On 4 February 2009, Tibco announced the official release of Tibco Messaging Appliance. Its goal is to provide an ultra-low latency messaging solution that can handle the growing volumes found in extreme messaging applications. The product was first revealed at Tibco's 2008 user conference and has already shipped to some users.

The low-latency messaging (LLM) market segment is worth about $100 million per year — approximately 13% of the overall message-oriented middleware (MOM) market. It is an important and profitable niche that is growing faster than the general MOM market. Tibco is the largest vendor in the LLM segment with its Rendezvous messaging product, but its market share has been slipping as a result of increasing competition. This appliance is part of Tibco’s strategy to strengthen its position. It will compete mainly with messaging appliances such as the IBM DataPower XM70, Solace 3230 Content Router and Tervela TMX Message Switch. But it will also compete against software-only solutions from providers such as 29 West, IBM, Intel, Kongsberg, Object Computing, PrismTech, RTI and Wombat.

Tibco says that no coding changes are required to allow Rendezvous applications to use the appliance. This feature will be critical for enticing customers with a large number of Rendezvous servers to adopt this new product.

While Tibco has experience in high-performance messaging verticals such as capital markets, it has no experience or track record in hardware products based on application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). Tibco designed this product in partnership with Solace. Although Solace already offers its own high-volume LLM appliance, it runs other messaging software. The Tibco version runs Rendezvous, providing a clear differentiator between the Tibco and Solace appliances.

Tibco also claims that its product can outperform competing appliances because its messaging function is built directly into hardware using field-programmable gate arrays and ASICs, whereas other appliances do more in software.

The initial target audience is banking firms that focus on capital markets and have a large number of Rendezvous applications. Future targets will include organizations in the telecom, manufacturing, government and retail spaces. There is potential for broadening the high-performance messaging target market. Options include:

• Cloud-based platforms, including messaging as a service
• The messaging platform component in a service-enabled application platform (SEAP)
• The messaging platform component for application platform as a service (APaaS) offerings

• Rendezvous users with extreme throughput and low-latency requirements: Consider a messaging appliance when you want to improve performance by using ASICs, positioning the server near the event source and, because of the form factor, deploying more servers in that constrained space.
• Cloud, APaaS and SEAP providers: Evaluate Tibco's messaging appliance for applications that require very-high-volume ultra-LLM.

• "Tibco Unveils New Product Bundles Founded on ActiveMatrix 2.0" — Organizations requiring products that support classic integration and the deployment of applications with service-oriented architecture should consider these Tibco packages for their evaluation shortlists. By Jess Thompson and Frank Kenney
• "Open Source in MOM, 2008" — Mainstream companies and individual project teams that match the profile of open-source users should include open-source MOM in their architectures and infrastructures. By Roy Schulte

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