IBM has made its biggest service oriented architecture
(SOA) push to date with four new and 23 enhanced products and 11
new professional services designed to help users turn their
business processes into software components.
SOA allows IT staff to publish the business functions of an
application as a web service, letting other applications make use
of those functions.
“SOA is a fundamental shift in technology that will continue to
significantly impact business,” said Steve Mills, senior vice
president, IBM Software Group.
“With the early adopter phase behind us and SOA software
capabilities deemed as table stakes, the next logical evolution in
this market will be ensuring that vendors and customers have the
resources and skills available to make the most of their SOA
investments,” he added.
IBM’s new software and services focus on four areas: business
process management (BPM); governance; preparing IT infrastructures
for SOA; and creating specialised SOA services.
IBM also announced the results of a study by the Institute for
Business Value, which found that 92% of IBM SOA customers
implemented a SOA to reduce their costs. The Business Value of
Service-Oriented Architecture study also found that 51% of
customers experienced a growth in revenues because of their
SOA.
The IBM announcement follows results of a Computer Weekly CIO
Index which showed that the adoption of service oriented
architecture is becoming more widespread among businesses.
Our second quarterly survey revealed that SOA is now implemented
at a departmental level in 16% of businesses, compared with 9% when
the survey was launched in April. In addition, 19% of businesses
are piloting SOA technologies, compared to 15% in the first set of
findings.
Besides IBM, several software vendors have put SOA at the centre
of their product strategies, including SAP, BEA and Oracle.