Click for full-size PNG, JPG, or TIF file

This diagram shows the history and current state of business rules technology vendors. Today's "business rules engines" were previously known as "expert systems". The Artificial Intelligence-based inference engine under the hood is what gives these products the power to fire the right rule at the right time. As you can see, some of these products have been around for 20 years or so.

Haley Systems should be on your BRE short-list if your business users want to write natural language business rules - in English. Haley was acquired by RuleBurst in Nov. 2007. Oracle acquired RuleBurst/Haley in 2008.

Versata used to be known as Vision Software. Their rule engine is optimized for data-intensive transactional applications. Versata was acquired by Trilogy on Jan. 2006. On Aug. 2007, Trilogy acquired Gensym.

SAP acquired Yasu on Oct. 2007.

ILOG was one of the first expert system companies. Their first product was written in LISP. Today their rule engine is written in Java and .NET. Their history is as follows:

1987 Founded

1988 LISP Rule Engine

1993 ILOG Rules (C++)

1997 ILOG JRules (Java)

2001 JRules 3.5 (XML/J2EE)

2002 JRules 4.0 (BRMS)

2003 JRules 4.5

2004 Rules for .NET

2008 IBM acquires ILOG

InRule should be on your BRE short-list if you need a fast .NET rule engine.

Pegasystems is one of the new generation rules/process engines that have taken expert systems to the next level by combining workflow and process automation.

Visual Rules by Innovations Software is another new generation rule management system and rule engine. As its name implies, Visual Rules uses a visual rule tree metaphor to draw rules.

Planet Group / Insession Technologies WorkPoint is another new generation rules/process engine that combines the features of rules, workflow, and process automation with logical rules/process modeling. On October 6, 2006, the WorkPoint product was acquired by Planet Group, Inc.

RulesPower also combines the features of rules, workflow, and process automation with logical rules/process modeling. In November 2005, RulesPower was acquired by Fair Isaac.

Please contact us if you know of other world-class, industrial-strength, business rules engine products that belong on this list.

Disclaimer: As an independent solutions provider, BIZRULES works closely with many of the leading ES/BRE vendors in this list. Our BIZRULES^® VISION™ Methodology is platform neutral and supports all the rule engines listed above. In addition, we have formal alliances with a few of the leading ES/BRE vendors: BIZRULES Alliance Partners include Haley, ILOG, InRule, MindBox, Pegasystems, Versata, Innovations Software Technology (Visual Rules), XpertRule, and Amzi.

Note: The companies/products in the BRE Family Tree™ also include: CA CleverPath AION, Gensym, Intellicorp, Rule Machines Corp., Exsys, SoftLaw, ESI Logist, Corticon, Sapiens, Microsoft BizTalk BRE, IBM BRE, and Oracle BRE.

See BRE vendor websites.