TECH CHOICES. January 4, 2006 The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q by John R. Rymer. Helping Business Thrive On Technology Change

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1 January 4, 2006 The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q by John R. Rymer TECH CHOICES Helping Business Thrive On Technology Change

2 TECH CHOICES Includes a Forrester Wave January 4, 2006 The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q ILOG, Fair Isaac, And Pegasystems Lead In Our Lab-Based Evaluation by John R. Rymer with Mike Gilpin, Lindsey Hogan, and Colin Teubner EXECUTIVE SUMMARY To assess the state of the business rules platform market and see how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top business rules platform vendors across 174 criteria. Business rules platforms are an increasingly popular alternative to conventional programming to automate decisions, analysis to action, and policy compliance. This popularity is indicated by the large volume of Forrester client inquiries on the topic and the strongly growing revenues of most business rules platform providers. The results of our evaluation: Fair Isaac, ILOG, and Pegasystems are the Leaders in general-purpose platforms for IT because of their comprehensive developer features, rules management features, and strong presence in the market. However, specialist vendors like Corticon Technologies, Haley Systems, and Resolution EBS are the Leaders in platforms for nonprogrammers and nontraditional rules development just one of the new product segments emerging within the business rules platform market. Included in this report is an interactive vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product evaluations and customizable rankings. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Business Rules Market Explodes As Users Seek Automated Processes 5 Business Rules Platform Evaluation Overview 8 The Leaders By Category 19 Vendor Profiles 23 Supplemental Material NOTES & RESOURCES Forrester conducted lab-based evaluations in July and August 2005 and interviewed 10 vendor companies, including: CA, Corticon Technologies, Fair Isaac, Haley Systems, ILOG, InRule Technology, Microsoft, Pegasystems, Resolution EBS, and YASU Technologies. Related Research Documents How Composite Apps Will Change Enterprise Application Development July 20, 2005, Trends The Path To Enterprise Business Rules September 24, 2004, Best Practices Why Rules Platforms Matter: Flexible Business Automation December 5, 2003, Planning Assumption 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, Forrester s Ultimate Consumer Panel, WholeView 2, Technographics, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Forrester clients may make one attributed copy or slide of each figure contained herein. Additional reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction rights and usage information, go to Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. To purchase reprints of this document, please resourcecenter@forrester.com.

3 2 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q BUSINESS RULES MARKET EXPLODES AS USERS SEEK AUTOMATED PROCESSES Business rules platforms allow development, deployment, and management of applications that automate decisions using rules-processing algorithms and tools. The result can be speedier and more flexible decision-making and information processing, compliance with corporate policies, and application change at a low cost. Interest in business rules platforms, as indicated by the volume of Forrester client inquiries on the subject and the high growth rates of most business rules platform vendors, is growing. Why? Business rules are effective for defining business logic. Rules are true statements about data that are easier to work with than lines of code like those that describe the data directly. As a form of expression, rules more directly reflect the way businesspeople describe companies and activities than lines of code written in a programming language like Java, C#, or COBOL. Here is a simple business rule: Our company doesn t sell insurance policies to people less than 18 years of age. The equivalent in a programming language? We don t have enough space here to show it. The best forms of business rules technology make it easy to mix combinations of true statements to handle a variety of questions without having to work out the relationship between those statements in advance. Programming languages don t work this way. Business rules are effective for automating decisions within processes. The many organizations interested in automating business processes usually find business rules to be very helpful for automating complex decisions. If-then scripts are useful for simple decisions ( if red, then reject ). But decisions, for example, about how to process a given mortgage application, including which plan is valid for the applicant and which state regulations apply, require the reasoning that business rules enable. If-then scripts are simply programming by another name, with all of the limitations of that approach. Business rules are effective at supporting application change. Business rules live within applications, but they are not locked inside of those applications. The best business rules platforms allow developers to factor business rules out of their application code to execute in a separate engine, making it possible to change the business rules without breaking the application (or applications) that call it. The result is improved business flexibility. This technique of optimizing applications for changeability can present performance challenges, and so rules performance tuning features are an important feature of business rules platforms. Business rules are effective for business involvement in applications. Because nonprogrammers can understand business rules, business analysts and other users with deep domain knowledge can help write and maintain them. The result: People on the frontlines of the business can get the application responsiveness they need. Need new pricing promotion rules to counter a competitor s new campaign? Pricing analysts can make the change. In most cases, users will collaborate with IT to ensure that their new rules are deployed properly and have a solid foundation. But IT alone does not bear the burden of application change. 1 January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

