Last year, Epionet, a 'leading edge' software development company based in Ireland, and Gulf Data International, an eminent Middle Eastern systems integration company with headquarters in Dubai, got together to bring the substantial benefits of a new exciting software technology to companies in the Middle East region. The technology is called Service Oriented Computing and it delivers major benefits to organisations that are looking to seamlessly integrate all their existing applications together and deliver new web-based solutions for their businesses.

The types of applications that this technology can be used to deliver are endless, such as: o e-government systems that provide a single view and self-service capability for the citizen to all the services of all the government ministries - from one secure citizen portal. o Secure web sites for customers where they can transact automatically all their business with a company through a web site. o Automation of the business process workflows operating within a company which delivers better internal efficiencies while at the same time reducing costs.

The success of this new trade venture between Ireland and the Middle East is evident by the rapid uptake of this technology by, among others, one of the most innovative and forward thinking organizations in the region, namely Dubai Municipality. The mission for Dubai Municipality is to design, build and manage the municipal infrastructure for Dubai through the appropriate investment in the best resources and technologies. To advance the achievement of this goal, Dubai Municipality has led the way by delivering powerful new on-line e-government services to the hotel community within the city using the new Service Oriented technology delivered by Gulf Data International and Epionet. The success of this project, which was the first services oriented development in the Middle East, has now resulted in the expansion of the system to integrate with other systems within the Municipality

With a number of organisations already up and running and others in the pipeline the new service approach to software development is proving a real winner.

But what is this new technology and why is it having such a major impact on the organisations that deploy it.

In essence, Service Oriented Computing (SOC) is a new and revolutionary approach to the development of IT systems. It provides major benefits to organisations looking to seamlessly integrate all their existing applications to deliver new web-based solutions. It enables the integration, into one system, of all existing applications operating in a government or a company's environment, regardless of any differences between the applications in terms of base technology, platform or location.

The technology utilises internationally agreed open-standard web services technologies. It enables applications to be developed as webs of loosely coupled interactive services operating in a managed and secure environment. This approach means that applications can be developed quicker, changed easier and integrated faster than the alternative tightly coupled approaches that predominate today. From a business prospective, the key benefit is that the SOC approach releases the value and massive investment locked in existing systems and removes the islands of data and applications that inhibit the effective functioning of an organisation.

Epionet, the partner company of Gulf Data International, has emerged in Europe as the key player in the area of Service Oriented Computing. Following five years of pure research and development and the investment of many millions of Euro, it has succeeded in delivering a number of key breakthroughs in the area such as the first stable, scalable and reliable Service Oriented Application Management system, the first comprehensive services oriented application design methodology and the first effective service oriented rapid prototyping system. All these advances have been encapsulated in their end-to-end development environment, called the Epiowave system. Following major success in Europe, the company has worked over the past year with Gulf Data International (GDI) technologists to adopt the system for the Middle East market and the dual language requirement of English and Arabic. With this work now completed, the GDI/Epionet venture, under the name Epionet Middle East, is focused on assiting Middle East companies to gain major competitive edge, cut costs and improve efficiencies by deploying powerful Service Oriented web-based applications across their organisations.