IBM to open SOA centre

IBM today announced plans to open an SOA Leadership Centre in India designed to address the growing demand for skills needed to solve customer business challenges using Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA).

The centre will be set up in Bangalore and would be the first of its kind in Asia Pacific and the fourth of a series of SOA Leadership Centers planned across the world. The centre will become fully functional during the first quarter of 2008.

The SLC centre in Bangalore will be staffed with IBM's Global SOA experts and will focus on three key areas: SOA Education and Training; SOA Implementation Support; and SOA Exhibitions and Demonstrations, thus benefiting IBM customers, business partners and university students.

The SLC will offer training and instruction from SOA experts; certification and joint education programmes with top local universities; as well as access to industry models and SOA best practices and proven methodologies based on IBM's worldwide experience.

Further strengthening IBM's commitment to India and SOA, the leadership centre will serve as a focal point to harness the SOA skills and expertise from IBM product and services teams & IBM Business Partners.

The centre will work closely with universities to address skill shortages evident in fresh graduates. According to industry firm Springboard Research, the shortage of SOA skills is one of the biggest hurdles to the faster SOA adoption in India.

"Opening of the centre is a direct response to what our customers in India are demanding," said Panini Dwivedi, Country Manager "" WebSphere, Software Group, IBM India/ SA.

He added: "IBM has helped thousands of early SOA adopters around the world successfully overcome some of today's most-challenging business problems using SOA. Now the SOA Leadership Center can help customers develop the skills and knowledge to help enable them to use an SOA to attain business goals. Partnering local universities will also be a major focus of the centre, with a goal of building SOA skills in the emerging workforce in India."

Springboard Research's latest report expects the SOA market in India to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 per cent during 2007-2010, making it the fastest-growing market in the region.

Commenting on the announcement, Jai Menon, Head "" Business Innovation initiatives, Bharti said, "SOA is an ideal solution for companies to innovate and bring new offerings to the market faster. For companies to realise the maximum benefit of SOA, it is important that they approach SOA as a business model and not as a technology requirement. Increased SOA skills, a better understanding of how and when to start SOA is the need of the hour. IBM's initiative in enabling the ecosystem on SOA skills will surely go a long way in increasing the SOA adoption in India."

The centre will provide a venue for customers and IBM business partners to see SOA solutions in action through SOA proof of concepts to demonstrate the potential benefits of SOA in a customer's existing IT infrastructure.

The centre will also help address SOA skills through relationships with local universities. Through these relationships, IBM is helping to shape the curricula and provide opportunities for students to develop the proper skills to succeed with SOA in their chosen fields when they enter the workforce.

Local students can have the opportunity to serve as interns at these centres, have hands-on experience with technologies that support SOA and attend education sessions delivered by IBM experts.