In a recent review of the Epionet solution, the Gartner Group has stated "there is no competitor with a similar offering on the market". The report was compiled upon completion of the Epiowave and also states that other major players in this area will find difficulty in responding nimbly, as integrating new initiatives with existing products will be a challenge.

The promise of enterprise portals is driving a revolution in IT. The business benefits are clear and desirable, but the complexity of systems design, slow system delivery and scarcity of skilled people is seriously hindering implementation plans. Epionet have conceptualised and created an advanced development environment, which enables the rapid delivery of web services.

The report was compiled by Dr. Tony Murphy, a Gartner Vice President and who has undertaken many ebusiness assignments with leading corporations world-wide. Listing the strengths of Epionet's solution, Gartner includes rapid development, lowering the development skills threshold, the use of open standards, individual personalisation in the system and Component-based software. This last advantage is key to the effective Web enabling of business process' and services - a top priority for Epionet products.

The report also points out that Epionet is well established in this field and has an experienced management team with realistic commercial expectations. The fact that the Epiowave environment uses existing component applications and standards (e.g. XML) eliminates the need for much heavy ongoing R&D, and this was also acknowledged as an advantage.