4 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q These four points sum up the vision for business rules; the reality for user organizations will depend on a number of factors. Chief among these are the features of an organization s chosen business rules platform. Forrester s evaluation scenarios include both tools for programmers and nonprogrammers, as well as testing, deployment, management of rules across applications, and operational management. The evaluation criteria also include integration and interoperability technologies and features to help measure how well a given platform will fit within business process management (BPM), Java/J2EE, and.net environments. Business Rules Platform Market Landscape Business rules arose from the foundations of artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems. The products from CA, Fair Isaac, Haley Systems, ILOG, and Pegasystems each have foundations in this era and continue to provide powerful facilities for developers today. But much is different in today s business rules products, specifically: Fit and integration. Business rules platforms and tools fit within standard programming models and runtimes Java/J2EE and Microsoft s.net and pre-.net environments including the standard data access, security, integration, and other services. In the AI era of the 1980s, rules platforms employed proprietary development and deployment environments. Accessibility and ease of use. Business rules platforms provide tools today that make the old products look like working with stone knives and bearskins. The products from Corticon, Haley Systems, and Resolution rely exclusively (or nearly so) on visual tools and simple statements to create rules and hook them to data. Corticon is particularly strong in this regard. This evaluation indicates that the current products are strongest in features for IT and programmers but that tools for business analysts are real today and are likely to keep improving. Rules management. Most of the business rules platforms provide repositories and related facilities to manage rules as assets. In the old days, platforms compiled rules into libraries and linked them into application code. There was no concept of reuse or refactoring of rules to serve the needs of many applications. More than Rete. Many business rules products are based on the Rete algorithm that was developed during the late 1970s for batch-mode expert systems. 2 Rete alone is not enough for today s requirements, and so business rules platforms based on Rete now provide features like rule overriding and exclusion to optimize performance and reduce memory requirements. Most now offer sequential processing as an option, and two vendors Pegasystems and Resolution EBS have patented their own rules algorithms that optimize rules for flexibility and performance in interactive mode systems. The composition of the business rules market is as follows: 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

5 4 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q CA, Fair Isaac, and ILOG dominate in revenue and awareness. These three providers plus Haley Systems have products of long standing in the rules market and today collect the majority of revenue in the market. Fair Isaac and ILOG in particular have high awareness among clients. CA Aion Business Rules Expert lost some of its market momentum during 2003 and 2004, as CA developed its new Aion Rule Manager module and changed the position of Aion within its broad product set. Corticon and Pegasystems are consistent challengers to the Leaders. Pegasystems has both a unique algorithm and a comprehensive development environment that it buried inside of vertical solutions for most of its 20-year history. Because the company shifted its strategy to emphasize its platform for BPM during 2003 and 2004, its profile in the market began to rise. Corticon has become well known for providing a rules platform that embraces service-oriented architecture (SOA) and fits well into third-party BPM solutions. Haley Systems, InRule, Resolution EBS, Gensym, Versata, and YASU are the upstarts. Haley and Resolution have brand-new approaches to business rules applications that are designed to open the door to business analysts and other nonprogrammers. Haley s natural-language development approach is unique in the market. And Resolution s ability to process all rules for all cases yields unique flexibility in front-office applications. YASU is based in India and has a comprehensive platform that is available at a low cost, but it is not well known to most customers. InRule developed a better mousetrap for.net business rules development as a custom development firm and has made a strong start in under a year as an independent product company. Gensym, a company with a long history in rules, specializes in process control applications and hopes its experience will translate to applications like stock trading. Versata provides a comprehensive development environment for transactions, workflow/process, business rules, and a user interface that uses business rules (and uses YASU QuickRules as an OEM for a portion of its platform). Gensym and Versata were not included in this evaluation. 3 Microsoft is the sleeping giant in the market. At the time of the lab evaluations, Microsoft was the only major application platform vendor to provide a business rules engine. The Microsoft Business Rule Engine is bundled with BizTalk Server Microsoft s major competitors BEA Systems, IBM, Oracle, and SAP did not provide business rules engines (Oracle has since announced Oracle Rules for delivery by the end of 2005). 4 Microsoft s intentions for its Business Rule Engine are not clear, but the company could be a dominant vendor in this market if it chose to focus on it. Forrester evaluated vendors that sell generic business rules platforms, as opposed to vendors that provide business rules as part of a larger solution. For example, Accenture, FiServ, NaviSys, and others provide insurance processing solutions that incorporate custom business rules engines. Experian-Scorex and MindBox embed their business rules engines in their financial services solutions, but also sell them for custom development. Fair Isaac fits both of these models, but its Blaze Advisor product has a long and continuing history as an independent platform. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

