The Forrester Wave™: Application Server Platforms, Q3 2007

Forrester evaluated the major application server platform suites and vendors across 175 criteria and found that Oracle received the highest scores across all of the scenarios we evaluated, due to its wide range of features and strong strategy. Microsoft and IBM, among the major players, were also Leaders, though not as strong as Oracle. Oracle rose above the other vendors in five separate customer requirement scenarios for the application server platform category. Our analysis produced two surprises. First, Pegasystems, a vendor focused on the business process management market, was a Strong Performer in two of the scenarios, approaching Big Blue in its scores. Second, Sun Microsystems revealed itself to be a Strong Performer, approaching the status of established player BEA Systems in that regard. Another of the business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) vendors, Magic Software, was a Strong Performer in that category. JBoss, which has the most attractive pricing by far in this category, fell short of the leading vendors primarily because it has fewer features, as did SAP.