I read with a lot of attention the Connie Moore’s (Forrester) write up on the current state of BPM Suites (BPM Suites: Picking Up The Pieces The Day After). Absolutely no mention of SharePoint or Microsoft’s workflow tools.
Yes, a lot of buzz has been generated over the Lombardi and Savvion acquisitions. However, I maintain the SharePoint will be the long-term portal for mainline business processing, and hence the need for BPM on SharePoint, which these vendors support in a non-integrated way. It’s no wonder (actually correct) that Microsoft wasn’t mentioned. They aren’t focused on BPM specifically, leaving the market open to these other vendors.
The provides a great opportunity for third party vendors such as us to provide the agile tools to enable BPM on SharePoint. The market has a long way to go, but in the long run, tools such as these will be highly successful.