SOA training underway for global outsourcing
To make Thailand a centre for software development and turn it into a country prepared for global IT outsourcing, people with well-developed skills in Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are in big demand.
Realising this, the Office of Computer Clustering Promotion Programme (CCP) is cooperating with IBM Thailand to establish the SOA Centre for Excellence to enhance Thailand's IT resources on SOA technology. The centre, which is to be at Innovation Cluster 1 Building inside the Thailand Science Park, will be in official operation from November. CCP's director Smith Suksmith said that the centre's activities will emphasise SOA training courses that provide SOA-project development, transfer of technology programmes, white paper publishing, and SOA community development. In terms of training provisions, the centre will provide two main training tracks, an academic-initiative track for graduate students, and a developer-works track for local software developers. It aims to create SOA expertise across all level skills with a total target of 2,500 professionals in the next five years, of which around 1,000 would be high-level trained professionals. He said that Thailand lacked SOA expertise since there are just 10 to 25 professionals in SOA areas, resulting in the country missing out on opportunities from global outsourcing. "The number of people with technology expertise is a more important index for global outsourcing than the cost. This cooperation will drive adoption and create certified developers in SOA on a massive scale," said Smith. In the meantime, the centre will act as a regional hub for standards and technologies in SOA and other related areas, with provisions for both business and technical consultation services. The centre will also become a one-stop location which will support marketing and products based on SOA and IBM technologies. "The centre is expected to promote wide adoption and accelerate the transfer of technology to industry," said Smith. Meanwhile, Yos Kimsawatde, IBM Thailand country manager for public sector, education and finance, said that IBM's role is to provide global and open standard technology on SOA, curriculum and course material, and expertise. IBM has also committed to bringing global outsourcing projects to the country in the future when the number of IT experts increases to a sufficient size. Apart from this centre, CCP has also cooperated with Microsoft (Thailand) to establish the Web Service Architecture Centre and will join with Sun Microsystems (Thailand) to establish a similar centre for excellence in the near future.
Asina Pornwasin The Nation
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