Carter, Sandy 1963–

PERSONAL:

Born June 12, 1963. Education: Duke University, B.S.; Harvard University, M.B.A.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—scarter@us.ibm.com.

CAREER:

International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, vice president of SOA and Web-Sphere Strategy, Channels, and Marketing.

WRITINGS:

The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0, IBM Press (Indianapolis, IN), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

IBM vice president of marketing and technology Sandy Carter is the author of The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0. The book explains how to use information technology (IT) services to implement positive change in the business world. "Service-oriented architecture," or SOA, is an IT practice that uses new technology to reuse older software components and business practices in order to develop a more flexible response to customer demand. By using SOA, businesses can automate certain parts of their practices and thereby save time and money. Since data in SOA applications is stored in formats that are accessible by many different programs, these applications can share information across programs and even platforms. The end result is to emphasize the role of technology in organizations' large-scale planning. "Since SOA has the ability to align IT with business," a writer revealed on Carter's home page, "technology will continue to play a more strategic role in organizations."

Web 2.0 is a development on similar lines that applies specifically to the Internet. However, it is more a concept than it is a software or hardware improvement on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 refers to the ability to use the Internet as a platform for launching a new type of business, one that takes advantage of the medium's ability to link providers and consumers in a dialogue. "It has always been very difficult to build profitable growth and far more difficult to sustain it," stated a writer on the author's Web site. "But in today's environment, it is required and innovatively gaining business flexibility to grow your business is the focus" of Carter's book.

In The New Language of Business, the author (whose background is in programming and mathematics, and who, according to her Web site, is fluent in eight different programming languages) demonstrates how these two concepts are being applied by business entrepreneurs throughout the world. Carter conducted "thousands of interviews with analysts and industry leaders at organizations of all sizes in over 50 countries" in order to bring together the best practices across the industry, declared a reviewer on IBM.com. The result is a book that shows business owners and managers how to break down their processes into their component parts and create affordable IT support services that deliver results in record time. Carter also explains, based on her own experiences at IBM, how to avoid potential problems and traps that could interfere with success. The final goal, the author states, is an organization that is "flex-sponsive": ready and able to respond to the quickly changing modern business world.