Corticon

Corticon Technologies, Inc. is a Business Rule Management System software company that provides enterprise software products designed to automate decision management through use of a patented rules engine that does not require coding. Instead of requiring users to program, or code business logic into IT infrastructure applications, the rules engine separates the creation and management of business logic from the overall development of hard-coded applications.^[1]

Corticon is an international, privately held company headquartered in Redwood City, California, with offices in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Japan.

The company has been recognized as a leading Business Rules Management System (BRMS) vendor by industry analysts at Forrester Research.^[2][3]

History

Corticon was founded in 2000 by Dr. Mark Allen and Pedram Abrari. They founded the company after researching rule-based systems and their application to healthcare delivery. Dr. Allen worked with Dr. Larry Baraff and David Schriger, who were attempting to encode the logic of clinical practice guidelines into rule-based systems to provide in-process guidance to healthcare professionals.^[4][5] Dr. Allen chose to leave the medical profession in 2000 to commercialize an approach to rule modeling. He partnered with Pedram Abrari, who brought experience developing rule-based systems. With a team of engineers knowledgeable in traditional rule-based systems, they developed the Corticon Business Rules Management System.^[6]

On 26 October 2011, Corticon was acquired by Progress Software.^[7] Terms of the deal weren't released. It was also announced that Founder Mark Allen would join the Office of CTO at Progress Software.

Technology

Corticon’s business rules engine works with service oriented architectures (SOA). Traditional rules engines use a Rete algorithm to execute rules. To avoid potential issues with rule execution as data becomes more complex, Corticon uses a patented Design-Time-Interfacing (DeTI) algorithm. That algorithm is designed to scale linearly regardless of the number of rules or complexity of the data.^[8]

Diagram of the results of using a Rete algorithm compared to Corticon’s Design-Time-Inferencing™ (DeTI) algorithm.

The Corticon BRMS is managed on a spreadsheet-like platform. Business and IT users work on this platform to make dynamic changes to rules. Corticon’s Application programming interface is integrated with an open-source development environment. Partners and customers use the open-source environment to simplify the process of integrating Corticon 5’s rules engine into their applications and software infrastructure.^[9]

Products

Corticon's products are in use primarily by financial services, insurance, and eCommerce companies, as well as federal and state government organizations.^[10] Collectively, those products automate millions of transactions per day.^[11]

Corticon 5 is the latest version of the BRMS rules engine. The latest iteration of the Corticon business-rules software was designed on the open-source Eclipse framework. Its rulesheets provide a graphical depiction of business rules. Rulesheets can be reused in multiple software applications. The idea of reusable rulesheets further supports the SOA movement, which foresees pre-built services as essential in creating business efficiency.^[12]

Partners

Corticon has partnerships with companies to extend the value of Corticon's BRMS solutions. Partners include Solution Providers, Systems Integrators, and aligned technology vendors. Leading partners include HP, Deloitte, CSC, EMC, DST Systems, Appian, Adobe, TIBCO, and Global 360^[13]

Competitors

Corticon’s competitors include: Bosch Software Innovations, FICO, IBM/ILOG, InRule Technology, OpenRules, Pegasystems, Red Hat, and others.

See also

Business process management
Business rule
Business rules approach
Business rules engine

References

External links

• Official Corticon Website