TMCnet News
IBM and the EU to collaborate to promote the advantages of Internet based services(Telecomworldwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) IT company IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced that it is to launch a new research consortium, in collaboration with the European Union, to help businesses take advantage of Internet based services (e-services) to create collaborative business operations and achieve shared business goals. The company said that the unique effort focuses on the development of a new computer science model that will enable organisations to greatly accelerate the typically time-intensive process around the coordination of e-services and increase the automation and efficiency around deploying new e-service blends. The research will enable even small to mid-sized businesses to create or join into flexible e-service blends, without investing in expensive IT expertise. The initiative will create open-source software to enable many organisations around the world take advantage of the technology. In the consortium, IBM researchers are collaborating with experts from: Sapienza Universita degli Studi di Roma, Italy; Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy; Imperial College Of Science, Technology and Medicine, UK; Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Netherlands; University of Tartu, Estonia; Indra Software Labs SLU, Spain; Collibra NV, Belgium. Called Artifact-Centric Service Interoperation (ACSI), the project tackles the challenges faced by most e-businesses today in simplifying and streamlining the costly process of blending multiple, separately managed e-services into a dynamic, organic whole. The consortium plans to demonstrate that the new framework can reduce the cost of creating industry-specific service blends by 40% over conventional techniques. According to consortium leader Fournier, the ACSI technology is relevant across a broad array of industries, including government, energy, healthcare, supply chain logistics and heavy manufacturing. These industries face significant challenges when they are required to hand-off data and processes between various silos'‚¬â€ even within their own organisations. ACSI interoperation hubs will provide a generic, yet highly customisable, solution for systematically handing off data and processing from one application or organisation to another, said IBM. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2010 M2 COMMUNICATIONS |