OMG Announces Business Ecology Initiative (BEI)
IBM is a Founding Sponsor of new initiative
focused on streamlining business operations

Needham, MA, USA - May 4, 2009 - OMG™ today launched the Business Ecology™ Initiative (BEI) and welcomed IBM as a Founding Sponsor. The BEI, through advocacy programs, educational events, relevant standards and resources, brings together best practices in process management to develop and deliver on Actionable Architecture™. The Initiative is focused on erasing the artificial lines between business and Information Technology (IT) so that IT becomes a ubiquitous, integral and vital asset to the company and leads decision-making, structural change and enterprise-wide quality initiatives, drives efficiency and revenue, and provides measurable, clear return on investment. For more information about BEI, please visit www.business-ecology.org/launch. Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of OMG, will be discussing BEI on May 6 during the IBM IMPACT conference.

"Business Ecology is more than just the mechanics of process optimization; it's a way of thinking about your business processes that eliminates the outdated concepts of business and IT silos or stovepipes and focuses on the benefits of ubiquitous IT," said Richard Mark Soley. "We look forward to working with IBM and other interested organizations on promoting Business Ecology as a way to streamline operations, remove waste, survive in difficult economic times and thrive in the recovery to come."

"IBM's sponsorship of this new Business Ecology Initiative is a continuation of our long-term support for the OMG SOA Consortium," said IBM's Sandy Carter, VP, SOA, BPM and WebSphere. "Business Ecology will help provide the next milestone in support of IBM's focus for improved Business/IT alignment as a key element in long term client success."

Business Ecology™ Initiative
OMG is the leading proponent of the drive towards Business Ecology through the Actionable Architecture™, which will provide details on how to create sustainable business processes. This movement requires standards, but also relies on a stronger relationship and communication mechanism for IT and business alignment. OMG uses its proven ability to bring communities together and motivate new initiatives through offerings beyond standards work and into industry collaboration forums such as the SOA Consortium, BPM Consortium and GCIO.

OMG recognizes that there must be a way to measure, model and drive the effectiveness of this transition to closer IT and business alignment through standard maturity models. OMG supports this through our growing work in maturity model definitions such as the Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM) and the forthcoming Green Computing Maturity Model (GCMM).

As standards continue to play an instrumental role, OMG will continue its standards work and play a key role in defining new standards that support business and IT alignment. OMG currently has more than 100 standards programs underway.

Outreach
The BEI will conduct outreach and advocacy programs around Business Ecology and the Actionable Architecture. In addition, the Business Ecology Advisory Panel will be formed and will comprise leading CEOs, CIOs, COOs, Analysts and Visionaries from both technical and business backgrounds. This panel will assist in analyzing market trends and insure that BEI work is in line with the business needs of IT. IBM will be a participant in the Panel.

For more information on membership and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ken Berk, vice president business development at ken.berk@omg.org or +1-781-444 0404.

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About OMG
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium that in 2009 is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, including: Real-time, Embedded and Specialized Systems, Analysis & Design, Architecture-Driven Modernization and Middleware and an even wider range of industries, including: Business Modeling and Integration, C4I, Finance, Government, Green Computing, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal Compliance, Life Sciences Research, Manufacturing Technology, Robotics, Software-Based Communications 
and Space.

OMG’s modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG’s middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.

More information about OMG can be found at www.omg.org.  OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA.

Note to editors: MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, XMI, UML, UML logo and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, Business Ecology, Actionable Architecture, SOA Consortium, SysML, SoaML, MOF, MDA Logos, BPMN, OCRES, OCUP, OCEB, Green Computing Maturity Model, GCMM and Unified Modeling Language are trademarks of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Edited by Stephanie