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Survey: SOA Prominent On 2005 budgets

Michael S. Mimoso writes "A Yankee Group survey of 473 enterprise decision makers reveals that companies have put aside money for service-oriented architectures for 2005." This is a bigger deal than it sounds - if companies keep moving this away, it will mean a sea change in corporate technology usage - and change the way/why development is done. We're talking everything from SOAP stuff (ITMJ is part of OSTG) to wholesale ASP adoption like Salesforce.com.

138 comments

  1. I don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A Yankee Group survey of 473 enterprise decision makers reveals that companies have put aside money for service-oriented architectures for 2005." This is a bigger deal then it sounds.

    Why does it have to be a bigger deal before it sounds? Why does a service contract have to make any sound? Can't that step be taken out entirely? It seems to me that companies can save money that way.

  2. um by hyperstation · · Score: 3, Funny

    i didn't get the memo on this new SOA buzzword of the week...SOA still means "start of authority" to me

    1. Re:um by Scarblac · · Score: 4, Funny

      SOA still means "start of authority" to me

      That's nothing, in Dutch it's the acronym for sexually transmitted disease... I had never heard of this buzzword meaning either.

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    2. Re:um by Teun · · Score: 2, Funny
      um2
      As a Dutchman I saw SOA, Sexueel Overdraagbare Aandoening- or in English;
      Sexually Transmittable Disease...

      Thank god we don't (yet) need a preservative on /.!

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    3. Re:um by foolish · · Score: 1

      Or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for financial reporting which has major public company requirements starting this winter and next spring.

    4. Re:um by grub · · Score: 2, Funny


      sexually transmitted disease

      Fortunately this is slashdot, no one here will have to worry about that.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    5. Re:um by Mateito · · Score: 0, Redundant

      SOL is "Shit out of Luck"
      TOA is "Talking out of his/her Ass"
      so maybe SOA is "Shitting out of his/her Ass".

      Article is a good candidate for buzzword bingo. "News for Nerds" guys.

      Disclaimer: I'm doing an MBA, and so I can give an educated opinion that the article is BULLSHIT.

    6. Re:um by Mateito · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Fersht predicted that during the next 12 months more companies will try to bring SOAs across an entire enterprise and then explore integration with the entire value chain. Vendor evangelism will help accelerate that process,

      May I be the first to say "WTF".

      SOA may be something useful. Unfortunately (?), this article does nothing to explain what it is, only that you need it, your business needs it, and if you don't you are going to be left behind all those other companies that allready have it.

      I gotta invent me something like this, make it cool, and make a mint flogging it.

      However, posting it to slashdot WILL NOT be my preferred manner of drumming up business.

    7. Re:um by cheezit · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh come on, all the cool kids call that "SOX"!!!

      --
      Premature optimization is the root of all evil
    8. Re:um by easter1916 · · Score: 1

      Too funny!!! But it's not a "preservative" Teun, in English it's called a "condom".

    9. Re:um by temojen · · Score: 1

      To me it has always meant School of the Americas. I thought the article was about corporate funded mercinaries.

    10. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SOA=Service Oriented Architecture

      AFAIK, think an ASP that performs certain functions for your via a remote API (instead of the whole application).

      Stupid, I know.

    11. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      In psychology, SOA is stimulus onset asynchrony.

      But then ROI is "region of interest" in brain imaging and not "return on investment."

    12. Re:um by wiggles · · Score: 1

      Are we talking these Sox or these Sox?

    13. Re:um by wiggles · · Score: 2, Funny

      Where I come from, it's "Shit On Again". As in "Did you hear about the latest round of layoffs? Sounds like we're SOA."

    14. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're all wrong. SOA is Society of Actuaries. Just google.

    15. Re:um by Mateito · · Score: 1
      Shit On Again". As in "Did you hear about the latest round of layoffs? Sounds like we're SOA."

      Good call. In British English, the past tense "Shat" has gained popularity, and maybe should be considered as a substitute on the other side of the pond.

    16. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    17. Re:um by taylortbb · · Score: 2, Informative

      A quick Google search will give you a reasonable answer.

      SOA is Service-Oriented Architecture. Makes sense doesn't it?

    18. Re:um by temojen · · Score: 1
      this article does nothing to explain what it is, only that you need it, your business needs it, and if you don't you are going to be left behind all those other companies that allready have it.

      That's the whole point! Scare the PHB into thinking they need it, so they hire a consulting firm to deliver it.

      If they understood it, they might just walk down to the Tech department and ask if they need it. Chances are the tech department might just reply "we already have it" or "we don't need it right now".

    19. Re:um by Mateito · · Score: 1

      ObPython:

      Arthur: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail.

      S: Well, I'll ask 'im, but I don't think 'e'll be very keen-- 'e's already got one, you see?

      A: What?

      Lancelot: He says they've already *got* one!

      A: (confused) Are you *sure* he's got one?

      S: Oh yes, it's ver' naahs.

    20. Re:um by demigod · · Score: 1
      I gotta invent me something like this, make it cool, and make a mint flogging it.

      You've left out a step or two and that's not the right format.

