Web business tool

IBM is set to announce on Wednesday a set of services geared at boosting its services-oriented architecture (SOA) consulting services and products. The company has devised an assessment tool that allows companies to compare the efficiency of their business processes with others in their own field. It also has developed a program that allows end users to adjust which indicators they like to track how their business is performing, such as how quickly orders are fulfilled. These SOA consulting offerings and IBM's WebSphere tools include information that has been customized to particular industries including banking, health care, telecommunications and insurance. SOA describes a way of designing software systems to be modular and flexible. IBM is ***

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie provided a fresh take of the technical components at the heart of its online services push on Thursday. Speaking at the Microsoft Financial Analysts Day, Ozzie spelled out in greatest detail yet the work he has led on "cloud" Internet services. During the next 12 to 18 months, Microsoft will introduce software and hosted services designed to enhance its current product line and derive more revenue from advertising-supported Web services, Ozzie said. ***

Now that's transparency. Ross Mayfield, CEO and co-founder of collaboration software company Socialtext, on Thursday used his blog and the social-networking site LinkedIn to find a replacement--for his own job. "It is time for Socialtext to be taken to the next level, and for that, I want to openly recruit the CEO 2.0 for Socialtext," Mayfield wrote in his blog and apparently to his LinkedIn contacts. Socialtext, one of several Web 2.0 business software companies, makes wiki-based collaboration software. And clearly Mayfield wants to use social-networking tools even for even big decisions like finding a new CEO. ***