6 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Forrester also excluded niche vendors and vendors that operate primarily outside of the US market. 5 As the business rules market grows, it has attracted investment in developer tools by both established vendors and startups. Unisys, for example, offers a business-level rules modeling tool that generates a variety of runtime structures. RuleBurst and RuleXpress provide business-level knowledge capture and modeling tools. And ESI Knowledge provides a comprehensive rules platform that has been successful in Europe and Israel. BUSINESS RULES PLATFORM EVALUATION OVERVIEW To assess the state of the business rules platform market and see how the vendors stack up against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top business rules platform vendors across 174 criteria. This evaluation includes only business rules platforms generally available to customers on or before September 30, Evaluation Criteria We grouped our 174 criteria into three buckets (see Figure 1): Current offering. A vendor s position on the vertical axis of the Forrester Wave graphic indicates the strength of its product features. The Forrester Wave includes only business rules platforms generally available to customers on or before September 30, The specific evaluation criteria for comparing the 10 vendors include platform architecture; development; developer tools; business user development tools; business rules life-cycle management; deployment, administration, and management; and standards and interoperability. Forrester has provided several sets of default weightings that emphasize the criteria important to specific types of buyers, but clients can (and should) adjust the weightings in the Wave spreadsheet to best fit their own requirements. Forrester s analysis measures the strength and breadth of product features. Forrester s findings do not address the actual scalability, performance, and reliability of those features. Strategy. A vendor s position on the horizontal axis indicates the strength of its product and corporate strategy, as well as its product costs and financial strength. Product costs are indicated by list prices, entry-level pricing, and average deal sizes. Only one vendor (Fair Isaac) declined to provide its list prices. Market presence. The size of the vendor s dot on the chart indicates its market presence. Forrester measures a vendor s market presence by the size of its installed base, number of employees, number and type of partners, and the implementation and training services it offers to customers. The most important of these criteria for clients to use are the number of customers and partners for each vendor. Partners are particularly important in filling gaps and creating solutions in platform markets. These rankings are heavily influenced by the amount of 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

7 6 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q information provided by the vendors themselves. Vendors that provide complete information usually get higher scores than vendors that don t provide full information. Thus, for example, CA s market presence score is low, despite it being one of the long-time Leaders in rules technology. CA chose not to provide critical information that may have raised its score. Market presence is not a measure of market share and should not be interpreted as such. Figure 1 Evaluation Criteria CURRENT OFFERING Platform architecture Development Developer tools Business user development tools Business rules life-cycle management Deployment, administration, and management Standards and interoperability STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial strength Cost How well is the platform architected? What is the development model for the platform and how well do the vendor s languages/tools support it? How extensive and how good are the development tools provided with the platform? What tools for business users does the platform provide? What life-cycle management features does the platform provide for rules development? What tools and facilities does the platform provide to manage deployment, administration, and management of applications? What standards does the rules platform support? What third-party products can it interoperate with? How good is the vendor s product strategy for the platform? How good is the vendor s corporate strategy? How strong is the vendor financially? What is the cost of this product? MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Systems integrators Services Employees Technology partners How large is the vendor s installed base of customers for this product and for all products? How many integrator partners have completed three or more deployments of any version of this product in the past 18 months? How strong are the vendor s implementation and training services? How many engineers does the vendor have dedicated to this product? How big is the vendor s sales presence? How strongly do technology partners support this product? Source: Forrester Research, Inc. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