      1. invent me something like this
      2. make it cool
      3. Get the goverment to require it's use
      4. ...
      5. Profit
      --
      "The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
      Major Major
    21. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fersht predicted that during the next 12 months more companies will try to bring SOAs across an entire enterprise and then explore integration with the entire value chain. Vendor evangelism will help accelerate that process,

      Bingo!

    22. Re:um by starm_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its a new way of doing something that has been done well since forever but now in XML. So that means it is better and will change the world.

    23. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a hardware geek, SOA means "Safe Operating Area" to me, as in the voltage and current combinations that won't let the smoke out.

    24. Re:um by cheezit · · Score: 1

      To me it means DC hardcore---"State of Alert"---somewhere in the basement is my Teen Idles/SOA 12"...good times...

      --
      Premature optimization is the root of all evil
    25. Re:um by chiph · · Score: 1

      "SOA" is marketing-speak for whatever it is they're selling this week.

      Last week, it meant web-services.

      Chip H.

    26. Re:um by butane_bob2003 · · Score: 1

      Not to toot this article's horn or anything.. I built an application which eventually was sold as an SOA platform, so maybe I can shed some light on the convoluded subject.
      SOA=Service Oriented Architecture
      There are probably a million or so articles just like this one, evangalizing SOA. I regretfully admit that I probably had a hand in writing some of them, if indirectly and unwillingly.
      Briefly, SOA describes an architecture for building flexible, loosely coupled, integrated applications using Web Services. There is nothing very new about it if you are familiar with web services, but still the number of 'SOA experts' grows exponentially. I should know, because I became one of them purely for marketing purposes, at them whim of a CEO caught up in the SOA hype wagon. After meeting and planning and getting all wild about SOA, the upper echelon folks stepped back, came to me and asked,
      'Quick, what is SOA, without getting all technical about it?'.
      I said 'Its a Service. Oriented. Architecture. An Architecture for applications that is based on Services.
      I'm pretty sure they suspected I was BSing them.
      I will not bother to read the article, I've seen enough SOA hyperbole in the last 6 months. Most of the time articles like this are written with the intent of establishing the author or the company he works for as an SOA expert (or THE expert) so that they can drum up some business as you aptly put it.

      Web Services are great, simple, flexible, hooray. Connect a few applications with web services, and pow! You have an SOA. There is not much to say about it, but people will find a way to make it a big thing marketing wise.

      --


      TallGreen CMS hosting
  3. My head hurts. by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it me, or does that article spend a page and lots of big words to basicly say nothing?

    1. Re:My head hurts. by aminorex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are right. No clothes on the emperor. Move along.

      --
      -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
    2. Re:My head hurts. by mdmarkus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Alas, every article i read on SOA uses big words and says basicly nothing. It seems to be another retelling of the client server model we've been working with for the last 15 years (not that there's anything wrong with that). Still it's being pushed as the silver bullet that will save us all when it might not be all that.

      markus

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. Holy cow by Scott+Ransom · · Score: 5, Funny

    That is one of the most jargon and/or marketing-speak filled story descriptions that I have ever read on /. I have absolutely no desire to waste my time looking up those acronyms in order to see if I _might_ want to RTFA.

    Thanks for the great submission.

    1. Re:Holy cow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFA? Great, another acronym I have to look up!

    2. Re:Holy cow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      STFU HNG LOL.

      RTFA is making me ROFL.

      LOL.

      HNG heh.

    3. Re:Holy cow by jedaustin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you haven't tried bullfighter (from the guys at deloitte) and are use word/powerpoint at the office, you'll love it.

      According the the bullfighter Index, the article gets:
      Bull Composite Index of 5.9 (not horrible)
      Bull index of 94 (good)
      Average sentence length (good)
      Syllables/word (ok).

      And the part I love.. the Flesh score.. 36:
      Diagnosis: Teetering on the edge of unclear. The overall meaning remains discernible, but it becomes possible to lose oneself in corollary thoughts, which may be worth exploration, but which can also detract from the core point of the written article.

      Anyway.. off topic but fun.

      JD

    4. Re:Holy cow by jedaustin · · Score: 1
      If you haven't tried bullfighter (from the guys at deloitte) and are use word/powerpoint at the office, you'll love it.


      Almost as bad as "all your base are belong to us";
      Superfluous "and" found in statement Line 1.

      JD
    5. Re:Holy cow by kleinux · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As someone who is on a team developing a large scale Service Oriented App I can tell you all I hear around here is buzz words. This technology is ripe with it! On the plus side it has been a _lot_ of fun. But then again, I get to develop it and don't have to admin it. I can tell you these things are hell for the admins since they generate so much network traffic.

    6. Re:Holy cow by stuktongue · · Score: 1

      I know you're self-critiquing, JD, so here's a little extra:

      1. You might want to debug your syntax checker; it's actually the "are" that's superfluous, I think.

      2. The question remains as to whether or not one would still love Bullfighter after they've tried it. :-)

      Interesting tool, though. Thanks for making me aware of it. It is also interesting that a firm like Deloitte would put such funny stuff on their web site. (I'm referring to the Bullfighter FAQs on the download page.)

      It is further interesting that Deloitte's home page has content dealing with Sarbanes-Oxley, which was mentioned in this thread.

