At its SOA Executive Summit in London last month, IBM announced an initiative to help ISVs and system integrators successfully develop and implement a service-oriented architecture with their customers.
The program—part of IBMs initiative to empower ISVs and system integrators using IBM software and services—will enable partners to access IBM resources. Included in the initiative is a host of training offerings, applications and services, coupled with SOA deployments with customers, according to IBM officials in Armonk, N.Y.
While geared toward helping all IBMs partners better develop and deploy SOAs for their customers, the focus on SOA also benefits IBM, through sales of its software, including WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli, DB2 and Lotus.
“IBM is uniquely positioned to develop an SOA ecosystem to meet the needs of all partners through its WebSphere software, collective experience, resources and expertise from across the company,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive for the IBM Software Group, in a statement.
The resources available from IBMs PartnerWorld Industry Networks—which have thousands of companies developing software for IBM—include business planning, technical enablement, co-marketing and sales assistance.
On a more technical front, IBM is offering SOA Partner Workshops and an Architect Hotline. Trial copies of WebSphere Business Integration Modeler, which lets users simulate and validate business processes before putting them into production, along with a handful of Rational offerings, are also at the ready.
IBMs software and services are available, of course, to partners that adopt the companys SOA model. Miko Matsumura, vice president at Web services management company Infravio Inc.—among the partners signing up for IBMs SOA program—is looking forward to a “deepening relationship” with IBM.
“Were seeing on the order of dozens of companies that are pretty serious about implementing SOA on a fairly significant level,” said Matsumura in Cupertino, Calif. “When [companies] bring in Infravios metadata services, theyre more serious [about SOA]. We do feel that IBM is making a lot of progress in defining more SOA services. Their commitment to SOA is very strong and clear.”