8 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Evaluation Methodology Forrester used a combination of four data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each solution: Hands-on lab evaluations. Each vendor spent one day with a team of analysts who performed a hands-on evaluation of the product using a scenario-based testing methodology. We evaluated each product using the same scenario(s), creating a level playing field by evaluating every product on the same criteria. We performed separate evaluations of ILOG s two business rules platforms (JRules and Rules for.net) because they are very different products. Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed the vendors on their strategies, costs, installed bases, and related business criteria. We verified this information when possible using SEC filings and other public sources. Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of portions of their products features primarily administration and management features. Customer reference information. Forrester drew on its ongoing conversations with clients and reference customers that use most of the products tested to validate its understanding of the products. Forrester did not conduct specific customer interviews for this evaluation. Evaluated Vendors Forrester included 10 vendors in the assessment: CA, Corticon Technologies, Fair Isaac, Haley Systems, ILOG, InRule Technology, Microsoft, Pegasystems, Resolution EBS, and YASU Technologies. Each of these vendors: Provides a business rules development and deployment platform. The rules platforms that were evaluated process the output of their development environments using rules algorithms. Most employ rules or similar semantics in their development environments as well, but this was not a requirement. Forrester excluded products that provide a simple engine for processing independent scripts. Does business in the US. Forrester excluded two vendors that primarily sell their products outside of the US. Is of interest to clients or should be. Each of the vendors (and products) that Forrester included in this Forrester Wave has been mentioned by clients in inquiries and other interactions. Forrester also included vendors that, although not well-known to clients, have brought valuable innovations in business rules to market. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

9 8 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Forrester conducted separate labs for ILOG JRules and ILOG Rules for.net because those products are so different. In contrast, Fair Isaac and YASU provide both Java and.net products that are very similar and so could be evaluated in a single lab session. THE LEADERS BY CATEGORY The core of the business rules market is products aimed at IT groups and independent software vendors (ISVs) creating applications. Most of these products also incorporate tools for business analysts and other nontechnical users, allowing IT to collaborate with them in initial development and in the ongoing maintenance of applications. Forrester s base scoring favors these mature and IT-focused platforms, but Forrester has also provided alternative scores attuned to the new requirements and emerging segments. The promise of business rules (outlined above) is driving change in the market. Customer needs for products usable by nonprogrammers and products useful in fast-changing front-office applications are driving new ideas and new vendors. With no legacy in IT-focused products, these vendors are introducing new ideas and features that put business users in the leading role and IT in a supporting role. Thus, one size does not fit all in the business rules platform market. Forrester has identified four major segments in the business rules platform market (see Figure 2): 1. Platforms that give IT control over development and deployment. The core of these business rules platforms are programmer tools and IT administration and management facilities. 2. Platforms that give business analysts and nonprogrammers control over development. This is an emerging category of business rules platforms; these products provide tools that allow business analysts and other nonprogrammers to create, maintain, and manage rules applications. 3. Platforms for Java/J2EE development and deployment. These business rules platforms provide development tools for Java developers, integrate with Eclipse and other Java IDE frameworks, and support Java APIs, services, and runtimes. 4. Platforms for Microsoft.NET development and deployment. These platforms provide development tools for.net developers, integrate with Microsoft s Visual Studio IDE framework, and support.net APIs, services, and runtimes. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

10 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 2 Summary Of Vendors By Market Category Leaders Platforms for IT Fair Isaac ILOG JRules Pegasystems Platforms for business analysts None Platforms for Java developers ILOG JRules Platforms for.net developers None Top-tier Performers Second-tier Performers Other/ excluded CA YASU Technologies Corticon Technologies Haley Systems ILOG Rules for.net InRule Technology Microsoft Resolution EBS Business Rules Platforms For IT CA Corticon Technologies Haley Systems Resolution EBS YASU Technologies Fair Isaac ILOG JRules Pegasystems None ILOG Rules for.net InRule Technology Microsoft Fair Isaac Pegasystems CA Corticon Technologies Haley Systems Resolution EBS YASU Technologies ILOG Rules for.net Microsoft InRule Technology Our evaluation of IT-controlled platforms uncovered a market in which (see Figure 3): Fair Isaac ILOG JRules ILOG Rules for.net YASU Technologies Haley Systems InRule Technology Microsoft CA Corticon Technologies Pegasystems Resolution EBS Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Fair Isaac, ILOG JRules, and Pegasystems are the Leaders. These vendors scored highest because they have comprehensive platforms, including full integrated development environments (IDEs), business user tools, rules management features, broad deployment features, good administration tools, and strong market presence. ILOG JRules emerged with a slight advantage over Fair Isaac s Blaze Advisor due to slightly better scores for market presence and strategy. This was expected given the game of feature leapfrog that these two vendors have been playing with one another for years. But Fair Isaac s lower score in both broad categories was due largely to its decision to withhold key information about customers and pricing. Fair Isaac was the only vendor to withhold its list prices. Two key differences between Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor and ILOG JRules drive user choices. First, ILOG JRules is closely aligned with Java and J2EE. The syntax of the ILOG rules language for programmers is very similar to Java, by design. Thus, ILOG s product for.net by necessity had to be a different product (and it is). In contrast, Fair Isaac adapts Blaze Advisor to three languages Java,.NET languages, and COBOL, but it doesn t have close affinity with any of those languages. Second, JRules accounts for more than 40% of ILOG s business. Blaze Advisor is a small fraction of Fair Isaac s business, although the company uses the product in its financial industry applications. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

