Report: Worldwide, IBM Is Well Ahead of Traditional Competitors in SOA Consulting Services

A recent spending survey of companies with active service oriented architecture (SOA) projects conducted by AMR Research shows IBM (NYSE: IBM) "is well ahead of its traditional competitors" doing SOA-related client work.

According to the AMR Research report, "SOA: The State of the Market" by research director Ian Finley, more than 67 percent of companies surveyed indicated they were either currently using or considering using IBM SOA consulting services. This figure was 40 percent higher than the results for the next-closest firm, which was named by fewer than half of respondents.

According to the AMR Research report, IBM's SOA-related software products -- based on its WebSphere portfolio -- were being used or considered by 63 percent of companies with active SOA projects.

Just more than half of the companies surveyed by AMR Research said they are currently working with IBM on SOA consulting engagements. The report also noted that, "While IBM's leadership is understandable, given its leading SOA product suite and concerted marketing efforts; its degree of penetration in companies with active SOA projects is impressive."
IBM offers the most comprehensive portfolio of software, services and hardware for building, maintaining and extending SOA environments. IBM has the largest number of SOA clients, with more than 5,700 SOA engagements all over the world.

"IBM's ability to deliver both the services and products that clients require to help them to realize the business value a true SOA environment sets us apart from any other company in the marketplace," said Robert LeBlanc, General Manager, Global Consulting Services and SOA, IBM Global Business Services. "Our market leadership shows that IBM is listening to clients' needs and responding with the capabilities to help them attain new levels of business value."
SOA is among the fastest-growing segments of the information technology industry.

For more information on IBM's SOA capabilities, visit www.ibm.com/soa
Source: AMR Research, Inc. report: "SOA: The State of the Market," by Ian Finley, Tuesday, December 18, 2007.

IBM Adds POWER Virtualization to SOA Strategy

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has taken technology originally developed to help customers shift IT processing resources during periods of peak activity -- such as dealing with unpredictable surges in internet traffic or processing increased levels of stock transactions -- and merged these virtualization capabilities with its service oriented architecture (SOA) offerings. An SOA is a business strategy that more closely aligns the use of information technology with the goals of the company.

Specifically, virtualization capabilities on the IBM System p servers combined with IBM middleware for SOA will allow customers to maximize existing hardware and software resources to centralize administrative tasks, streamline business processes and improve overall system performance, resulting in a more efficient organization.

These new offerings, known as the 'System p Configurations for SOA Entry Points,' use virtualization technology in an SOA, to ensure more balanced, flexible use of resources throughout a company. IBM has identified five SOA entry points -- people, processes, information, connectivity and reuse -- based on its success helping customers achieve business results through SOA. IBM has created five corresponding entry point configurations of hardware, virtualization and software to further simplify and accelerate the creation of an SOA while making the most of a company's existing resources.

IBM's Advanced POWER Virtualization technology for an SOA allows a single server to be divided into multiple partitions which can each run different operating systems such as UNIX and Linux and multiple applications. It also allows processing resources to be instantaneously shifted from one partition to another when they are needed in times of peak demand to provide business flexibility. In addition, the optional High-Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMP™) program can provide fail-over protection in an SOA to provide continuous availability.

"The new System p Configurations for SOA Entry Points combines the best of IBM server and virtualization technology with IBM software to make it easier to deploy new systems in an SOA," said Ross Mauri, general manager, System p, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "This powerful combination will help customers adapt to business changes with a flexible infrastructure, reduce IT costs, increase quality of service and simplify the utilization of system resources."

These new configurations combine selected IBM System p servers with IBM WebSphere, Tivoli and Information Management software. These tested configurations also include a detailed reference architecture for use by customers, business partners or IBM client IT architects. Based on in-depth experience and proven best practices, IBM Global Services or a qualified IBM Business Partner can help customers use these new configurations to help lower the cost and accelerate their entry to SOA.

