IBM Launches Initiative of SOA Products, Services
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IBM launches a new SOA effort to fill gaps in the company's portfolio of SOA tools so that IBM can serve as a one-stop shop for SOA customers.IBM announced a broad-based assault on the service-oriented architecture market, introducing a wide variety of new and enhanced products and services aimed at helping IBM customers implement SOA and bolstering the company's position as a leader in the SOA space.

In a call with reporters and analysts, Steve Mills, IBM senior vice president and general manager of IBM Software Group, joined Mike Daniels, senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services, and Robert LeBlanc, general manager of IBM's WebSphere business unit, to describe the new lineup of four new and 23 enhanced products and 11 new services based on the company's experience with nearly 3,000 SOA customer engagements and 2,500 business partners.

"IBM is making $1 billion in SOA investments this year," Mills said.

Indeed, Mills said IBM's new SOA software and services focus on four key areas: the use of business process management (BPM, governance, preparing IT infrastructures for SOA; and creating SOA services).

Tracy LeGrand, chief architect and vice president of technology strategy and architecture at Ameriprise Financial, Minneapolis, an IBM SOA customer, said IBM and its products have "played an important role in our SOA journey. And IBM is now enhancing these products to cover spaces where we had to bring in other products" to fill out areas IBM previously did not cover.

Mills said IBM has 300 SOA patents. He added that according to a study by Wintergreen Research, Lexington, Mass., IBM has a 46 percent share of the SOA market.

"We're quite impressed with the completeness, depth and accuracy of IBM's SOA message," said Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink, Waltham, Mass.

Click here to read more about IBM's big bets on SOA.

"The greatest challenge that all vendors in the SOA space are facing today is that you can't get SOA from products, since SOA consists of best practices.

"IBM fully understands this fact, and balances the best practices offerings within their consulting arm on the one hand with a comprehensive product strategy in support of their customers' SOA initiatives on the other."

On the BPM front, particularly for business modeling, the latest release of WebSphere Business Modeler features new business user tooling and visualization aids, IBM said.

In addition, IBM has introduced a new BPM Methodology and the BPM Competency Center, LeBlanc said.

Meanwhile, the new release of WebSphere Business Monitor supports BAM (Business Activity Monitoring), and the latest release of WebSphere Process Server enhances support for advanced human workflow capabilities, IBM officials said.

And the IBM Workplace Dashboard Framework provides customers with reusable service-oriented components, administration tools and the ability to create dashboards, LeBlanc said.

Next Page: Business goals.

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