IBM at its IBM Impact 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla. on Monday unveiled a series of services and products focused on SOA. More than 4,500 IBM customers have modeled their businesses around SOA, IBM said. "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 establis IBM at its IBM Impact 2007 conference in Orlando, Fla. on Monday unveiled a series of services and products focused on SOA.More than 4,500 IBM customers have modeled their businesses around SOA, IBM said. “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 Steve Mills, senior vice president, IBM Software, in a statement released by the company. “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.” IBM announced tools and programs to boost SOA skills and understanding. These include:* SOA roadmaps featuring business blueprints fo specific industries. These include: insurance, member enrollment and benefits/eligibility for healthcare, payments for banking, personal shopping for retail, service provisioning and delivery for telecommunications and supply chain for the industrial space.* IBM TV: Impact Channel, an online portal featuring webcasts, podcasts and other components to develop technical and business skills. * Innov8, an interactive SOA game.* Enhancements to SOA certification and education programs, including self-paced and instructor-led courses.* Professional services for SOA Diagnostics, SOA Strategy, SOA Implementation Planning and Business Process Management enabled by SOA. Also introduced were SOA Design Development and Integration and SOA Management services. IBM also said it has integrated technology acquired from DataPower, SOA appliances and FileNet Content Management and Business Process Management software into the IBM SOA portfolio. The company announced WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance X150, which supports direct database connectivity and supports WebSphere’s Transformation Extender design studio. This provides common tooling across the company’s enterprise service bus portfolio. A new version of IBM’s DB2 Dynamic Warehouse integrates with IBM Information on Demand and SOA strategies for “Dynamic Warehousing” solutions. Organizations can analyze and use information to optimize business processes and perform other tasks. To bolster governance, IBM introduced Rational Asset Manager, providing service lifecycle management. For SOA on the mainframe, IBM introduced a new version of WebSphere Process Server on System z, to automate business processes and consolidate mission-critical elements of a business onto a single system. Technology Industry