Here we go again; Progress Software Corporation just announced that it is acquiring privately-held Actional Corporation for a $32 million bucks. Who's Actional? They provide Web services management (WSM) software, and have been around for a while. They will become part of Sonic Software and an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation. Sonic is an ESB provider, and is looking for the Actional technology to round out their stack, adding management to their messaging system, and orchestration layer obtained through a previous acquisition.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, this seems to be a clear trend, the aquistion of SOA companies before the market really emerges. Why? Clearly the market is looking good and the larger guys want to make sure they have the best and the most to sell into that market. This acquisition follows after Mercury Interactive acquired SOA registry provider Systinet, and before that, IBM bought XML appliance vendor Datapower. There are a few other examples as well. Also, it's clear that there are larger companies knocking at the door of other small SOA vendors such as Cape Clear...at least it seems that way from their CEO's recent blog.

Is this a good thing? I'm not sure at this point; we'll see what the respective companies do with the technology they purchased, and the customers. It is clear that the number of small SOA vendors is decreasing each month, and I'm sure we'll see this continue as the market for this technology grows.

So, do we want dozens of small companies around with different solutions for SOA, or just a few large ones? We may not have a choice if the current trend continues.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on January 22, 2006 05:03 AM