Open BPM is alive and well

I am delighted that Tom Baeyens has roared back in the Open BPM spotlight with the announcement of a new Open BPM effort called Activiti.

Tom did a great job engineering jBPM, but frankly those folks over at Red Hat didn't appreciate what they had.  Red Hat (and JBoss before them) didn't properly market jBPM, so it never gained the market adoption that the technical merits of the product warranted - and the end result was a respected but not truly game changing product.

With the recent (and not so recent) assimilation of the pure-play-for-profit BPM suites like Lombardi (where I work), Savvion and Fuego there was a general feeling that BPM's "Wild Wild West" days were behind it, and the likes of IBM (where I work) and Oracle were the only ones left standing.

Activiti's launch suggests otherwise.  Coupled with the strong new Open BPM offering from BonitaSoft, Tom and his Open BPM colleagues are reminding us that passionate people still matter more than deep pockets.  BPM may no longer be in its infancy, but the dream of BPM has not yet been realized, and dreamers like Tom still have a huge role to play.

Best wishes on your new endeavor Tom.