Recently I had the chance to visit Tibco’s headquarters in Palo Alto for an in-depth briefing on the company and its place in the BPMS landscape.  For most people, Tibco is synonymous with message bus-based integration – the company’s name stands for The Information Bus Company – but like others who have evolved from EAI, Tibco today is trying to build its reputation around BPM, SOA, and Business Optimization (i.e., BAM and analytics).

Like so many other things, development (as in R&D) will have to be rethought over and over again as we move deeper into the new century. More people, more markets, more competition; new technologies, new aspirations, new opportunities – nothing is stable for very long anymore.

Have you ever been involved in a process improvement or redesign effort that didn’t require a meeting?  Neither have I.  Meetings are a necessary mechanism for exchanging information, confirming progress, creatively developing deliverables or solutions, making decisions, and growing as a team. In fact, a recent survey of corporate, government, defense, education and non-profit sectors show that we spend anywhere from 25% to 50% of our time in meetings (depending on our role and responsibilities).

How are the business and IT environments changing to meet the challenges of today’s fast-paced global business landscape?  They are both striving to become more agile.  IT is being focused more on increasing profits, revenues and efficiency than just reducing costs.  The business is examining ways to improve customer satisfaction and competitive advantage by collaborating throughout the value chain to deliver more innovative and competitive products and services.