Bob ... I run a small systems integration company, and I recently ran across an article that's causing some concern here. The gist: 1. With more e-business vendors launching new products that "help customers cut down on integration costs by providing standardized interfaces for business processes and discrete systems and applications," the future for systems integrators is becoming increasingly uncertain. 2.&nb Bob …I run a small systems integration company, and I recently ran across an article that’s causing some concern here. The gist:1. With more e-business vendors launching new products that “help customers cut down on integration costs by providing standardized interfaces for business processes and discrete systems and applications,” the future for systems integrators is becoming increasingly uncertain. 2. Competition from application vendors’ services divisions is starting to erode the SI marketplace.Do you have an opinion on this? Do we need to rethink our business?– Might be dis-integrating Dear Disintegrating …You know that I have an opinion on nearly everything. Why would this be an exception?Somewhere there’s a company whose systems easily integrate through the use of these integration technologies. I haven’t run across any of them, but they must exist. The integration technologies in question, whether they’re EAI, .Net, J2EE or the power of prayer, all share a limitation which are built into the fabric of space and time. Well, not really, but it probably is wired into our DNA. That’s the fundamental problem with systems integration: Software is just an opinion. Integrating two pieces of software amounts to integrating two different opinions, and most systems integration work involves the integration of far more than just two pieces of software. (If it were just two, there wouldn’t be a need for the integration technology in the first place.)Another point: What stranglehold? Last I knew, systems integration was a highly competitive business. Unless the writer knows of some vast systems-integrator conspiracy, right now it’s a buyer’s market.If you’re implementing (for example) Tibco and Tibco’s services group happens to have the staff available to help you this week, they might be the right choice because they know Tibco. On the other hand, if you’re a financial services company and nobody in Tibco’s services group has any background in financial services, you might not make that choice after all: All of the legacy systems Tibco will have to interact with will be a complete mystery – not just in terms of the package details, but in terms of the point of it all. So in my experience, what’s more likely to happen is that the client will engage both – a systems integrator with experience in the industry and (with luck) the legacy system, and a few specialists from the package vendor to provide expertise in how to best make use of the new technology.Is it time to re-think your business? Yes. Every year, at least. Otherwise you’re coasting, which is always a problem.From where I sit, the big issue facing systems integrators is the emergence of global integrators – companies with inexpensive offshore resources to handle pure coding tasks, on-shore resources to handle client-facing responsibilities like account management and business analysis, and CMM Level 4 or 5 certifications. If I were you, I’d focus my attention on how to compete with these companies. I hope this helps. – Bob ——– Technology Industry