Enterprise service bus is the most promising new middleware approach. ESB generally refers to integration software that supports simple, expedited, loosely coupled, standards-based, service-oriented integration. It also refers to a segment of the middleware market that converges the best features of message-oriented middleware, integration brokers and Web services.
The ESB market is heating up but possibly also melting down. Recently we've seen a leading ESB vendor - Sonic Software (an operating unit of Progress Software) - merge with service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance vendor Actional. ESB environments need the policy-driven management provided by robust IT governance tools.
However, Sonic-Actional won't be able to compete for long against the SOA platform vendors - especially BEA, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle - that are adding ESB and IT governance functionality to their suites at a rapid clip. When the ESB market matures by the end of this decade, pure-play ESB vendors will find their value proposition usurped by platform vendors that have embedded ESB functionality into their offerings.