11 10 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Pegasystems straddles the border between Leader and Performer, a testament to its comprehensive product and sound strategy. CA and YASU are the top Performers. CA and YASU each have comprehensive platforms that provide good alternatives to the Leaders. CA and Pegasystems were virtually tied in current offering and were close in strategy scores as well. CA s market presence score was low (represented by a small dot) because the company declined to provide any information about its customer base, but Forrester believes that CA s customer base likely rivals those of Fair Isaac and ILOG. Forrester gave CA moderate strategy scores because the role of Aion in CA s product set and overall strategy is not clear. For most clients, YASU will likely be the surprise of this analysis. YASU isn t well known due to its minimal commitment to marketing, but it provides a strong business rules platform. YASU doesn t have as many features as the leading vendors in this category, CA and Pegasystems, but it is close. And its list prices are very aggressive. YASU s strategy is sound, which yielded a strong score in that category. However, as a small vendor, its market presence score was considerably lower than those of its rivals. Figure 3 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For IT, Q1 06 Risky Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Current offering Fair Isaac Pegasystems ILOG JRules CA YASU Technologies InRule Technology Microsoft Corticon Technologies ILOG Rules Haley For.NET Systems Resolution EBS Go online to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings. Weak Market presence Full vendor participation Weak Strategy Source: Forrester Research, Inc. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

12 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 3 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For IT, Q1 06 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting CA Corticon Technologies Fair Isaac Haley Systems ILOG JRules ILOG Rules For.NET InRule Technology Microsoft Pegasystems Resolution EBS YASU Technologies CURRENT OFFERING 50% Platform architecture 10% Development 10% Developer tools 50% Business user development 0% tools Business rules life-cycle 10% management Deployment, administration, 10% and management Standards & interoperability 10% STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial strength Cost 50% 40% MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Systems integrators Services Employees Technology partners 0% 40% 15% 5% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Corticon, Haley Systems, ILOG Rules for.net, InRule, Microsoft, and Resolution EBS are second-tier Performers. The low scores of Corticon, Haley Systems, and Resolution EBS in this category are to be expected: These vendors do not primarily target IT and programmers with their products and score higher in the business user category of business rules platforms. ILOG Rules for.net, InRule, and Microsoft Business Rules Engine, on the other hand, are focused on IT and professional developers. Of these platforms, InRule an upstart with about nine months of experience in the market has the broadest feature set, as indicated by a healthy current offering score. InRule s strategy and market presence scores were low, which is typical of startups. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

13 12 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q ILOG Rules for.net and Microsoft Business Rule Engine each had relatively low current offering scores. Each of these products is a first release with limited features. Microsoft s goal with Business Rule Engine is to create a viable business rules platform for.net; now that it has succeeded, it will undoubtedly add features to the product. ILOG Rules for.net has a fraction of ILOG JRules features, particularly in deployment and administration. But the product makes groundbreaking use of Microsoft Visual Studio.NET, Visual SourceSafe, SharePoint Portal Services, and Office. ILOG s plans to add substantial features to Rules for.net make it a product to watch. This evaluation of the business rules platform market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. Business Rules Platforms For Business Analysts And Users Our evaluation of platforms that give business analysts and other users control uncovered a market in which (see Figure 4): The best of the bunch are CA, Corticon, Haley Systems, Resolution EBS, and YASU. This category has no Leaders. The vendors with the strongest current offerings are small, and so their relatively weak strategy scores prevent them from cracking the Leader zone in the analysis. Corticon is tops in this group, riding the strength of its rich decision table tool and heavy use of declarative development techniques. Haley Systems scored well due to its natural-language HaleyAuthority tool, an innovative approach to end user rules development. Haley also has strong administration and management features. YASU is third in this grouping, on the strength of its two tools for business analysts. The first is a Web-based maintenance environment similar to those provided by JRules and Blaze Advisor. The second is a promising QuickRules Analytics module aimed directly at nontechnical business users. QuickRules Analytics is the only product in this evaluation to provide simulation, and Forrester expects future releases to challenge the Leaders in this category. Fourth among these Leaders is a bit of a surprise: CA. CA s new Aion Rule Manager module is a very good business analyst environment. It isn t as strong as Corticon s, but offers many of the same advantages. Resolution s score reflected the strengths of its unique Rule Grid development approach and algorithm that makes it very easy to combine independent rules into a single base. The second tier includes Fair Isaac, ILOG JRules, and Pegasystems. These products provide features for business analysts, but they are primarily meant to complement strong IT/ developer environments. Both Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor and ILOG JRules provide Web-based environments for rules maintenance by nonprogrammers. While these tools are helpful, they do not give business analysts the initiative in rules development. Pegasystems doesn t provide a January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

