US: Computer firm teams up with universities

An American IT-services company is increasing its collaboration with universities in Europe, to create ground-breaking computer systems that allow public organisations and companies to better interact online. Torry Harris Business Solutions, a US-based firm founded in 1998, specialises in 'service-oriented architecture' which helps move data between different services within an organisation.

The company announced it would be working with the Vienna Institute of Technology in Austria, Britain's University of Leeds, and the US Pennsylvania State University.

Torry says it aims to strengthen its business research and development division for innovation in service-oriented architecture and another area of computer programming - agile software development - which allows programmes to be improved in its lifetime, possibly by third parties. Target business sectors for programming developed by this innovation will be telecommunications, banking, insurance, health care and manufacturing.

"These collaborations further emphasise our firm commitment to SOA and agile," said the company's regional manager Shuba Sridhar. "We will be working on the latest research and cutting-edge technology to come up with innovative solutions that address some of the challenges faced by enterprises today."

Dr Duncan Russell, senior research fellow at the University of Leeds, said: "We are indeed very excited at the prospect of working with Torry Harris. Our primary areas of interest are SOA, web services, grid middleware and the use of agile for building resilient systems."

Over the next few months, Torry Harris plans to extend its university collaboration by focusing on consulting, organising seminars and conferences, recruiting students and funding academics. It also says it intends to demystify SOA - which is more ubiquitous than many computer users might think, underpinning most modern web services.

diane.spencer@uw-news.com