Accelerating COTS middleware acquisition: the i-mate process

COTS middleware speeds e-business application deployment but can be difficult to select. The i-Mate tool provides a proven, structured software engineering process for COTS middleware acquisition. Using i-Mate in six major projects for a wide range of organizations led to highly visible, accountable, and ultimately reliable selections of COTS middleware products in greatly compressed time scales. This significantly reduced the risks associated with inappropriate product selections and made these projects more likely to succeed.