by Diann Daniel

IBM Expands Innovation Network

News
Jul 12, 20071 min
Innovation

Ireland center to provide startups and midsize businesses with SOA, Web 2.0 expertise.

A new IBM Innovation Center in Dublin opened on July 11. It becomes the 34th such center IBM has opened around the world in an effort to build a network of support centers for midsize companies.

The centers are designed to provide IBM expertise around open standards technologies to the IT staffs of midsize companies, said Jim Corgel, IBM’s general manager of independent software vendor and developer relations.

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The Dublin center opens as the demand for Web-based collaborative technologies is rising in Europe. Information technology had the most significant upturn of any industry in Europe, according to a report released by Ernst & Young and Dow Jones Venture One. Jessica Canning, director of global research for Dow Jones Venture One, said in a statement that the interest in Web 2.0 technology and initial public offerings in information services companies are fueling this growth.

IBM will use the innovation centers to sponsor workshops on Web 2.0 best practices, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and marketing and networking.