14 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q separate environment for business analysts. Rather, the Pegasystems IDE can be configured for use by business analysts, with the majority of developer features suppressed. Forrester believes that this approach will be too complex for most organizations. Microsoft doesn t target this category; ILOG Rules for.net and InRule haven t begun to fight. Microsoft targets developers and has a low rank in this category. ILOG plans to add business user tools and features to the next release of Rules for.net, but doesn t have them today. InRule also has plans to bolster its features for business analysts. Note that all three of these platforms are.net-only options. This finding highlights the broader finding that the.net business rules platforms have fewer features than multiplatform and Java-based offerings. This evaluation of the business rules platform market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. Figure 4 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For Business Analysts, Q1 06 Risky Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Go online to download Current offering Corticon Technologies Resolution EBS Pegasystems Haley Systems YASU Technologies CA ILOG JRules Fair Isaac the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings. InRule Technology ILOG Rules For.NET Microsoft Market presence Weak Full vendor participation Weak Strategy Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

15 14 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 4 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For Business Analysts, Q1 06 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting CA Corticon Technologies Fair Isaac Haley Systems ILOG JRules ILOG Rules For.NET InRule Technology Microsoft Pegasystems Resolution EBS YASU Technologies CURRENT OFFERING 50% Platform architecture 10% Development 10% Developer tools 10% Business user development 50% tools Business rules life-cycle 5% management Deployment, administration, 5% and management Standards & interoperability 10% STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial strength Cost 50% 40% MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Systems integrators Services Employees Technology partners 0% 40% 15% 5% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

16 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Business Rules Platforms For Java Developers Our evaluation of business rules platforms for Java developers uncovered a market in which (see Figure 5): The Leader is ILOG JRules. As expected, ILOG JRules came out on top in this category. JRules is closely aligned with the Java language, the J2EE APIs and services, and Java application servers like IBM WebSphere. Fair Isaac is not as aligned with the Java language, but is close to JRules in supporting J2EE APIs and services and Java application servers. The first-tier Performers are Fair Isaac and Pegasystems. Fair Isaac has good features for Java developers, but is designed primarily to be independent of development languages and deployment platforms. Pegasystems is implemented in Java, generates Java code, and supports a healthy range of Java/J2EE runtimes. It falls short of the Leaders in this category in the number of Java/J2EE runtimes it supports and in support for some Java standards. CA, Corticon, Haley Systems, Resolution EBS, and YASU are the second-tier Performers in this category. The first vendor in this grouping is a bit of a surprise: Haley Systems. Haley incorporates a full Java IDE (although it doesn t promote the feature for rules development) and supports a good range of Java/J2EE APIs and standards. Haley s score would rise significantly if it put more effort into testing against major application servers. YASU QuickRules Standard Edition is a good Java option, although its current offering shortfalls hurt its standing relative to the Leaders in this category. YASU s primary advantage is its low cost. CA s scores indicate the weak support for Java/J2EE of its Aion Business Rules Expert environment. Corticon has a strong affinity for Java and J2EE, but as was evident in the IT/ developer category, it has a narrower feature set than the Leaders and so its scores are lower on current offering. Resolution is implemented in Java and generates Java/J2EE but simply does not support many Java APIs and services. ILOG Rules for.net, InRule, and Microsoft do not support Java development. This analysis excludes Microsoft, InRule, and ILOG Rules for.net because they are aimed at.net development and deployment only. This evaluation of the business rules platform market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

17 16 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 5 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For Java Developers, Q1 06 Risky Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Current offering Pegasystems Fair Isaac Corticon Technologies YASU Technologies Resolution EBS Haley Systems CA ILOG JRules Go online to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product evaluations, feature comparisons, and customizable rankings. Weak Market presence Full vendor participation Weak Strategy Source: Forrester Research, Inc. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