      Take it easy. :-)

    7. Re:Holy cow by jedaustin · · Score: 1

      Actually it was a COBOL joke.
      I was speaking of the 'and'.
      Back in the day the 'Superfluous to found in add statement' was a common error I'd get when writing COBOL code.

  6. SOA? by StrandedOrg · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Shortness of Air? Sin Otro Apellido? Shadow of Amn?

    1. Re:SOA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this Off Topic? The mods here are insane. An earlier post that simply contained "SOA still means "start of authority" to me" is +4

    2. Re:SOA? by easter1916 · · Score: 1

      In this context, it means "Service Oriented Architecture".

  7. Re:Buzzwords through the ages. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WAAGDWNKNU Figure it out yourself.

  8. Correct me if I'm wrong .. by tuxathon · · Score: 1

    but isn't Salesforce.com a JSP shop, not ASP.

    1. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Application Service Provider, dolt.

    2. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they are an ASP. The issue of whether or not they are a service provider is completely orthogonal to whether or not they use JSP. Plenty of ASP's use JSP.

    3. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong .. by justMichael · · Score: 1

      ASP == Application Service Provider in this context, not Active Server Pages.

    4. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong .. by rabel · · Score: 1

      It's a joke, people! All of you who responded with the proper meaning of ASP in this context are all Really Smart Internet People. Good for you.

    5. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong .. by tuxathon · · Score: 1

      Consider yourself flamed.

  9. Latest buzz phrase and how it can be abused by sartin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the key indicator in the article that this is the latest in buzz phrase compliance was the recommendation that "Vendors have to get on the pulpit." It's all about getting the customers over the hump into buying all of the application servers and services that will give them true SOA.

    The biggest hurdle is that "executives do not understand Web services or loosely coupled architectures" (per the Yankee Group's Philip Fersht). There's the rub, and the value, of the thing. The executives don't understand the value of separation of applications (what Roger Sessions calls Software Fortresses), but are beginning to be taught. If they can loosely couple, they begin to get choice of vendor at a finer scale. They can choose different vendors for differents parts of their critical systems. So the strategy of the large, integrated solution vendors will have to be to sell the buzzphrase while continuing to delivery monolithic messes.

    1. Re:Latest buzz phrase and how it can be abused by Kingpin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Executives understand services. A service is something they can put an SLA on. This way they can predict their IT business behaviour - and if anything breaks an SLA, they can be entitled to compensation per given SLA.

      The service perspective allows them to more easily abstract between software providers. I don't want to buy "..bla bla a lean mean Cyrus 2.2.8 IMAP server running Debian Woody on a dual Xeon bla bla.." - I want to buy "An email service with 99% uptime, 99.9% during business hours at a cost of appr. $1 pr. employee pr. day". I leave the technical chit-chat to my IT department (or an external provider if that's cheaper) and put up a budget based on my SLA.

      I'm aware that the web-services architecture is a somewhat different perspective. But it works towards the same goal - getting a common lingo for how we define our IT infrastructure and under what terms. Web-services provide a homogenous clean cut service interface, which is a good starting point for fleshing out our systems into neat vertical services that can rely on one another (with SLAs if need be).

      --
      Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
      Geocrawler error message.
  10. Let me be the first to ask by katsiris · · Score: 5, Funny

    Soa what?

    1. Re:Let me be the first to ask by david_reese · · Score: 1

      Seriously, I see a lot of replies that make fun of the marketroid-speak that infests the article, but here's a simple translation into human-readable text: "ERP vendors like SAP/Peoplesoft/Oracle are going to lose their bread and butter to Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA)... unless they also conform to SOA architectures." Of course, there's no attempt to explain why, but I think it's pretty clear: because the industry has *failed* to really answer the integration problem. Customers buy into a suite of software, spend millions on it, and the next big software comes out, and they have to spend a bunch more on integration between the new and the old system. Solution: Web services, SOA and SOAP/XML/UDDI as standard intercommunication methods. Will it work? Who knows... but IBM is sure big on SOA, and guess what... IBM loves open source/linux (Eclipse is OSS, too). So this might be a way for non-players (think OSS projects) in the big field of enterprise software to become involved and maybe even gain marketshare... by following the Unix methodology of doing something, and doing it well... and interacting well with other services. Yes, the article makes very little sense, but the web service evolution is happening as we speak... so it'd be better to understand and engage than ignore and ridicule.

    2. Re:Let me be the first to ask by david_reese · · Score: 1

      (resubmit w/ formatting... doh!) Seriously, I see a lot of replies that make fun of the marketroid-speak that infests the article, but here's a simple translation into human-readable text: "ERP vendors like SAP/Peoplesoft/Oracle are going to lose their bread and butter to Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA)... unless they also conform to SOA architectures." Of course, there's no attempt to explain why, but I think it's pretty clear: because the industry has *failed* to really answer the integration problem. Customers buy into a suite of software, spend millions on it, and the next big software comes out, and they have to spend a bunch more on integration between the new and the old system. Solution: Web services, SOA and SOAP/XML/UDDI as standard intercommunication methods. Will it work? Who knows... but IBM is sure big on SOA, and guess what... IBM loves open source/linux (Eclipse is OSS, too). So this might be a way for non-players (think OSS projects) in the big field of enterprise software to become involved and maybe even gain marketshare... by following the Unix methodology of doing something, and doing it well... and interacting well with other services. Yes, the article makes very little sense, but the web service evolution is happening as we speak... so it'd be better to understand and engage than ignore and ridicule.

