SOA brings change

Worldwide IT spending should top $3.4 trillion in 2008, up 8% from 2007, research firm Gartner is predicting, says CNet.

But much of that growth is due to the decline in the US dollar. When adjusted for currency issues, worldwide spending is predicted to grow only 4.5%.

"Software-as-a-service, cloud computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web 2.0, and open source software are causing huge changes to the software market," wrote Joanne Correia, managing VP at Gartner, in a research note.

When introducing SOA within an organisation, the software architect does not have to take on a "boil-the-ocean" implementation, according to an industry analyst who has looked at the current state of enterprise architecture, says Search SOA.

In fact, small can be beautiful in SOA, says Mike Rollings, senior analyst at Burton Group.

An early project does not necessarily have to be a full SOA implementation to showcase the application development philosophy, Rollings says. A successful architect instead may start out conducting analysis to identify the services that support business processes.

IBM has introduced new versions of two software products, part of its growing InfoSphere portfolio, that deliver information on demand to the people, processes and applications that rely on it, according to Market Watch.

The new release of IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Product Information Management (MDM Server for PIM) provides several significant enhancements that make it simpler to deploy and use.

Improvements to the underlying technology - including use of the Java application protocol interface and easy integration with enterprise solutions based on a SOA - make MDM Server for PIM faster to roll out.