Vergelijking Applicatieservers

zijn positioneerd de applicatieservers van Oracle en MS als "leaders" de de applicatieservers van ,, IBM, Sun, SAP als "strong performers."
Een-en-ander is na te lezen in The Forrester Wave: Application Server Platforms Q1 2005 (pdf).

Hiebij de belangrijkste conclusies:
"Oracle and Microsoft provide the leading platform choices. Oracle has a surprising range of functions for composite application development and management, as well as a surprising degree of integration between the components of its application platform suite. Oracle scored high on all of the Forrester Wave's Current Offering criteria but had particularly strong administration and management features, compared with the other vendors. Oracle's costs are also comparatively low, and the company has dramatically expanded its market presence during the past two years. Microsoft also scored well across the board with its features, overcoming the negative impact of incomplete integration between its platform components. The gaps between the Windows Server, BizTalk Server, and SharePoint Portal Server, for example, create boundaries between development tools, which add complexity. The same is true of management tools. Microsoft's biggest assets in the comparison, however, were its productive development tools and its strong strategy. On the Forrester Wave diagram, Microsoft's market presence appears to be smaller than it really is because Microsoft declined to provide key data for that set of scores.
IBM, BEA, SAP, and Sun are strong performers. IBM and BEA almost equaled Microsoft’s functionality scores. BEA created the market for application server platforms and has a strong product. WebLogic Platform’s current shortcomings in administration and management are scheduled to be eliminated in a 2005 release. IBM’s overall functionality is strong, but integration between its WebSphere platforms is weak. In addition, IBM’s scores also suffered because the company segments some key development and management functions into some of its other products. The strategy scores of both BEA and IBM were also driven down by their relatively high prices and other costs, compared with the leaders."