EMC Expands BPM Capabilities With Acquisition

EMC is expanding its business process management business with the acquisition of ProActivity Software Solutions.

Terms of the acquisition of the Newton, Mass.-based developer of content management software for business process management software were not disclosed.

The acquisition addresses a technology missing from EMC's BPM offering, which it received as part of its Documentum acquisition in late 2003, namely, the ability to analyze and manage BPA data captured from a variety of sources, said Lubor Ptacek, director of product marketing at EMC.

ProActivity brings a number of BPM applications to EMC. Among them are PA: Analyze, which captures and validates business processes from disparate sources and generates graphical process maps on the fly in multiple dimensions. PA: Process BAM (business activity monitoring) monitors business processes based on customer-set alert conditions and thresholds and generates alerts in real time.

These functions, which are based on the fact that the ProActivity software treats BPM information as data instead of images or models, have basically no overlap with any of the EMC Documentum BPM functions, Ptacek said.

The ProActivity software is unique in that it allows users to manipulate their processes in a way no other vendor does, Ptacek said.

"Customers who use BPM software looks at a process in one of several different ways," he said. "To one user, a processor looks like steps. To another, it looks like a series of dollars spent. To another, it looks like a series of skills. It's the same software, but with different ways to show the process model. It's like putting on a different lens to view the data. But customers can use the ProActivity software to add their own view to see the data."

The ProActivity software is currently available via a few OEMs large systems integrator partners, Ptacek said. As part of EMC's Documentum offering, Ptacek said he expects other channel partners with Documentum expertise in the BPM space to work with the software.

EMC expects to integrate the ProActivity tools into its offerings by year-end, with a full integration as part of a unified architecture with Documentum expected in mid to late 2007, Ptacek said.