By Tim Ferguson
Tuesday, January 15 2008 10:20 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62036570,00.htm

Oracle and Accenture have teamed up to open an innovation center in the United Kingdom for the development of service oriented architecture (SOA) technology.

Work at the innovation center, based at Oracle's U.K. headquarters in Reading, will focus on accelerating the development and delivery of SOA products based on the software company's technology.

Prospective customers will be able to visit the center to see the technology in action before making any decisions about implementation, while Accenture will be able to access Oracle software early in its development.

The center will also support joint Accenture-Oracle projects across Europe and workers based in Reading will collaborate with those at Accenture's innovation center at Oracle's global headquarters in California.

Accenture is in the middle of a three-year US$450 million investment into SOA announced in July 2006 and also has an Oracle innovation center in Bangalore, India.

The Accenture-Oracle partnership has produced a number of applications based on Oracle technology, such as Accenture's SOA Reference Architecture.

Andrew Sutherland, Oracle's European VP for technology, said SOA is "key to the development of modern, effective and flexible software".

He added the new facility will boost collaboration between the two companies and "significantly benefit" European customers.

Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.