Intelligent Enterprise invites a few “talking heads” to give their “Intelligent Enterprise Editors’ Choice Awards” every year, so its the time now for the 2010 edition. They selected a “top 12″ and then 12 each in categories of BI, Enterprise Applications and Information Management. Complex Event Processing got a fair share of references:

• Top 12 companies: CEP mentions were for 2 for of the 12 (Informatica and Sybase) who both acquired CEP technologies in the last 12 months; in addition 3 other companies in this list have CEP technology (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft).
• BI companies: CEP gets one mention in this list, under the TIBCO banner:

TIBCO could just as easily be listed among our Information Management Ones to Watch. But this firm sets itself apart by helping companies interpret — as well as manage and integrate — data and events. TIBCO Spotfire provides trend-spotting analysis through easily understood data visualizations. The company also offers complex event processing (CEP) for the broad market, where insight into events will make real-time BI a reality.

• Enterprise Applications: one mention here too, under Progress’ Apama division.
• Information Management: CEP gets a mention here, albeit for Streambase as a merger (aka “closer ties”) candidate for Vertica (although this seems unlikely IMHO).

So how did CEP do on the hypemeter here?
CEP:  5 company summaries included “CEP” or “Complex Event Processing”
Cloud: 7 company summaries included “cloud”
BPM: 2 mentions!
SOA: 1 mention!!!

But the winner was:
Analytics: 9 mentions, and they didn’t even mention this under TIBCO (whose Spotfire S+ is a pretty good contender)!

The CEP-BI-analytics theme was also recognised by Forrester’s James Kobelius in a recent blog posting. James identifies CEP under “analytics”, and says:

In this race, the vendor that has integrated BI, CEP, and PA/DM most effectively for the mass market is TIBCO Spotfire.

He goes on: Just as important,TIBCO’s offerings enable pushdown of predictive models to CEP, data warehouses, business process platforms, and other application platforms.

So if CEP should be counted in the same boat as analytics, then indeed there is a new world order for software technology in 2010:

Cloud, SOA and BPM: 10 mentions
CEP and Analytics: 14 mentions

Waters Magazine has posted on their blog a video interview with TIBCO’s Robin Gilthorpe from earlier this month on the subject of TIBCO BusinessEvents‘ winning their “Best in Complex Event Processing Award”.

The Banker runs annual technology awards, and this year the Citibank CEP application supporting real-time marketing is one of the winners. The article quotes:

“The system deploys complex event processing technology to evaluate static and dynamic events against a customer profile and ‘propensity model’, to determine in real time the next best offer the bank can extend to the customer.”

“Because the system operates on a ‘rules basis’, it can be adapted by business users to design the rules that govern a particular campaign without the involvement of IT staff. “

“The bank is also using the intelligence in the system for fraud prevention and proactive customer service.”

Here’s a quick announcement that might be of interest to those of you reading our blog.

We have recently been informed that our most favorite CEP product, TIBCO BusinessEvents, has been nominated, and by virtue of independent judging and votes from the public, has now made it to the Finals of the American Business Awards aka The Stevies.

So if, like me, you have a strong affinity for BE, or would like to see any CEP product gain more positive non-industry exposure, you ought to head over to cast your vote at: http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com/default.cfm

The category is for - New Product or Service of the Year – Computer Software, New Version: TIBCO CEP BusinessEvents 3.0

Final judging begins today through June 1st. I’m told that the race in these categories is tight and every vote counts.

The ABA plans to publicly announce the winners on Tuesday, June 9. The winners will be invited to attend the 7th annual American Business Awards banquet in New York on Monday, June 22 to accept their special People’s Choice trophy(s).

We will keep you posted on any developments.