensible B2B protocols
• Foothold in healthcare

• Functionally limited B2B gateway software functionality
• Small B2B gateway software user base
• Late to market

• Strength in SOA
• BusinessConnect effectively leverages BusinessWorks
• Proven product quality, portability and scalability
• Strong community management

• Limited B2B market share and mind share
• Limited MFT capabilities and reliance on third-party EDI
• Last large, stand-alone middleware company
• Price