Costly, Painful and Worth It

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EAI vendors may follow the same pricing strategy as ERP makers: Sellhigh to the Fortune 500 first, then lower the price in search ofmidmarket buyers later. Smaller companies in particular may balk attoday's EAI sticker price and choose to wait, or they may look atlower-end EAI tools.

Which brings us back to the conundrum faced by Robert Ramrath at Bosewhen he built his company's Custom Order Interface pay more up frontfor EAI, or pay more later when it's time to change systems andprocesses.

Now that the tools have grown up, Ramrath finds himself pondering EAIagain. Bose just completed a high-level study of EAI tools thatincludes five distinct possible business-planning scenarios. In otherwords, the payback will change depending on how Bose's business playsout during the next several years and the additional integrationprojects it might or might not undertake. Will Bose take the plunge?Will you?