    3. Re:Let me be the first to ask by upsidedown_duck · · Score: 1

      Solution: Web services, SOA and SOAP/XML/UDDI as standard intercommunication methods.

      These intercommunication methods have been evolving so rapidly as to cause more integration problems than they solve. The XML people can't even agree on a way of expressing the schemas last time I checked. As far as I can tell, the most stable interface for communication is HTTP PUT with simple name/value pairs, which is sufficient for many purposes.

      --
      -- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
    4. Re:Let me be the first to ask by upsidedown_duck · · Score: 1

      HTTP PUT

      Sorry, I meant HTTP POST.

      --
      -- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
  11. The way it went down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    pollster: Certainly, you've set aside part of your budget for SOA deveopment. How much?

    CTO, not wanting to sound stupid: Of course we are excited by the synergies present in the technology, and will continue to lead the market in SOA technologies...

  12. :s/web services/Service Oriented Architecture/g by tcopeland · · Score: 2, Funny

    And the corporate web site is up to date!

  13. Re:Oh Hey! I get a pay raise, finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're going to be adopting ASP? Man... I don't want to have to learn VBScript!

    <%
    IF NOT THIS = THAT THEN
    %>
    I am a pragrammaer!
    <%
    END IF
    %>

    I used this open proxy to post here: 200.35.111.100 - because I am banned again! Viva la-stupido!

  14. Small companies will benefit by LucidBeast · · Score: 1
    Both vendors and customers.

    I think this will open the playing field to more companies since we'll be moving away from rigid systems like SAP to piece by piece built components. Also on wep services such as SOAP the open source & low cost components such as linux php and pear etc. make entry into this market quite affordable for startups.

    1. Re:Small companies will benefit by Timesprout · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, this suits the big vendors. Who has been pushing webservices so hard? Its Microsoft, IBM, SUN, HP, why do think that is? They want to own your entire process. They are large enough to be able to provide the infrastructure to run this type of architecture, Java and .NET already web service friendly and tooling is available for these platforms. This is what they want you to run and then their consulting divisions will be happy to design and code for you. Smaller players will be squeezed out of the market because this type of architecture allows the big boys to control everything.

      --
      Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
      What truth?
      There is no dupe
    2. Re:Small companies will benefit by LucidBeast · · Score: 1

      But I think while what you say is evidently true on part that the big companies are pushing their solutions to us, they are at the same time conforming to a common standard. This in turn leads to opening for others to exploit this opening. And lets face it this is pretty low tech stuff. Stripping and parsing ascii files. You don't need IBM research department developing software for it even if IBM thinks you do.

  15. I concur. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We also will maximize our ROI while keeping down TCO in a competetive marketplace.

    1. Re:I concur. by strictfoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      This calls for Dack.com's Web Economy Bullshit Generator

      Some quick examples:
      reintermediate bricks-and-clicks partnerships
      brand e-business action-items
      orchestrate visionary interfaces

      Using this tool we can quickly create:
      Using SOA we can engineer wireless web services to deliver frictionless communities. It will allow us to optimize out-of-the-box portals and extend our enterprise models. If we monetize viral convergence we can synergize customized relationships and utilize matrix efficient infrastructures. SOA will enable us to reintermediate compelling e-business thus increasing our ROI. Our TCO will be minimied due to the increasing ability to drive magnetic markets.

      --
      I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
    2. Re:I concur. by NoData · · Score: 2, Funny

      Using SOA we can engineer wireless web services to deliver frictionless communities. It will allow us to optimize out-of-the-box portals and extend our enterprise models. If we monetize viral convergence we can synergize customized relationships and utilize matrix efficient infrastructures. SOA will enable us to reintermediate compelling e-business thus increasing our ROI. Our TCO will be minimied due to the increasing ability to drive magnetic markets.


      Holy crap!! That's my company's mission statement! I think I just shifted a paradigm in my pants.

    3. Re:I concur. by LaCosaNostradamus · · Score: 1

      Using SOA we can engineer wireless web services to deliver frictionless communities. It will allow us to optimize out-of-the-box portals and extend our enterprise [...] TCO will be minimied due to the increasing ability to drive magnetic markets.

      YOU'RE HIRED! Is $120K, plus relocation, plus expenses, plus company car, plus capuccino maker, plus 10K stock options, too little?

      {SMACK}

      Oh shit, that's right, it's after 2002 and "we now know" the New Economy was a complete fraud. Get out of my sight and bring me another tall double latte.

      --
      [You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
    4. Re:I concur. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your sig: [You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]

      What?

    5. Re:I concur. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he is implying that a mature and stable society would not make wholesale, knee-jerk changes to the rules of law because of one out of 260 million people commits an aberrant act.

      You know stuff like:
      bad person use gun, gun bad.
      bad person look at porn, porn bad.
      bad person use Ryder Rental Truck, truck bad.
      bad person use nail clipper, nail clipper bad.
      bad person buy gold coin, gold coin bad.
      bad person use Visa, OK wait a minute...

