IDC Service-Oriented Architecture Forum to Explore How SOA Can Bring Business Objectives and IT Together.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- IDC today announced plans for the inaugural IDC Service-Oriented Architecture Forum: Enabling IT and Business Alignment, to be held January 25, 2006 at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City. The Forum will be dedicated to providing proven approaches for cutting costs, generating new business streams, and driving dynamic business.

Faced with the challenges of simultaneously driving revenue growth and cost savings within the enterprise, line of business (LOB) and IT executives alike are recognizing the need to collaborate to overcome these challenges, meet expectations, and achieve their goals. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is emerging as a vehicle for organizations to facilitate this collaboration.

The IDC Service-Oriented Architecture Forum will provide a true peer-to-peer learning experience by joining together senior IT and business executives to understand and implement the strategic and technical aspects of SOA for their organizations. The Forum will feature case studies and a diversity of real-world perspectives from end users, IDC analysts, and industry experts. This interactive program will also explore how organizations introducing SOA into their enterprise - as both a method of computing and as an architecture - are achieving significant real-time results.

The Forum features a full view of SOA and how it meets today's business challenges, including:

--An exceptional line up of speakers including senior executives from Amazon, Qualcomm, Sabre Holdings, Security Bank of Kansas City, and The Guardian Life providing their real-life best practices and lessons learned around SOA adoption and governance

--Compelling business reasons for SOA adoption and demonstrating the value of investing in SOA

--Insight into how SOA helped Verizon reduce its IT budget by 50%, increased overall efficiency, and reduced the number of silos throughout the organization

--A firsthand account of how ADP managed their SOA from strategy and implementation to governance with the effective partnership of IT and business

--A case study of how TrueCredit extended its SOA to external partners to create new business opportunities and generate new revenue streams

--Access to groundbreaking research on SOA

--Facilitated luncheon roundtable discussions providing an intimate vehicle to collaborate with peers around Security and SOA, Web Services, and Composite Applications

Sponsors and Partners of the IDC Service-Oriented Architecture Forum include: IBM, Blue Titan Software, Sonic Software, ADTMag.com, Enterprise Systems, Network World, Supply & Demand Chain Executive, The Wall Street Journal, Web Services Journal, and WITI.

For more information or to register for the conference, please visit IDC's Web site http://www.idc.com/soa2006. To learn more about conference sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jess Black at 508-988-7995 or email [e-mail].

Complimentary press passes are available for qualified journalists. To request a press pass, please contact Lisa O'Brien at 508-988-7557 or [e-mail].

About IDC

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