"IBM's SOA entry points are based on work completed with thousands of customers using SOA to solve business problems," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM WebSphere Software. "The new System p Configurations for SOA Entry Points combines the best in IBM server and software technology to help customers start with or expand existing service oriented architectures."

The initial five configuration family members are:


System p Configuration for SOA Entry Point - Process
System p Configuration for SOA Entry Point - People
System p Configuration for SOA Entry Point - Information
System p Configuration for SOA Entry Point - Connectivity
System p Configuration for SOA Entry Point - Reuse

Each configuration will include: reference architectures, installation, system setup, configuration guides, certification of the Software stack on System p, common integration patterns at a stack level, best practices for problem prevention at a stack level, role specific stack documentation, answers to common operational questions at a stack level and appropriate customer-use cases. The configurations will initially be available later this spring starting with System p Configurations for SOA Entry Points - Process.

About IBM
For additional information visit www.ibm.com/soa

BEAS: BEA Systems and BroadSoft Form Strategic Alliance To Deliver Innovative, Next Generation Telecom Services

BEA Systems, Inc., a world leader in enterprise and communications infrastructure software, and BroadSoft, Inc., a leading provider of VoIP application software, today announced a broad-ranging strategic alliance. This alliance includes joint development, sales, and marketing of solutions that will integrate the BroadSoft® BroadWorks® suite of VoIP applications with the BEA WebLogic® Communications Platform product family.

The BEA-BroadSoft partnership is a multi-year, multi-phased strategic alliance. Under the alliance, the two companies are conducting joint sales and marketing efforts, and BroadSoft has already begun to integrate and port the BroadWorks software platform with BEA WebLogic® SIP Server.

BEA and BroadSoft are teaming up to provide service providers the ability to offer industry-leading applications over an innovative, standards-based platform. The combination of BroadWorks software and BEA WebLogic SIP Server—a converged Java EE-SIP-IMS application server—will enable service providers to deploy revenue-generating services with a rich set of VoIP capabilities. It will also be designed to provide a flexible and extensible architecture that will work in an all-IP and IMS environment in the future.

“This alliance brings together two industry-leading telecom application platforms, which will allow service providers to deliver BroadWorks-based fixed and mobile VoIP services with IMS enablers and capabilities that can be hosted on BEA WebLogic SIP Server,” said Ken Rokoff, vice president of business development at BroadSoft. “Until today, no VoIP application platform in the market has integrated with a converged Java EE-SIP-IMS application server. This unique offering can help drive new service revenues for service providers.”

“Service providers are demanding VoIP solutions that can shorten time-to-market for enhanced communication services over NGN and IMS architectures,” said Mike McHugh, vice president and general manager, BEA WebLogic Communications Platform, BEA Systems. “By bringing the BroadSoft BroadWorks solution together with the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform product family, BEA and BroadSoft will provide a feature-rich set of VoIP service enablers designed to help operators implement new revenue-generating services more rapidly and more cost-effectively.”

For more information about BEA WebLogic SIP Server, and the BEA WebLogic Communications Platform, please visit http://www.bea.com/sip and http://www.bea.com/wlcom, respectively.

The BEA WebLogic Communications Platform product family, including BEA WebLogic SIP Server, is a key component of the BEA SOA 360 platform. Announced in September at BEAWorld 2006 in San Francisco, the BEA SOA 360 platform is designed to deliver the industry’s most unified SOA platform and spans all three of BEA’s product families, AquaLogic®, WebLogic®, Tuxedo and the company’s newly unveiled SOA collaborative tooling environment, BEA Workspace 360.

BroadSoft’s IMS-compliant BroadWorks platform provides a comprehensive range of VoIP applications, including hosted PBX, IP Centrex, mobile PBX, business trunking and residential broadband services fully integrated into a single VoIP application platform. BroadWorks provides these applications with the reliability, redundancy, scalability and regulatory capabilities required to deliver carrier-class service.