IBM is to update Websphere, its service-oriented architecture offering, on Wednesday.
Steve Mills, IBM's software group senior vice president, said that IBM had incorporated Web 2.0 functionalities in the form of RSS feeds. "The whole nature of Web 2.0 is to be able to rapidly incorporate new information into applications," said Mills. "We link web services and use feed technologies like RSS and Atom as a simple way of bringing additions into the SOA [service-oriented architecture] scenario."
This would not present security problems, as SOA additions would be policy driven, said Mills. "WebSphere adheres to privacy and security policies, and auditing services are provided through the WebSphere infrastructure."
The company has devised an assessment tool that allows companies to compare the efficiency of their business processes with rivals. It has also developed a program that allows end users to adjust which indicators they like to track, such as how quickly orders are fulfilled.
These SOA consulting offerings and IBM's WebSphere tools include information that has been customised to particular industries including banking, healthcare, telecommunications and insurance.
IBM is also adding a password-authentication process to WebSphere DataPower devices, its SOA management consoles.
Mills said he welcomed competition from vendors with SOA products based on open standards, such as Oracle and Siebel, but he dismissed Microsoft's Biztalk SOA offering.
"In SOA, everyone can play based on an open standards structure — there's relative ease in wiring modules together. Microsoft is offering Windows-to-Windows capabilities — BizTalk doesn't scale, and have reliability and recovery services built in. It works in a particular context, but not for the entire SOA play," said Mills.
Mills also criticised BizTalk back in August, claiming it was a "lightweight messaging infrastructure". Steven Martin, Microsoft's director of product management for the connected systems division, responded by saying: "Microsoft's SOA offering co-ordinates far more than Windows-based applications. In fact, 92 percent of our platform middleware customers report that they use our technology to co-ordinate applications on heterogeneous platforms."
