Intalio hoists BPM flag

Intalio on Friday released details about an upgrade to its business process management system that allows programmers and business analysts to create richer Web-based user interfaces and that includes Systinet’s Web services software and Corticon’s business rule engine.

Version 2.5 of Intalion3 includes a new component called Page Designer, which enables developers to graphically create interactive Web-based end-user interfaces that can then be graphically bound to business processes. The tool is built on Intalio’s X Page technology, an XML-based language used for describing user interfaces.

“This tool allows you to use a library of user interface building blocks such as pull down boxes, data tables, trees, buttons, and panels that you can just drag and drop to compose a page or user interface that can generate an X Page. You can then deploy that onto a server and graphically bind it to the business process,” said Tom Barclay, senior product manager at Intalio. “There is a complete separation of the business logic and presentation layer so programmers can change business processes or interfaces separately because they are decoupled,” he said.

Version 2.5 is a complete WYSIWYG development environment that allows programmers and business analysts to define page layouts and build forms without the need to do any coding and is capable of operating in a standard Web browser.

With the inclusion of Systinet’s Web Applications and Services Platform (WASP), company officials believe they have more fully Web Services-enabled Version 2.5. The WASP stack supplies Web services interfaces to all of Intalio’s components, thereby making it easier to access processes as well as the company’s APIs using Web services. Supporting the 1.1 and 1.2 versions of SOAP, WSDL 1.1, and WS-Security, WASP also allows the Java-based product to interoperate with Microsoft’s .Net, IBM Web Services Toolkit, and Apache SOAP/Axis.

The integration of WASP also better positions the product to those corporate users thinking of gravitating towards services-oriented architectures.

“This [WASP] provides core infrastructure that lets us Web service all of our interfaces and APIs so they all can speak using Web services. It allows for remote administration of the platform using Web services and allows us to expose business processes as Web services. We have gone Web services native if you will,” said Barclay.

As part of Friday’s announcement, the company announced it has partnered with Corticon. Under the terms of the deal Intalio will include that company’s business rules engine which will serve as an optional extension of Version 2.5. Corporate users can now “externalize” complex business rules from the process control flow allowing users to more easily change rules without having to redeploy an entire business process.

“This should allow for the rapid development of business rules and automated decision services that can be deployed as a Web service, EJB, and XML schema. They can then be incorporated into an end-to-end business process model. These types of services could be claims processing, loan calculations or credit scoring,” said Barclay.

Intalio’s Chairman and CEO Thomas Meyer said the release reflects growing acceptance of BPM technologies. “A lot of our work one year ago was educational,” he said.

Meyers believes 2004 IT budgets will include room for BPM projects because enterprises are gearing up their business processes to cope with a stronger U.S. economy.