04/08/2008

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IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new social network focused on advancing service oriented architectures (SOA).

ebizQ received the following:

IBM's SOA Social Network brings together a like-minded, global community of thought leaders, information technology (IT) and business professionals, university professors and students, and other interested parties through both online and in-person forums designed to help members build skills and share best practices.

As part of IMPACT 2008, the company's annual user conference, IBM is hosting a 72 hour online jam for the global SOA social network to discuss issues, challenges and ideas related to SOA. The SOA jam is being moderated by industry leaders, academics, analysts, IBM Business Partners and employees from around the world. These moderators include Dr. Bob Chu, research director at Kingdee, one of China's fastest growing enterprise software providers and Richard Welke, director of the Center for Process Innovation and Professor of Computer Information Systems, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University.

"Currently, we have a thriving SOA community with more than 120,000 architects and developers, over 134 universities contributing to our SOA curriculum, and over 5,000 Business Partners building SOA skills, solutions, and practices to help our clients," said Sandy Carter, vice president, WebSphere and SOA strategy, channels and marketing, IBM. "Building on our successful pilot program in China, IBM is expanding its SOA social network as a way to share best practices, accelerate SOA projects and bring together the business, IT and academic worlds across roles and industries."

IBM's SOA social network spans more than 120 countries, including rapidly developing markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the Middle East. Virtual interaction is made possible through IBM Lotus Connections technology as well as integration with top social networking communities including Facebook and Twitter.

"As an academic and consultant, the SOA social network will help meet the needs of a growing community of IT and business professionals seeking additional, free resources to further navigate their SOA journeys," said Brian Blake, associate professor and chair, Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University.

The IBM SOA social network is growing beyond a thriving population of developers and architects to include business analysts and line of business (LOB) executives. Specifically, these groups will be able to host virtual meetings in Second Life as well connect face-to-face with other members in the SOA social network through local chapter meetings that are being coordinated by IBM. The SOA social network also aligns members according to their role in the organization which results in powerful subgroups of developers, CIOs and architects, for example, across the world collaborating on the future of SOA.

Business analysts and LOB executives attending IMPACT will also notice an increased focus on industry-specific education sessions, workshops, and software and services offerings that address the specific business and IT challenges inherent in vertical industries.

To further support the members of the IBM SOA social network by building both business and technical skills, IMPACT attendees will be able to test in any of 189 certifications. Interestingly, IBM has recognized a 258 percent growth in its SOA certifications since IMPACT 2007. Additionally, IBM has enhanced its serious game, Innov8 with Web 2.0 capabilities to teach students and professionals core business and IT skills related to business process management (BPM) and business events, two hot growth areas that will be critical to the future of IT.

The IBM SOA social network is open to any customers, partners, academics and interested parties aiming to advance and share SOA knowledge and best practices. Membership is free and not restricted to the IBM community.