18 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 5 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For Java Developers, Q1 06 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting CA Corticon Technologies Fair Isaac Haley Systems ILOG JRules Pegasystems Resolution EBS YASU Technologies CURRENT OFFERING Platform architecture Development Developer tools Business user development tools Business rules life-cycle management Deployment, administration, and management Standards & interoperability 50% 10% 10% 50% 0% 10% 10% 10% STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial strength Cost 50% 40% MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Systems integrators Services Employees Technology partners 0% 40% 15% 5% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

19 18 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Business Rules Platforms For.NET Developers Our evaluation of business rules platforms for.net developers uncovered a market in which (see Figure 6): The best of the bunch are Fair Isaac, ILOG JRules, ILOG Rules for.net, and YASU. This category has no Leaders. Fair Isaac has a great product strategy for.net. Rather than create a new environment for.net business rules development as its archcompetitor ILOG did, Fair Isaac adapted Blaze Advisor to.net, adding Visual Studio.NET plug-ins and support for Microsoft s.net platform technologies. The result: Fair Isaac brought its comprehensive features to the.net market ahead of the competitors even Microsoft. YASU s.net version of QuickRules has most of the features of QuickRules Standard Edition and adds support for Windows notifications and a management console, making for a strong product. QuickRules.NET isn t as rich as Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor, but it is much less expensive. Both of ILOG s products, JRules and Rules for.net, scored well, although JRules scored slightly higher than Rules for.net. The reason is that JRules has a richer set of features and a number of interoperability points with Microsoft.NET. The second release of Rules for.net will reverse these scores, as ILOG adds developer tools, modeling tools, and rules management features to the product. Haley Systems, InRule, and Microsoft have more work to do. InRule and Microsoft each have good products but are not yet well integrated with Visual Studio.NET. Although InRule has strong basic business rules development features, its range of tools and rules life-cycle management features are much more limited. InRule plans expanded tools and expanded integration with Visual Studio.NET in its next release, which will improve its standing as a.net environment. Haley also would receive higher scores if it were better integrated with Visual Studio.NET. Microsoft s ranking in this category reflects its narrow, though sound, features for business rules programming. CA, Corticon, Pegasystems, and Resolution EBS do not target.net development. This analysis excludes CA, Corticon, Pegasystems, and Resolution because they are aimed primarily at Java development. This evaluation of the business rules platform market is intended to be a starting point only. Readers are encouraged to view detailed product evaluations and adapt the criteria weightings to fit their individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool. January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

20 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 6 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For.NET Developers, Q1 06 Risky Bets Contenders Performers Leaders Go online to download the Forrester Wave tool for more detailed product Fair Isaac evaluations, feature comparisons, and Current offering YASU Technologies InRule Technology Microsoft Haley Systems ILOG JRules ILOG Rules For.NET customizable rankings. Market presence Weak Full vendor participation Weak Strategy Source: Forrester Research, Inc. 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

21 20 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Figure 6 Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms For.NET Developers, Q1 06 (Cont.) Forrester s Weighting Fair Isaac Haley Systems ILOG JRules ILOG Rules For.NET InRule Technology Microsoft YASU Technologies CURRENT OFFERING Platform architecture Development Developer tools Business user development tools Business rules life-cycle management Deployment, administration, and management Standards and interoperability 50% 10% 10% 50% 0% 10% 10% 10% STRATEGY Product strategy Corporate strategy Financial strength Cost 50% 40% MARKET PRESENCE Installed base Systems integrators Services Employees Technology partners 0% 40% 15% 5% All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong). Source: Forrester Research, Inc. VENDOR PROFILES The positioning of these vendor profiles are associated with the Business Rules Platforms for IT segment. Leaders ILOG. ILOG has two business rules platforms, JRules and Rules for.net. Of the two, JRules is much more mature and feature-rich. Clients should view Rules for.net as both a viable option for.net-based rules development and as an indicator of ILOG s commitment to new January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

