We had the opportunity to catch up with Jim Lundy, the founder and CEO of Aragon Research, to discuss what’s new in the enterprise integration market, as a follow up to our chat from earlier this year.
Hi Jim, welcome back. We’re always thrilled to get your insight on the industry and the evolving needs of customers.
“Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.”
The last time you were here you introduced the idea of tPaaS, or Transformation Platform as a Service. Are companies embracing the idea of tPaaS?
“Absolutely. More and more, we’re seeing technology providers really understand just how important it is to take their customers’ wants and needs into consideration when designing their offerings. Business and digital transformations should be about more than just utilizing the latest technology in your company. They should be the catalyst for a new way of thinking – a new way to deliver the products and services your customers want. Your business should center around that, which is the core of what tPaaS is all about. We will see this belief become reality next year.”
You and Betsy Burton, VP of Research and Aragon Fellow, are presenting at the upcoming Enterprise Automation Summit. What can we expect to hear from you?
Betsy and I feel that the integration space is experiencing a significant evolution that is helping companies achieve new levels of automation and business transformation success. In our Summit keynotes, we’ll share our experience of working with leading companies that have gone through these transformations and give attendees both strategic and practical insights on how they too can realize the substantial benefits of transforming their business through next-generation integration software and strategies.
Shifting gears a bit, looking back since we last talked, what developments have you observed in the industry that indicate where the market may be headed?
Integration is still a battle cry in the market, but it is not about connectivity anymore. As an example, just a couple of weeks ago we saw Informatica return to the public markets with their latest IPO. Credit to Informatica, they really pioneered the integration space a couple decades ago, helping to define what has become a multi-billion integration market. That said, while Informatica’s IPO was successful, it didn’t light the world on fire. What that says to me is ‘right industry, wrong story.’ The integration and automation space has evolved considerably in recent years – it’s a dynamic, fast-moving, red-hot market that has proven to offer tremendous value to customers. But maybe Informatica, who really excels in legacy on-prem environments, wasn’t the type of company investors were looking for at this point. It could be that they’re waiting for one of their more modern, cloud-native competitors to take the next step.”
Lastly, with 2022 just around the corner, what trends are you expecting to see in the industry?
An easy one is the need for customers to converge application integration and data integration on a single platform. Connected applications and data rely on each other and are such critical components of today’s winning companies. With the integration platform capability out there today, there’s no reason we should be treating app integration and data integration as separate beasts.
In addition, the democratization of technology continues in the workplace. Business users are becoming more and more responsible for building, integrating, and using their own solutions. To do this, they need easy to use, self-service solutions that get them productive quickly while giving IT the visibility and governance they need to make sure the trains stay on the tracks. I’ve been impressed with how quickly this change has taken hold in the integration space – enterprise integration can be incredibly complex but today’s tools have done a great job at simplifying the process for users of all skill levels. Low-code and self-service – we’ll see more of this heading into the new year.
Jim – thanks again. Look forward to seeing you in a few weeks at the Enterprise Automation Summit.
