The premise behind each of these products is roughly the same: to help customers cut down on integration costs by providing standardized interfaces for business processes and discrete systems and applications.

This, of course, was once strictly the domain of systems integrators. Could it be, CIOs of every stripe and size wonder, that their dependence on these service providers will diminish -- if not end -- as more application providers start to pay attention to integration linkages and hooks?

The short answer: Not likely.

The longer answer: There are other competitive and market-development pressures that are eroding systems integrators" stranglehold on IT budgets.

The answer CIOs don't want to hear: These pressures probably will not reduce the cost of systems integration, which can reach four or five times the cost of a software license in many cases.

Integration Technology

To be sure, products such as UAN, Xapps and PIPs are making life easier for customers, which is good, as that was their intent. "Application vendors talk about the fact that integration is too costly, and that is one reason why many companies are hesitant to deploy more enterprise software," Gartner research analyst Ted Kempf told CIO Today. "So they try to make it easier by providing integration packages."

This development was almost inevitable, especially as the packaged-application market has slowed to a crawl over the last few years. "Delivering easier integration is critical to their future success and adoption," Yankee Group CRM analyst Sheryl Kingstone told NewsFactor's CIO Today.

"Most companies today are striving to get a holistic look at their businesses, as a result. Critical integration points include financials, order management and inventory," she said. "By integrating these applications, companies can begin to see the complete picture from first contract to cash."

Siebel's Universal Application Network was designed to do just that, Bharath Kadaba, Siebel's vice president and technical manager of UAN, told NewsFactor's CIO Today. Rather than having a systems integrator, such as webMethods, code all information about business objects and processes into an integration platform by hand, UAN provides models for doing so, he explained.

Rise of Verticalization

First introduced last year, UAN is at heart a tool that is predicated on partnerships with independent enterprise-application integration vendors, such as webMethods and Tibco . Now, Siebel is broadening its functionality to provide vertical expertise. Last week, it announced the availability of UAN integration applications for the communications , media and energy industries on the webMethods integration platform. (continued...)

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