22 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q levels of fit and platform integration in future products. Today s ILOG JRules has a strong architecture as a general-purpose business rules platform, including flexible rule processing, solid data access features, and strong support for service orientation. JRules provides a strong collaborative development model for Java shops, although ILOG s use of three languages can make development complex. JRules provides a basic environment for nonprogrammers who are focused on rules maintenance as opposed to development. 6 Rules for.net contains very interesting ideas for expanding nonprogrammer involvement using Microsoft Office applications. ILOG s JRules Rule Execution Server provides strong platform administration and management features, although only fair performance tuning features. ILOG JRules was a Leader in two of our four categories, and a tier one Performer in two others. 7 Fair Isaac. Fair Isaac provides the Blaze Advisor rules platform as a standalone platform, as the cornerstone of its Enterprise Decision Management suite, and as part of Fair Isaac solutions such as Falcon (fraud management) and Capstone (origination). Blaze s high scores in this segment of the evaluation reflect its comprehensive features for IT-driven development of business rules applications. Blaze Advisor has had a stable history since Fair Isaac acquired it, reversing several years in which Blaze was acquired and then sold twice in quick succession. 8 Blaze has particularly strong enterprise rules management features. Indeed, the vendor recommends that development begin with a repository design to support rules management. Blaze Advisor has a strong architecture as a general-purpose rules platform, including flexible rule processing, solid data access features, and strong support for service orientation. Like ILOG JRules, Blaze Advisor has a strong IDE, but primarily provides maintenance tools for nonprogrammers. The company plans to expand its tools for nonprogrammers in future releases. Fair Isaac was a Leader in one of our four categories, and a tier one Performer in two others. 9 Pegasystems. Pegasystems is unique among the vendors in this Wave because it provides a comprehensive development environment based on business rules. PegaRULES is a strong business rules development platform, but it also provides rules-based presentation, integration, and workflow and business process application development based on rules. Pegasystems strong showing in the evaluation is due primarily to its broad range of developer tools. PegaRULES provides the most comprehensive IDE among these vendors and a full range of rules modeling tools as well. PegaRULES does not provide explicit tools for nonprogrammers. PegaRULES also has strong platform administration, management, and performance tuning features. Pegasystems scores for strategy and market presence were its major weaknesses compared with the Leaders. Pegasystems was a Leader in one of our four categories and a tier one Performer in one other , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited January 4, 2006

23 22 Tech Choices The Forrester Wave : Business Rules Platforms, Q Performers CA. CA Aion Business Rules Expert is descended from one of the veteran AI products and still uses that technology as its foundation. In recent years, CA has added an impressive environment for business users called the Aion Rule Manager to the package to address a broader range of business rules requirements. The result is a platform with a strong architecture as a generalpurpose rules platform, including flexible rule processing, solid data access features, and strong support for service orientation. A key weakness in the eyes of many potential customers: The product is implemented in a mix of C/C++ and Java. Aion Business Rules Expert has strong development change management features and gives developers the foundation to develop reusable rules. CA was a tier one Performer in two of our four categories. 11 YASU Technologies. The big difference between YASU and the top-scoring vendors in this evaluation is focus. YASU is a product-engineering organization with only a weak focus on marketing and sales. QuickRules Standard Edition and QuickRules.NET, scored well for their features (which are almost identical). In particular, QuickRules is a good option for organizations needing to develop rules for either Java/J2EE or.net from a single tool set. QuickRules will be considerably less expensive in this role than the leading multiplatform option, Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor. Indeed, YASU s low prices and strong feature set are distinctive in this evaluation, and its environment for nonprogrammers is also very good. However, YASU s weak sales and marketing investments will make adoption difficult for large organizations that need global support. YASU was a tier one Performer in three of our four categories. 12 Contenders Microsoft. Microsoft s Business Rule Engine collected only modest scores, and so the first inclination may be to dismiss the product. This would be a mistake. Microsoft Business Rule Engine has more limited features than the leading products in this evaluation because its role is to provide a strong reasoning engine for BizTalk Server 2004 and For licensees of BizTalk Server, Microsoft Business Rule Engine is a great way to get started on business rules. The product s Business Rule Composer is a complete IDE for rules development atop the.net Framework. It is well integrated with Microsoft s.net Framework (as an extension) and Common Language Runtime and provides good developer features. The platform s weaknesses are its absence of rules modeling tools, lack of integration with Visual Studio.NET, and lack of tools for nonprogrammers. 13 Microsoft Business Rule Engine is a product that bears watching; it could play an important role in the future. Microsoft was a tier two Performer in two of our four categories. 14 Haley Systems. Haley Systems has been in the rules market for 15 years, gradually solidifying its runtime platform while developing a unique approach to building business rules applications. HaleyAuthority is a very strong environment for business analysts, and it carried Haley to the leading position within that market category. Haley also provides a Java IDE, and so can support January 4, , Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited