[According to Robert LeBlanc, general manager for WebSphere for IBM Software Group, Staples became an early adopter of SOA two years ago, working closely with IBM to build a scalable, integrated, multichannel retailing solution.] They needed scalability, because the old system did not scale, ... and they started to grow and expand their business. And they really needed a new style of architecture. ... They wanted to go over the system once and reuse the pieces over and over again as they were bringing new services to their customer set. |
[Confusing terminology or not, IBM is one of Cisco's AON partners, and obviously wants the most diplomatic face on matters.] Customers will approach messaging from multiple perspectives, ... It depends on whether you come from the application or network perspective. |
[To build its SOA environment, Staples first had to dissect its business processes into its component functions, such as inventory checking, build-to-order, order history, and so on.] Then they took that business model and they implemented it on top of IBM products, like WebSphere Commerce, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Application Server, Product Center, and DB2 -- and they did this on iSeries, ... Now they have a kind of full, SOA environment that enables them to bring new services to the marketplace much quicker, allows them to integrate any piece of the company they have or acquisitions very quickly, and gives a single, seamless view of their customer set across multiple channels. So they've gotten extremely good business value from being able to do that. |
All they (FEMA) said is that they will send somebody to see, whatever that means. |
All things that make up an SOA environment are candidates to be integrated on top of an appliance, |
Cooperating with Oracle on Project Fusion is good for customers and a strong recognition of WebSphere's market presence. We've worked together on J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft and other similar projects, so we welcome Oracle's Fusion applications on WebSphere. |
Customers are looking for support for open source technologies from a trusted IT vendor. WAS CE allows customers and partners to tap the innovation of open source technology - backed by industry leading IBM support services - to quickly develop and deploy applications based on open source technologies. |
Customers needed an entry point to be able to do very basic SOA based on a set of Web services. |
Customers will approach messaging from multiple perspectives. It depends on whether you come from the application or network perspective. |
FEMA has asked us for temporary housing land that we have available. |
I flew over there and I didn't see one flag, one towel or one person on a roof. |
It's a product of itself based on Web services standards, built on top of WebSphere Application Server, ... We've always viewed ESB as a set of patterns and we still do. What we are hearing from the customers is there are certain patterns they like to see brought together and the WebSphere ESB handles that Web services open pattern. |
It's a product onto itself. |
Knowing these people, most of them are hunters, trappers, farmers, they're not going to wait on FEMA or anyone else. They're going to do what they need to do. They're used to primitive conditions. |
Most broker products are just doing basic Web services connectivity, ... The Process Server goes beyond that and provides a lot more capability. In fact, inside the Process Server is the ESB. The ESB is just an enabler for the whole environment. |