IBM to invest USD 1 B in SOA

Bangalore, Oct 31 (UNI) The IBM today announced an investment of over one billion US Dollars by this year end to leverage on industry-specific Service Orient Architecture (SOA) capabilities for business model innovation to tap the whopping 160 billion USD SOA opportunities worldwide, Mr Ray Harishankar, IBM Fellow, Global SOA Strategic Asset Development Leader, IBM Corporation informed here today.

Speaking to neswsmen after launching Development Centres in India and China to meet the growing Client Demand for new SOA business services platform, here, he said opening of new centres was the part of IBM's initiative to tap the the SOA market worldwide which was being adopted across the space of diverse industries worldwide.

Mr Harishankar said that the new Development Centres, to be located in Beijing and Pune in India, would develop, manage and deliver industry-specific business services that solve some of the most pressing business issues facing IBM clients. They would serve as the foundation of a new globally integrated model for delivering SOA-based services.

He said while the Pune centre would cater the needs of the Healthcare And Insurance sector, the Beijing centre would focus on Banking institutions and both centres would work closely with the IBM's Global Business Servicing Centre here.

He said that SOA solutions allowed companies to create new business services easily across their existing IT infrastructure, besides retaining marketing position and leverage it to further height.

He said the Centre in Pune would initially develop repeatable business services for the Insurance industry, including home and auto rate quoting as well as health care business services such as claim filing and response. Resources from IBM labs in Hyderabad, would also support development activity in Pune. The Beijing centre would develop services for Governments including financial and case management as well as services for banks including real time, risk-based loan pricing.

Over 1000 IBM SOA experts in both the centres would be deployed to cater the new and innovative services to support IBM client base, he said. The development of SOA solutions would further accelerate the evolution of IBM's service delivery model from a labor based model to an asset based model, he said.

Mr Harishankar said a recent study by the IBM institute for Business Value, had suggested that the business value of the Service-oriented Architecture found 97 per cent of clients justified SOA projects based on cost savings and impact to profitability.

After completing initial projects 51 per cent saw revenue growth as a direct result of SOA, he said.

About IBM's foray into SOA space, Mr Harishankar has said that IBM already has more than 3000 SOA clients, and the company was positioned as a leader by garnering over 46 per cent of the worldwide market share.

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