1. Is BPM the killer app for agents?No
Why not?
Business reasons: BPM is already being done by IBM, Microsoft, BEA, Oracle, and a host of other small/mid/large enterprise SW vendors
Agents provide little new end-functionality – at most “minor” architectural improvements
But, there’s a potential niche opportunity for agents in BPM
Off-line participation in business processes with seamless reconnectivity to BPM server when on-line
Better: ad-hoc BPM where servers infeasible (construction sites, tractors)

2. BPM Challenges & pitfalls
Issues
BPM Challenges & pitfalls
Current approaches have highly static architecture & interfaces (despite promise of web services)
Agents bring
(almost) zero configuration enables highly dynamic (possibly even adaptive) architectures
Low cost scalability
Centralized control not a fundamental problem
However, the agent improvements are not sufficient to counter the established vendors (from business point of view)
Established markets
Established (centralized) architectures

3. But characteristics will be:
The Killer App is…
I don’t know
But characteristics will be:
Something ONLY an agent-oriented approach can achieve
Complex, rapidly changing environment
Driven by “business” – not technology
In the meantime
BPM definitely provides good application & research area for agents