India, Jan. 13 -- The year 2019 marked a big one for consolidation among data, analytics, and related vendor companies as the industry reorganized for the cloud and big vendors staked their competitive positions. Now in early 2020, an acquisition in an adjacent technology may be signaling further changes ahead for another hot technology in the enterprise.

Low-code development platform vendor Appian has acquired startup Novayre Solutions SL, developer of the Jidoka robotic process automation platform. In announcing the deal, Appian said that it now makes the company a "one-stop shop for automation, with best-in-class solutions for workflow, AI, and RPA."

That's something that many vendors and enterprise companies are pursuing. RPA and ar...