News

Digital Evolution buys Flamenco Networks to strengthen SOA portfolio

• By Rich Seeley
• September 15, 2004

Seeking to position itself at the top of the heap among vendors in the emerging market for SOA management software, Digital Evolution, announced this week that it has acquired Flamenco Networks.

Flamenco adds Web services provisioning and user interface technology, plus an established center for offering hosted services, says Ian Goldsmith, VP product marketing at Digital Evolution. In a market split between J2EE and Microsoft .NET applications, Flamenco's technology "deepens" Digital Evolution's .NET offerings, he adds.

The acquisition fits into a Darwinian market view of SOA vendors where only the big and strong are expected to survive. Goldsmith characterizes Digital Evolution as an "aggressive" consolidation company in an area where "a small number of companies are going to be successful.

"We're the alpha male," he quips when describing his company's position in the SOA management market.

Frank Kenney, a Gartner analyst quoted in the Digital Evolution announcement, says this acquisition is part of a trend. "The consolidation among Web Services solution providers continues," he writes. As for the market itself, he says customers will either look for vendors with complete suites, including management, security, deployment and integration, or they will go for best of breed.

Digital Evolution is building a technology portfolio the company claims makes it the "largest specialized vendor" with the kind of complete suite of SOA tools Kenney is talking about.

With Flamenco, Digital Evolution is getting additional provisioning technology covering areas such as workflow and user self-service, as well as user interface tools for consumers accessing Web services applications, the firm's Goldsmith says.

Although it was announced this week, the acquisition of privately held Flamenco is pretty much complete, with employees already on the Digital Evolution payroll and its customers moving into the fold, Goldsmith explains. Financial terms of the acquisition were not made public.