    6. Re:I concur. by LaCosaNostradamus · · Score: 1

      Imagine a society where murdering people is illegal.

      Then imagine someone murders someone.

      Continue to imagine that the legal system prosecutes the suspect.

      Are you catching on yet, cupcake? Or are you under the vastly unwise and mistaken impression that continued law breaking is not evidence that more law is needed?

      I mean, fuuuuck, you Americans are complete morons. How on Earth do you survive? I was born here, I live here, but I still can't figure out how the rest of you all get through the day without falling under a bus or something.

      --
      [You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
    7. Re:I concur. by LaCosaNostradamus · · Score: 1

      I think he is implying that a mature and stable society would not make wholesale, knee-jerk changes to the rules of law because of one out of 260 million people commits an aberrant act.

      YES, YES, FOR THE LUVAGOD! That's exactly it.

      Why do so many people get confused by my sig? I swear, Americans are about as dense as the depleted uranium they are busily firing all over Afghanistan and Iraq.

      --
      [You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
    8. Re:I concur. by strictfoo · · Score: 1

      You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.

      Or are you under the vastly unwise and mistaken impression that continued law breaking is not evidence that more law is needed?

      So, it is unwise and a mistaken impression that continued law breaking is not evidence of more laws being needed? So, it must be the wise and correct impression that continued law breaking is evidence that more law is needed.

      So, which one are you implying? That continued law breaking (like robberies, murders, etc) means we need more laws? Or that those criminals represent a very small minority of the population and therefore we should not increase the number of laws restricting the freedom of the rest of us "do-gooders"?

      I swear, Americans are about as dense as the depleted uranium they are busily firing all over Afghanistan and Iraq.

      Thankfully we have idiotic cunts like you to put us in our place.

      I may be a "stupid american" but I have learned one thing: People like you are usually the most unintelligent, worthless, misinformed, wastes of good hydrogen that inhabit this earth. Someday you'll get a little "wake up call". But don't worry about my opinion, because I'm just a "complete moron".

      I was born here, I live here, but I still can't figure out how the rest of you
      Then you're an American. Get over it. There's nothing wrong with being from the US and those that preach that we Americans are all racist and intolerant scum are more intolerant than those they condemn. The vast majority of Americans are good, intelligent, hard working people.

      --
      I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
    9. Re:I concur. by LaCosaNostradamus · · Score: 0

      Or that those criminals represent a very small minority of the population and therefore we should not increase the number of laws restricting the freedom of the rest of us "do-gooders"?

      Correct. If you have enough laws, you make everyone into a criminal. Is that stable? No.

      Thankfully we have idiotic cunts like you to put us in our place.

      Correct.

      But don't worry about my opinion, because I'm just a "complete moron".

      Very correct.

      The vast majority of Americans are good, intelligent, hard working people.

      Incorrect. The vast majority of Americans are insular and channel their tax payments into a vast military machine that attacks the rest of the world with disturbing frequency. Polls in 2002 showed that a majority of Americans so-polled thought that Iraq was DIRECTLY INVOLVED involved in the 911 attacks. The majority of Americans also believe in a universe-spanning supreme being that provides no evidence for its existence WHATSOEVER. All this, and more, makes Americans the best-educated MORONS that money can buy. They are filled with highly selective facts, and essentially no wisdom.

      And that probably applies to you as well. Methinks thou dost protest too much, fuckface. But all this will become academic when the first suitcase nuke goes off in one of America's cities. After that, it's every man for himself, and I'm going to rather enjoy seeing someone like you through the sights of my CETME .308 battle rifle. {tip of the hat} Later, loser!

      --
      [You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
  16. In Holland... by Yaa+101 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    SOA means venerial decease...

    1. Re:In Holland... by Professr3 · · Score: 1

      In Amsterdam, there are probably quite a few words for venerial disease...

    2. Re:In Holland... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this offtopic?
      Perhaps reduntant, but hardly offtopic.

      The editor didn't write what SOA means.

      Google result on SOA:

      SOA ... Discover the latest research, publications and SOA news. About SOA & Member Directory. Learn about the SOA and find members in the online directory. Latest News ...
      www.soa.org/ccm/content/

      SOAW ... SOA Watch joins hundreds of thousands in the streets of New York City SOA Watchers from around the country joined thousands of other community activists ...
      www.soaw.org/ - 33k - 28 sep 2004 - Cachad - Liknande sidor

      SOAW ... SOA Watch Activists in Prison Twenty seven human rights activists were sentenced to prison or probation in January of this year for their nonviolent actions ...
      www.soaw.org/new/

      Soa Aids Nederland - informatie over seksueel overdraagbare ...
      SOA.nl - voorlichting over en preventie van sexueel overdraagbare aandoeningen.
      www.soa.nl/

    3. Re:In Holland... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are not in Holland, so STFU.

    4. Re:In Holland... by freqres · · Score: 1

      Which if aren't treated, usually lead to venerial decease.

      --
      Rampant Ninja related crimes these days...Whitehouse is not the exception
    5. Re:In Holland... by strictfoo · · Score: 1

      all the good DJs are from Holland... and we don't want them to go and get any more SOAs than they already have, now do we?

