SOA Consortium Releases New Podcast Featuring Sandy Carter, VP, SOA &
WebSphere Strategy, Channels and Marketing IBM: IT Needs SOA Skills

Needham, MA, USA – January 22, 2008 – The SOA Consortium™ today announced that a podcast and slide deck of the presentation by Sandy Carter, VP, SOA & WebSphere Strategy, Channels and Marketing, IBM, on “IT needs SOA Skills,” at the SOA Consortium meeting in San Francisco in December is now available. To access the podcast, visit http://www.soa-consortium.org/podcast-ca-sc-pr. 

Sandy Carter spoke about the importance of fostering SOA skills in her presentation to the members and guests attending the SOA Consortium general meeting in December. In her presentation, she called out results from a survey conducted at IBM’s Impact conference that “56% of people say their biggest inhibitor is not looking at the value of SOA, or what SOA brings to the table, but it was looking at their skills.”

In respect to SOA skills, Sandy shared that the most critical, and most scarce, is the combination of technical and business skills. IBM has learned that the most successful SOA initiatives have individuals who can determine what process to start with, articulate that process, identify the most competitive part, make the translation to services and communicate with both the business and IT.

After sharing IBM’s work on SOA skills development – including demonstrations of Innov8 and a Key Agility Indicator Benchmark Wizard – Sandy spoke about how the SOA Consortium can help colleges and companies understand and create the SOA skills needed for the future.

To hear all of the insights Sandy presented, visit http://www.soa-consortium.org/podcast-ca-sc-pr to download the 45-minute podcast and accompanying slide presentation.

The next SOA Consortium meeting is March 12-13, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel. Organizations interested in joining the SOA Consortium and attending the meeting should visit the website, http://www.soa-consortium.org or email info@soa-consortium.org for more information.

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About The SOA Consortium
The SOA Consortium is an advocacy group of end users, service providers and technology vendors committed to helping the Global 1000, major government agencies, and mid-market businesses successfully adopt Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) by 2010. SOA Consortium founding enterprise members include Fortune 200 companies in Financial Services, Travel, Manufacturing, Retail and Telecommunications. Sponsors are BEA Systems, Inc., Cisco, IBM Corporation, SAP AG and Sparx Systems. Participants in the consortium to date include: Aberdeen Group, Inc., Adaptive, Inc., American Red Cross, Avis Budget Group, Bank of America, Bunge Agribusiness, Cambridge Technology Enterprise, Capability Measurement, Cape Clear Software, Inc., CellExchange, Inc., Center for Public-Private Enterprise, CGI Federal, Computer Sciences Corporation, Daugherty Business Solutions, ebizQ, eCube Systems, LLC, EDS, Equally Keen, Ltd., Evans Data Corporation, Federal Signal Corp., Fidelity Investments, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Forestay, LLC, Fraunhofer FOKUS, General Services Administration, H2O GmbH, Helm Solutions Group, HP, Hitachi Consulting, Hurwitz & Associates, ICW Group, Integration Consortium, Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, Interoperability Clearinghouse, iWay Software, Kohl's Department Stores, Lake Trail Partners, LLC, MAKE Technologies Inc., Maryfran Johnson & Associates, Mercury Interactive, MITRE, Model Driven Solutions, MomentumSI, Monsanto, OMG, Penn National Insurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers , SAIC, PHS Operation, Schlumberger Technology, SDG Corporation, Software AG, Sonoa Systems, TethersEnd Consulting, Thomas & Hebert, Torry Harris Business Solutions, TPP Global Services LLC, WebEx, Wells Fargo, and ZapThink, LLC. Any organization may join the SOA Consortium. The SOA Consortium is managed by the Object Management Group.

For more information, please visit http://www.soa-consortium.org or email info@soa-consortium.org. 

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