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IBM’s service oriented architecture (SOA) tries to bridge IT and business by providing an “umbrella” for customer’s existing IT infrastructure. SOA has been a growth engine for IBM as well as its customers.

Thousands of IBM’s customers and Business Partners are gathered this week for IMPACT 2007, IBM’s inaugural worldwide customer event focused on advancing the $160 billion service oriented architecture (SOA) market through education and demonstrable business results. More than 4,000 IBM customers have modeled their businesses around SOA, a business strategy that helps a company reuse existing technology to more closely align it with business goals, helping to result in greater efficiencies, cost savings and productivity.

In addition to addressing the serious SOA IT skills shortage, IBM is also announcing new software and services at IMPACT. Further, more than 100 IBM customers including Cardinal Health, Wachovia and Royal Caribbean will share experiences on how an SOA strategy has made an impact on their business. The week-long event also features more than 400 sessions targeted to four key audiences: business leaders, information technology (IT) executives, technical communities and the roles that intersect business and IT.

“SOA has been a growth engine for IBM as well as our customers because it gives companies the much-needed flexibility to focus on achieving business results without being hindered by the constructs of established infrastructures,” said Erwin Sukiato, Country Manager, Software Group, IBM Indonesia. “IBM’s differentiation is in its ability to address business challenges using the right balance of business and technical skills along with an unmatched, multi-pronged approach to meeting customers’ needs.”

A recent study found that 56 percent of IBM customers cited lack of skills, mainly individuals with a blending of IT technical understanding and business process acumen, as the leading inhibitor to SOA. To address the SOA skills shortage, IBM is announcing new tools and certification programs to help businesses develop teams of individuals with so-called “T-shaped” skills, which encompass both deep business skills, represented by the horizontal line of the “T”, and technical understanding, represented by the vertical line.

Source: Press release via e-mail.

Topik: Infrastructure, Vendor