Appian Enterprise 4 Business Process Management Suite Catalyzes the BPM Market

Business Wire, Nov 10, 2004

VIENNA, Va. -- Appian Delivers the Industry's First Enterprise-Class BPM Solution Designed To Enhance Enterprise Agility and Performance

Appian Corporation, the first Business Process Management (BPM) company to deliver advanced process, knowledge and analytics capabilities in a fully integrated suite, today unveiled Appian Enterprise 4, the industry's only BPM solution to provide a rich, full-featured process-centric platform for developing and deploying powerful business solutions across the entire enterprise. As the industry's only true enterprise-class BPM suite, Appian Enterprise 4 is driving improvements in business performance by reaching into existing IT assets, extending those assets by applying knowledge and analytics functionality, and delivering real-time, dashboard-style operational and business metrics.

"Appian is setting a new industry standard with the introduction of Appian Enterprise 4 Business Process Management Suite," said Matthew Calkins, CEO, Appian Corporation. "Appian Enterprise is providing mission-critical enterprises with unprecedented insight and control over their strategic business activities, and enabling them to respond dynamically to changes in their business environment. As the only vendor in the industry to combine the power of process, knowledge, and analytics in a unified BPM suite, Appian is connecting the right people with the right information, and delivering it in the right context, in real-time so that users can make intelligent and informed decisions about their business processes."

Appian Enterprise 4 provides sophisticated collaboration and knowledge-centric tools that speed processes and allow business users to capture and manage enterprise data and best practices. Building on its core process functionality, Appian Enterprise 4 leverages integrated analytics to drive continuous, dynamic process improvement where processes can be monitored and modified in real-time and in concert with changes in the business environment.

According to Janelle Hill, vice president and Research Lead, Business Process Management Integration and Development Strategies at Meta Group, a leading industry analyst firm, "Business process management (BPM) has evolved into a suite of inter-related components providing significant business value, although only a few vendors currently offer the full suite of technologies. These new BPM suites are one of the primary vehicles by which current application portfolios will transition to service-oriented architecture and Web services."

The Most Comprehensive Enterprise BPM Suite

Enterprise BPM suites extend the basic functionality provided by pure-play BPM vendors by infusing suite features and enterprise-class capabilities into the basic pure-play BPM stack.

"Suite Features" round out process functionality with knowledge-centric, collaborative tools including content and document management, as well as analytics capabilities, such as OLAP integration and business activity monitoring. An enterprise BPM suite must also include a security and identity management layer that manages the access controls and role-based permissions, preventing end users from participating in processes in undesired ways.

Appian Enterprise 4 BPM suite provides more than 50 new suite features, including more than 1,000 functional enhancements, making it the most comprehensive BPM suite in the industry for simplifying the development of advanced business solutions. Highlights include:

--  Web-based Process Designer
        Appian Enterprise 4 delivers the industry's only 100%
        HTML-based, drag and drop process designer to provide business
        users with an intuitive, Web-based visual environment for
        building, sharing, and reusing process objects and models,
        including Web services, without any coding.

    --  Integrated Knowledge Management Capabilities
        Appian Enterprise 4's flexible, process-centric portal
        technology provides users with a centralized Web-based
        resource for information access and collaboration, thereby
        accelerating application development. Appian Enterprise 4 also
        features a significantly expanded collaborative toolset and
        enhanced knowledge and data management features.

    --  Improved Analytics
        Appian Enterprise 4 allows an enterprise to detect and react
        to business changes in real-time. In addition to providing
        standard reports to help organizations identify bottlenecks,
        distribute tasks, and improve processes, Appian Enterprise
        allows users to create and save customized dashboards enabling
        personalized visibility into their different business areas.

    --  Dynamic Transformation
        Appian Enterprise 4's sophisticated process engine allows
        real-time in-flight adjustments to running business processes.
        As business environments change, policies, process flows, and
        tasks can be added, modified, or removed to handle exceptions,
        leveraging Appian's unique Smart Node(TM) technology to
        improve process results.

    --  Integrated Security
        Appian Enterprise 4 utilizes a highly granular, integrated
        personalization and security framework to provide a secure,
        Web-based environment for managing preferences, attributes,
        and relationships between people and information. Appian
        Enterprise 4's security is highly differentiated from other
        BPM vendors' in that it is fully integrated into the process
        and can be secured and delegated remotely.