      --
      I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
  17. Yankee Group by Rupert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I will listen to what they have to say when they stop employing SCO shill Laura Didio.

    --

    --
    E_NOSIG
  18. mod parent up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's definitely not offtopic if you're Dutch. I was actually thinking about STD first as well...

  19. Re:Oh Hey! I get a pay raise, finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I'd be happy to discuss your interesting programming techniques.

    Mail me at bern4em@yahoo.co.uk

  20. Inconceivable! by Yo+Grark · · Score: 5, Funny

    Inigo: [looking confused] You keep using acronyms I do not think they mean what you think they mean...[looking back down] my god...his whole article is like that.

    Vizzini: Whoever he is, he's obviously seen us with the slashdot factor and therefore thinks his webserver must die. You [to Fezzik] read the article. We'll [to Inigo] head straight for the first posts. Catch up when it's meta-moderated. If his webserver fails, fine; if not, the use the wiki.

    Inigo: I'm going to do him in with bug-me-not.

    Vizzini: You know what a hurry we're in!

    Inigo: Well, it is the only way I my anominity can be satisfied. If I use my right name, the spam will come too quickly.

    Vizzini: Oh have it your way.

    Fezzik: [to Inigo] You be careful. People in marketing cannot be trusted.

    Yo Grark

    --
    Canadian Bred with American Buttering
    1. Re:Inconceivable! by cheezit · · Score: 1

      Anybody wanna peanut?

      --
      Premature optimization is the root of all evil
    2. Re:Inconceivable! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my server, prepare to make good on a 2-year SLA with 5-nines uptime guarantee.

  21. Erm... by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Funny

    "A Yankee Group survey of 473 enterprise decision makers reveals that companies have put aside money for service-oriented architectures for 2005." This is a bigger deal then it sounds - if companies keep moving this away, it will mean a sea change in corporate technology usage - and change the way/why development is done. We're talking everything from SOAP stuff (ITMJ is part of OSTG) to whole sale ASP adoption like Salesforce.com."

    473 enterprise decision makers? How many best-of-breed synergized Libraries of Congress is that?

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    1. Re:Erm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, before I RTFA, please explain why I should pay any more attention to the Yankee Group than I ordinary pay to the Gartner Group - or the Blue Man Group.

  22. Execs are starting to get it by sevinkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just last night my buddy down the street said the CEO of their company just showed up in the office and said he had been researching things for awhile and was sold on the SOA architechure, and they're moving all their old VB/COM+ code to C#/.NET

  23. Oh, that's where... by Tenebrious1 · · Score: 1

    That's where my training budget went. Oh well. Guess I'll just keep reading /. and ignore the blinkenlights...

    --
    -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
  24. SOA, ERP, SAP, CRM, IBM, COO and CFO by Mignon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a feeling this is what the legendary TPS report looks like. But they left off the cover sheet.

    1. Re:SOA, ERP, SAP, CRM, IBM, COO and CFO by gregarican · · Score: 1

      Now, now. Let's not "jump to conclusions"...

  25. Re:Michael S. Mimoso writes... by WPIDalamar · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah... do what the rest of us do... put the link in your sig!

  26. Re:Buzzwords through the ages. by Saratoga+C++ · · Score: 1

    2006 - RTFM?

  27. Yankee Group & SOA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe if they did a little more of the Yankee thing and a little less of the Group thing, they wouldn't catch any SOAs.

  28. Hmm by sulli · · Score: 4, Funny
    Widespread adoption of SOAP by developers would make a difference.

    Particularly for the guys riding with them on the bus.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  29. Don't believe the hype by whatthef*ck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    SOA is the latest hype being pitched by vendors who want to sell expensive tools to solve non-existent problems.

    It will find its niche, like web services did, but it's not going to be the next big thing.

    1. Re:Don't believe the hype by sevinkey · · Score: 1

      SOA is web services, except your entire system is a collection of webservices calling each other, and you expose the services you want others to use. This is pretty slow right now, but in-process webservice calls (oxymoron?) will most-likely be the norm in about two years, especially in .net

      SOA is what microsoft will be pushing for the new few years, so this term isn't likely to go away regardless of what we think.

  30. This article is exceptionally boring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...even for Slashdot.

  31. Re:Michael S. Mimoso writes... by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
    " A blatent pimping, A survey conducted by a domain in which he is emailing from, front page."

    And look right at the top of the article: "By Michael S. Mimoso, Senior News Editor 30 Sep 2004 | SearchWebServices.com".

    Shame on you Hemos.

  32. Not all buzz by jrexilius · · Score: 1

    the generic concept of loosely coupled services within the enterprise is not entirely new but is badly needed. At JPMorgan/BankOne where I was an architect having to sort out how we were going to get all these vendor packages, legacy systems, and new projects to play nice together it is a very hot topic.

    The idea is to allow us to abstract away vendors and certain ugliness so that replacing them can be scheduled seperately.

    the concept of loose coupling, abstraction layers, and generic services is just good programming practice taken to a system and network level. Pick up a copy of Pragmatic Programmer to get some ideas that are less buzz-word marketing jargon laden.

    1. Re:Not all buzz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The trending is towards modeling system architecture (see OMG's MDA) and like jrexilius said, SOA is about system abstraction. Much like the trend from decades before towards OO programming, SOA is a move to conceptualize systems in an enterprise IT portfolio.

