IBM Expands Products, Services for BPM for SOA

This fall, IBM is offering new software and services to help companies better improve their business processes to take advantage of SOA agility benefits. On tap: Better BPM modeling, updates for BPM Healthcheck, and a Web 2.0-based 'business spaces' to boost IT/business collaboration.

by Vance McCarthy

Tags: Business, BPM, IBM, SOA, Customers, Business Space, Clients,


This fall, IBM is offering new software and services to help companies better improve their business processes to take advantage of SOA agility benefits.

On tap: Better BPM modeling, updates for BPM Healthcheck, and a Web 2.0-based 'business spaces' to boost IT/business collaboration.

"These offerings are all directed at helping businesses with taming chaos," Sandy Carter said. "There are just so many things that businesses can't anticipate or need to make sure they are ready for, so we've focused on using SOA to help companies better manage those processes,"
The baseline message from IBM is that transforming your assets into services is an important step to being able to better manage processes, but it's only a first step, Carter told IDN.

"The major theme we keep hearing from customers is help us better get IT and business aligned, but let us use the tools we're most comfortable with wherever you can," Carter told IDN.

IBM 'Business Spaces' Tops Long List for BPM-SOA
To help clients accelerate this process improvement and business performance using BPM, IBM is introducing "business space." A customized and continuously updated desktop view of their business processes, business space allows clients to not just monitor business objects, but to anticipate operational risks and act upon the information. This new role-based, collaborative BPM capability is powered by WebSphere software and built using SOA.

With 'business spaces,' customers can view metrics in a customized way, can highlight relevant business process status, appropriate application content, user collaboration tools, graphics and alerts -- all utilizing Web 2.0 functionality. By providing a consolidated view of business process content and enabling contextual collaboration around processes in one location, business space enables clients to manage their processes more effectively, make smarter decisions, and take action more quickly, according to IBM documents.

Other IBM offerings for BPM for SOA include:

  • New plug-ins for WebSphere Business Modeler that allow users to import these ideas from common tools such as Visio, IDS Scheer and Microsoft PowerPoint, to enable more effective collaboration between business leaders and their technical designers.
  • A wide-ranging BPM Healthcheck to help companies identify current strengths and shortcomings across different dimensions of their business processes. Based on the business process assessment, BPM Healthcheck will suggest a BPM Strategic Roadmap that identifies the best entry points and practices for a successful deployment.
  • Enhancements to WebSphere Dynamic Process Edition, including industry-specific assets to accelerate composite business application assembly for healthcare, insurance, telecom and banking.
  • Upgrades to WebSphere Process Server to help clients modify the flow of steps within in-flight process instances by skipping activities, jumping forward and backward between activities, and adding additional activities from within their business space.
  • Updated Product Lifecycle Management Content Packs optimized for key vertical sectors, including the automotive, electronics, aerospace and defense industries.
  • Upgrades to IBM FileNet Active Content Edition that can streamline, automate and optimize content-centric business processes by increasing process performance, reducing cycle times and improving productivity.
  • Upgrades to Cognos software that helps IT and Finance engage, inform and align business users through more efficient and effective performance management processes. This can help drive better business outcomes such as growth, profitability, and timely, confident stakeholder reporting.


    • All these IBM products and services for BPM on SOA will be released in Q4, Carter said.

    Carter puts all the BPM-SOA offerings in the context what IBM is hearing from SOA customers over the past 12 months.

    "We've seen many customers have tapped into some real-world benefits from their services or SOA projects, but we've also found that we could offer customers more technologies and services to help them use those services to be ready for change and help their business be more agile," Carter told IDN. "The most agile way to cope with processes is to set up as a set of services, and to think about using your service to accomplish business tasks."

    IBM has more than 4,600 BPM client engagements and 450 BPM business partners in more than 30 countries.

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