IBM ENHANCES ITS SOA OFFERING

New Delhi
The Times of India

In what has become a twice-yearly exercise, IBM recently rolled out its latest collection of new and enhanced service-oriented architecture (SOA) products, services and initiatives.

Competitors ranging from Oracle to Microsoft to Hewlett-Packard to Accenture are increasingly well positioned to offer strong alternatives to IBM's SOA solutions. But, as evidenced by its latest announcements and activities, IBM is has not yet relinquished the position it has held ever since the SOA market began to make sense several years ago.

Leveraging the company's long-standing "Smart SOA" marketing theme, the announcements this time around stressed the ability of SOA to drive "smart business outcomes". More fundamental to IBM's current efforts is its decision to recalibrate its marketing to better align with the early-stage guidance most SOA customers still require.

As part of that fine-tuning, IBM has undertaken a 100-city tour to position SOA in a way that is meaningful to local customer needs.

According to American technology research consultancy firm Ovum, IBM has gone back to basics with its SOA strategy and its SOA world tour demonstrates its competitive edge.

According to Dwight Davis, Ovum senior analyst, "IBM has been the most proactive of any vendor in marrying SOA software with complementary professional services and customer education. That's not surprising, given that no other vendor can match IBM in having both a broad SOA software portfolio and a comprehensive services arm that can tackle everything from SOA planning, design and implementation to business-process analysis, modularisation and optimisation. "

However, IBM's broad set of SOA products, capabilities and customers is both a blessing and a curse for the company. On the positive side, the vendor's extensive software portfolio combined with its consulting services expertise has garnered it an enviable SOA customer base – more than 7,000 customers worldwide, according to its own count.