The emergence and rapid proliferation of business rules management systems (BRMS) over the past couple of years is strong evidence that IT/business alignment is a front-burner issue. These software tools, designed to automate business-rules decision making in enterprise IT applications, are fast becoming a must-have. In a recent report from industry analyst firm IDC, "Momentum Continues for Leading Vendors in Business Rules Management Systems Market," Group VP Stephen D. Hendricks predicts that BRMSs will become "the key component of the application infrastructure stack," beginning next year.