      When complexity increases, better abstractions are required. Is SOA required to write a Hello World? No. When you start to manage 10,000 indepedent applications in a company, you can't just hack it together and hope it works.

  33. Great, you killed it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Thanks to Slashdot, salesforce.com is now dead in the water. It's almost ironic that I read slashdot instead of working becuase slashdot killed one of the tools I need to do my job.

  34. ASPs by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The problem is that it isn't the jargon of techies. It's the jargon of people-trying-to-market-new-buzzwords.

    The article is pimping ASPs. For those of you who have managed to avoid this particular bit of buzzwordspeke, it refers to "application service providers" (not the more common usage). Basically, the idea is that some vendor runs the backend of your applications on a remote server and admins them there, and you get the front end. It has the obvious appeal to vendors -- it lets you use a neat loophole in the GPL -- since you don't distribute code, you don't have to hand source out to anyone. It also provides basically impervious copy protection -- since you don't own the back end of the application, the vendor can cut you off at any time. It also gives the vendor tons of customer info, the ability to sell tiered service (i.e. price discriminate) and lots of control over the product. Oh, and a subscription-based sales moels, which is alway spossible. It falls prey to the obvious problems -- on the face of things, ASPs are generally a big loss for customers. The customer suddenly runs the risk of losing his apps if the service provider goes under, gives his vendors much more leverage over him, has to consume bandwidth, makes the not-very-reliable Internet a point of failure for his apps, etc.

    1. Re:ASPs by Smallpond · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As opposed to the current model for enterprise software:

      The vendor sells you the app and comes in and sets it up incorrectly. The guy who got the training and all of the manuals gets a better job and leaves. You didn't buy a service agreement, so you don't have the updates that you need. You have to set the clock back to 1998, because its not Y2K. And it only runs on Windows NT, Service pack 2, with constant attention required to keep the log files from overflowing.

    2. Re:ASPs by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 1

      not really, the SOA project I was involved in was at a gov't agency and was mostly semi-internal (all within the same gov't agency). I suspect, as usual, people take articles/trends about software development and think "commercial software", when the vast majority of software that is written is only for internal use.

  35. Oh just freaking great!!!! by HavokDevNull · · Score: 0, Redundant

    My sales drones use salesforce as a major tool and now because it is being /.'ed I'm getting calls from them asking why MY network is slow!!! Geee thanx /.'ers

    Excuse me while I throw my phone out the window

    --
    Sig
  36. umm... by temojen · · Score: 1

    In english a preservative is a chemical you add to food to keep it from spoiling.

    Perhaps you mean either condom or prophylactic.

  37. FYI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    rife: adj., excessively abundant

    ripe: adj., fully developed or matured and ready to be eaten or used

  38. Primer site on SOA by laetus · · Score: 1

    http://www.service-architecture.com/

    --

    "We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
  39. SOA = Same Old Architecture by rkischuk · · Score: 3, Insightful
    How many times are they going to repackage the same thing and hope that enterprises start begging to throw money at it this time?

    Heard the hype once when it was SOAP. Heard the hype again when it was Web Services. Hearing it again as SOA. It's still the same thing - exposing parts of your business using XML over HTTP. Some will say SOA is about a philosophy, about loose coupling. What nitwits were writing tightly coupled web services? The problem there ISN'T the technology, it's the development philosophy, and products don't fix bad design.

    --
    Seen any BadMarketing lately?
  40. Sigh of relief! by CheeseTroll · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Whew! I thought I was back in the 90's when vendors called me everyday pushing e-this and e-that until my head would spin from all the buzzwords flying around. After purchasing software for our company for a few years, I learned to deal with sales people like this simply by saying, "SHOW me how it works and how it's better than what we're doing now." Usually stops them in their tracks.

    It's funny how cathartic it is to read an article like that, come away feeling stupid for not understanding all the management-speak, and then reading the comments here that reaffirm that it's the article, not me, that is retarded.

    --
    A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
  41. SOA What? SOA This. by Bob9113 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lots of comments on the buzzwordiness of SOA, and questioning the technical merit. I've been working on a SOA project for a couple months now, and I can tell you - the technical merit is there (as well as the acrid stench of buzz).

    The core idea of SOA is that there are a lot of enterprises out there with lots of legacy databases on their networks. They also have small, decentralized app development teams that just want to put the data in front of the customer, as quickly as possible. Allowing all those teams direct access to all those databases is both expensive and risky (from a security standpoint) and expensive and difficult (from the front end developer's standpoint). SOA is a way to put a single point of entry across multiple databases. The front end people can code hellbent for leather against SOAP, without thinking about security or SQL, while the SOA team writes at a somewhat slower more methodic pace, linking in security (perhaps via LDAP) and handling handling the SQL.

    Basically it's a way of keeping the O/R mapping and database security problem with a single team, while also allowing individual departments and divisions of the corporation to have their own app development teams.

