It seems like every product or service today is dealing with how to support the market when, by human nature, we are drawn to extremes. In a world of big and small, the middle is often left out. Whether shopping at a large mass retailer or a one-of-a-kind-boutique, both bring appealing aspects to the consumer.
Boutique Feel with Big-Box Advantages
The convenience, luxury of choice, quality, and confidence that comes with a leader in the marketplace naturally arises with shopping at the big companies—the leaders. On the other hand, smaller businesses entice us with new and interesting offerings that aren’t available with more established companies—until those innovations become well established. It has become all the more complicated with new hybrids taking shape in every industry—a meritage of the best of big and small. In Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, TIBCO has found the sweet spot of the unique offerings found at small companies to the scalability and versatility of a large company. The integration offerings from TIBCO provide out-of-the-box customization with the ability to support multi-national businesses.
Understanding Industry Growth
It’s hard to tell who feels big, small, or in-between, even in the middleware market. And, as there has been a major convergence in the integration space over the past few years, it’s increasingly more difficult to weigh the benefits of the mega vendors versus the specialists; this is because their offerings look similar as integration standards become more ubiquitous. Perhaps, it’s because they look to each other for inspiration and growth. The specialists get larger every year, increasing their suite of offerings while enriching customer support and infrastructure; the mega vendors continue to innovate and acquire products that maintain their position of being one-stop-shops.
Gartner’s latest white paper, “Magic Quadrant for On-Premises Application Integration Suites,” digs deeper into how the players in integration are supporting SaaS, B2B, and cloud-based integration, along with the innovations that promise to take the market to the next level. As the mega vendors and specialists offerings are equalizing, we have to look at the other aspects of execution and vision to identify the true leaders in integration.
