The Xpragmatic View

The programmable enterprise | The Xpragmatic View

The Xpragmatic View #82
February 17, 2007
by Marc Buyens (@mbuyens), Xpragma
marc.buyens@xpragma.com
url: http://www.xpragma.com/view82.php
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In the current Web 2.0 frenzy, new players are emerging on a daily basis. In general, the majority of them are variants or rewrites of earlier initiatives or further build upon existing approaches. However, now and then, a company emerges that seems to play in a different category. Teqlo: a suspicion of importance.

Entering the scene

Teqlo logo

End of last year, Teqlo, formerly known as Abgenial Systems, quietly made its formal appearance under the spotlights.

In essence, Teqlo's value proposition is the programmable web, an environment where business people are able to mix and match the data and the functionality that are available via various web services and public API's, building new, useful business applications.

Doing so, Teqlo addresses the fundamental disconnect that exists between traditional application development, where any initiative requires formal approval and where delays are considerable, versus the ad-hoc day-to-day needs of the business people in the field.

The idea is not new. Already for decades, the IT world is looking for ways to open up the application development environment to non-technical people. As we know, the results have been limited. Not taking into account some limited achievements in the domains of workflow, BPM and business intelligence, end-user driven application development is still a far away dream.

Yet, within the Web 2.0 scene, the emergence of so-called mashups and the widget epidemic in the blogosphere have raised new expectations for a programmable web. In this mashup world, Teqlo is positioned as a more enterprise-focused new player.

Still, we do think that there are reasons to suspect that there is more under the Teqlo hood than just a somewhat more sophisticated mashup engine.

Not another mashup tool

Until now, Teqlo's communication about their new solution has not really excelled in the level of detail that was provided. In general, the solution was positioned as just another Web 2.0 look-alike. Perhaps a somewhat more sophisticated one, but still a mashup tool.

Personally, we do think this style of communication is not accidental, but very intentional, creating acceptance and awareness in a world where early adopters are plenty. And indeed, early adopters are a must-have to develop the type of solution Teqlo is envisioning, stress-testing and fine-tuning the fundamentals of the solution. Yet, early adopters are hard to find in the real target market for Teqlo: enterprise computing.

OK, we might be wrong on this and we do not have the full details. Yet, there are some signs on the wall.

Abgenial Systems (the name of the company before the official product launch) was co-founded by Rafael Bracho and Jacoby Thwaites. Rafael Bracho was the former CTO of Active Software, one of the early leaders in the EAI space (since acquired by webMethods). Jacoby Thwaites is another veteran of the EAI industry.

Again, we might be wrong, but as the saying goes: "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"...

So, unless we are not aware of certain evolutions in the ownership of Teqlo, Teqlo will not be about the mixing and matching of some free content on the Internet. No, Teqlo will be about events, about near-real time processing, about complex transactions, about enterprise applications, about enterprise processes.

This of course is not for the faint hearted and this is not the thing you achieve in a couple of weeks. Yet, this seems to be the due course of the solution and the selection of Jeff Nolan, an ex-SAP veteran, as the new CEO seems to be one more confirmation for this.

We might be wrong, but we do hope not...

For us, Teqlo is also somewhat of a flashback. In 1999-2000, we worked for Soft Cell, one of the first Active Software resellers in Europe. We worked there as an external EAI-consultant, initially assisting them building their go-to-market model for some Active Software-based solution. After analysis, it proved to be a dead-end, so we had to draw some new plans.

So, one afternoon, together with their CTO, Hans Jansen, we developed this idea of creating an application that would run as some kind of meta-process on top of an Active Software-integrated application environment. Business people would be able to define and change this meta-process, giving them visibility on and control of the underlying application environment.

In essence, it was a similar concept, but of course, we did not build a virtual application on top of web services, but merely on top of events occurring in the Active Software-environment.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, this got no further than the first prototype and since then, things did not go too well for Soft Cell. Part of it has been acquired by QAD and the rest...

The programmable enterprise

It is unfortunate, since it would have been an interesting test case. Indeed, it remains an open question for us whether there is a real market for this type of solution.

Building composite applications on top of a bunch of web services seems an interesting value proposition, but are organisations capable of doing so? Who has control? How far can you go? Can they envision what is possible? In the web 2.0 scene, we see interesting examples of mashups and the like, but that is quite a different game, compared to the enterprise applications world.

To what extent will organisations be able to really exploit the capabilities of a solution like Teqlo's? We don't know, but we would love to see it happen...

Categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Web 2.0

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About the author

Marc Buyens is analyst, management consultant and owner of Xpragma.
Marc started Xpragma in 1999 after a 20+ years career in the IT sector. Today, he provides advice, training and mentoring services focusing on the intersection of technological evolution, organisational change and business strategy: a messy world of unfulfilled promises.

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