Seagull Gains Entry Into IBM ‘SOA Specialty’ Program
February 20, 2007 Alex Woodie
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Seagull Software, a developer of refacing and application modernization tools for the i5/OS platform, has been accepted into a new service oriented architecture (SOA) program from IBM, called the IBM SOA Specialty, the software vendor announced last week. The IBM SOA Specialty program was created to help separate the wheat from the SOA chaff. IBM business partners must meet technical and business requirements to be accepted into the program. Once they’re in, they gain the SOA backing of Big Blue, and get to participate in the IT goliath’s SOA-oriented sales and marketing programs. Kim Addington, Seagull’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, says the inclusion in the club positions Seagull well for the coming SOA revolution. “We help customers blast through the legacy roadblock and plug their most critical business processes into IBM’s SOA Foundation. Once customers see the power of SOA reusability, they are well on their way to SOA,” she says. (SOA Foundation is part marketing program, part real product. It was announced in September 2005, and refers to WebSphere Application Server (WAS) and two dozen other Tivoli, Lotus, and Rational products that plug into WAS to enable users to build and deploy applications using the SOA method.) Seagull, like other members of the SOA Specialty (and major league ballplayers signed to contracts with performance incentives), can earn increasingly more benefits and access to IBM as it achieves certain milestones on IBM’s SOA roadmap. These incentives include getting access to SOA Connection Events, meeting with SOA specialists in Sales Connections, and discounted print advertising and telemarketing.
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