Commerce One takes on integration stalwarts

Commerce One is set to release a Web services-based platform that in one fell swoop challenges emerging offerings from traditional ERP players and middleware integrators alike.

Slated to be available March 24, Commerce One Conductor taps into the broader trend of redesigning enterprise applications and integration technologies around flexible service-oriented architectures.

Conductor’s dynamic central registry is the platform’s core value proposition.The Registry stores the components used to create composite applications, and manages connectivity relationships, transformation maps, and security policies, according to Commerce One executives.

Registry is one of seven components in Conductor, including Collaborative Interoperability Engine (CIE), Conductor Process Manager (CPM), Graphical Process Builder (GPB),Design Center, and Systems Management.

“We’ve made the platform so that if you have an existing EAI infrastructure already, we’ve got an integration framework that makes that layer vendor-neutral,” said Narry Singh, senior vice president of marketing at Pleasanton, Calif.-based Commerce One.

The company is using Conductor to establish itself as a “good corporate citizen” — one that offers products based on open standards. The move represents the latest transition for a company that built a name for itself in supply-chain, e-procurement, and marketplace technologies.

The company’s executives said Commerce one will not rely on building packaged applications such as those provided by traditional e-procurement competitor Ariba and packaged application vendors SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and Siebel. Instead, Conductor relies on a host of Web services standards to leverage an enterprise’s existing infrastructure.

“The portal framework can interface with an existing portal, or we can provide a portal. The fundamental premise is you’re not going to rip and replace your IT assets. What you need is something that optimizes your technology investments, not replaces them,” Singh said.

Conductor is “a bit of a gamble” because it falls outside Commerce One’s traditional procurement and sourcing software strengths, said Shawn Willett, an analyst at Current Analysis in Sterling, Va. “It more loosely fits into application development or integration. People who would want to set this up are doing integration or building apps that make use of Web services. [Commerce One’s] challenge is to find those customers.”

Although the promise of composite applications has piqued the interest of enterprises, many are leaning toward familiar ERP vendors’ offerings such as SAP’sNetWeaver, said Jon Derome, an analyst at Yankee Group inBoston. “People seem interested in offerings from SAP and Oracle because of the cost of ownership those vendors offer,” Derome added.

Conductor also boasts a graphical process builder to graphically define, modify, and implement supplier relationship management processes and framework tools to provide flexible modification of custom application logic and user interfaces.

Commerce One Conductor already has 11 early adopters, including Siemens, BOC Gases, Eastman, and UCCNet.