4 September 2003 Hewlett-Packard has announced the acquisition of web services integration platform and management software start-up Talking Blocks.

The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will give HP a web services management platform that has already been ‘proven’ with early adopters, including US healthcare company Kaiser Permanente, telecoms giant Verizon and aerospace and defence manufacturer General Dynamics.

San Francisco, California-based Talking Blocks has been working on its web services platform since 2000, backed by funding from venture capital firms Foundation Capital and Sigma Partners.

Its Management Suite provides a centralised point for managing the interaction of networks of web services. Among other functions, it securely links services both inside and outside the firewall; automatically registers, catalogues and manages access to web services; and routes, tracks and meters web service usage.

“Talking Blocks leads the way for the enterprise deployment and management of web services at Kaiser Permanente,” said Steven Burke, a senior manager at the healthcare provider’s web services oversight group.

The acquisition will be a key piece in HP’s Adaptive Enterprise strategy, which seeks to deliver web services and related technologies that foster organisations’ ability to support fluid business requirements with rapid changes to their applications and systems software.

“[This is] an architecture in which all ‘IT functions’ are offered as services that expose management information about themselves – regardless of origin – and then interact with each other so they can quickly adapt to change,” said Nora Denzel, head of HP Software’s Global Business Unit.

HP intends to deliver the Talking Blocks service-oriented architecture as part of its own recently launched HP Web Service Management Framework.