Our characterization of the following vendors reflects a rather narrow segmentation of EAI products. In reality, many vendors offer a wide variety of EAI technologies that can be implemented without additional customization. In other words, it is easy to package EAI technologies together. In addition, many EAI suites include much more than simply XML-based legacy integration and/or publish and subscribe messaging-style engines.
XML: Enable designers to create customized tags that provide functionality not available with HTML. For example, XML enables links to point to multiple documents, as opposed to HTML links, which reference one destination each.

1. Active Software's ActiveWorks: An application server engine, with its own management infrastructure, based on a publish and subscribe messaging model, that includes a visual designer and interfaces to leading CRM packages.
2. Vitria's BusinessWare: Combines modernized IP-based messaging-based engine and data integration EAI with a variety of other tools, including process modeling tools, and real-time data analyzers.
3. Tibco's Active Enterprise: A full-blown EAI solution, complete with publish and subscribe-based message brokering, interfaces to a variety of enterprise applications, management infrastructure, and business rules management.
4. Merant's eGility: Combines data integration tools with COBOL-to- Java conversion utilities and XML-based legacy integration tools.

1. Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL): One of the oldest high level programming languages. It is designed to make it easy for programmers who did not write the original program to make corrections and changes.
2. Java: Enables applications developed with Java to be run on any operating system that supports the Java platform. Java technology-based software works just about everywhere, from the smallest devices to supercomputers. Java technology components do not care what kind of computer, phone, TV, or operating system they run on.

webMethod's B2B: webMethods (yes, the little w is correct) offers cross-platform integration solutions especially for B2B e-Commerce applications like e-Procurement and Supply Chain Management. The product, B2B, makes extensive use of XML, and supports emerging XML standards such as Microsoft'sBizTalk, RosettaNet, cXML, and OAG.

1. Biz Talk: A framework that allows e-Commerce vendors to integrate applications and conduct business with their trading partners and customers.
2. Rosetta Net: A non-profit standards organization focusing on developing standards for supply-chain (manager-supplier) transactions on the Internet.
3. CXML: A meta-language defining necessary information about a product. Eventually this standard will be used to standardize the exchange of catalog content and to define request/response processes for secure electronic transactions over e-Commerce sites.
4. Open Applications Group (OAG): A industry consortium seeking to enable organizations to quickly buy and easily integrate their business applications.

KPMG has entered into a strategic relationship with webMethods. The B2B product has the ability to facilitate the kind of application-to-application integration so often required in e-Commerce solution development.

This is only a sampling of EAI products. Several other vendors, such as Crossworlds, New Era of Networks (NEON), Neuron Data, Level8, and TSI are moving and shaking in the EAI space, and there are plenty of new vendors on the horizon.
The following table consists of EAI vendors/tools