Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink LLC, a Waltham, Mass.-based analysis firm, said these efforts are part of a series of announcements and initiatives IBM has made to deliver a more service-oriented architecture.

“IBM has been serious about Web services for some time,” he said. “This is really a step in tying Web services to their on-demand strategy and bringing it to users. This is no longer an experiment.”

That’s changing, said Ronald Schmelzer, another analyst at ZapThink, but it’s still a hard sell. Companies like IBM have to go beyond pitching Web services and instead sell the technology as service-oriented architecture — something that’s going to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.

“There has been a mentality shift in the way companies buy technology,” Schmelzer said. “Companies are resistant to making changes without guarantee. They want the solution to work.”

Read more at: TechTarget