  42. Notice to Cease and Desist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Dear Mr. Mimoso,

    I am writing to you on behalf of the Center for Really Annoying Acronym People (CRAAP). We here at CRAAP maintain a full Acronym Database (AD) of to monitor Total Acronym Usage in Single Paragraphs (TAUSP). Using our Acronym Checking System (ACS), we establish and attempt to stamp out Acronym Overuse and Abuse Situations (AOAS). Our current safetly limits as defined by OSHA and the WHO is set at 2.

    After doing a TAUSP check on your paragraph using our ACS to compare against our AD, we discovered your paragraph to be an AOAS, and thus in violation of CRAAP, OSHA and WHO standards. This C&D letter is official notice to cease all AOAS activities imediately. Further actions will require legal penalties.

    Thank you.

    -Farley A. Kern-Edwardo

    CEO, CFO, CIA, ACU, TFO, FPS, POS
    CRAAP

  43. Or this by perdu · · Score: 1
    --
    You only use 2% of your DNA
  44. SOA == DOA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Really, it's Yet Another Buzzword that will come and go, doing as much damage as, say, Y2K.

    All the know-nothing software "architects" (guys with a title, inflated salary, and marginal reading and comprehension skills -- ie. subscribers of InfoWorld) have babbled about Service-Oriented Architecture for a while; some "bright" mind even proposed that, hey, maybe even client apps should be done using SOA (in this case, the leading desktop publishing app... what a stupid comment).

    It's a pity, sure, since some simple ideas that have been floating around for decades (last time as part of Corba) are ok, with SOA -- but certainly don't warrant the overblown hype there is surrounding SOA.

  45. That's an expensive email server! by swb · · Score: 1

    For our 300 people to get email 365 days per year, that'd be $110K per year. That's something like an entire year's (actually, more than an entire year's lately) server budget around here.

    Even if I bought two nice servers and clustered 'em for 99.99 uptime, I could likely get 2-3 years out of them easily. Even with software and maintenance, that's a ton of money. It might be comperable if you were talking zero IT staff, but at a 300 person company that's largely a fantasy as well.

  46. Service-Oriented Architecture by blackhedd · · Score: 1

    It's a fancy way of saying: I don't buy software licenses anymore.

  47. Sea Change? by upsidedown_duck · · Score: 1


    I finally figured out "paradigm shift" a long time ago, but, now, we have "sea change." What does this mean? Does it mean that the 473 enterprise decision makers are so overweight that the tide rises when they are at the beach? Do shipping lanes need to be routed around them? Does a belly flop off of the diving board send islanders across the Atlantic fleeing in fear?

    --
    -- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
  48. Much better colors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  49. uhhh by Skadet · · Score: 1

    "...everything from SOAP stuff (ITMJ is part of OSTG) to wholesale ASP...

    Uhhh.... WTF?

  50. That's an article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    the level of journalism these days is so pathetic. making claims based on a survey is about as useful as saying "I think I like hamburgers."

    what ever happened to backing up survey with real sales data and hiring data. Since the numbers the government has for employment/unemployment is dismal and not improving nearly as fast they would like, reality seems to counter the article.

  51. Sounds a lot like... by lux55 · · Score: 1

    The Postmodern Generator:

    http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

    Every time you refresh, it generates a new essay in postmodern-speak.

  52. Buzzwords? by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

    Buisiness buzzwords are quite similar to technical terms.

    I don't expect people to know any technical jargon (I.E. me "The keyboard yea the thing with the buttons probably right in front of the big square thing with glass in the front"), but even I don't have complete distain for the jargon of other disciplines.

    Props to slashdot for trying to enlighten readers that there is more going on with the OS revolution than simply the technical aspects.

    You may not want to learn the buzzwords but then perhaps someone else should be telling you what to do... (which sounds harsh but if someone doesn't know what IDE is they shouldn't be in there either).

    Doing something requires knowing what is worth accomplishing, how hard it will be, and then doing it.

  53. A general comment about SOA, MS and the marketplac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Chicken Little here with an announcement... Some feel that Microsoft has actually lost the war for the Windows API

    Here is the train that no one sees coming - MS isn't stealing an API or a package or a language this time. With Indigo, MS is trying to steal the next major programming paradigm. MS is quietly patenting the successor to OO, every wild and not-so-wild idea that anyone can pull out of their ass is being patented as a means of covering all bets. Somebody who works for MS (one of the people who burdened us with XML and then came over from the XML dark side, only to take the SOA ring back with him to the MS dark side) realized that OO programming is too hard and inefficient (save your sob stories) and said wow this old school internet thing was right all along, you remember they used have stuff like UUCP, SMTP, etc. So they slap a new name on it and all the middleware vendors dogpile onto it - it is now called SOA - A nice quippy 5 point definition for you here:

    1) Interactions between "services" is by passing messages (not fucking objects) using a "contract" [protocol was too computer-y sounding] OMG, sounds almost platform independent, but wait don't forget the patentable XML trick - that will un-platform independent it.

    1b) Ability of interacting services to hold a meaningful conversation is based on protocol version compatibility. Oops, I mean it is based on "Policy" (Don Box) This is also known as "Duh!"

    1c) Services are autonomous. This is also known as "SOA Fantasy: The Duhpocalypse"

    2) Assume an unreliable network - that was easy back then.

    3) Look shit ("services") up in some kind of directory (DNS was too flexible and easy, lets go with UDDI or something similarly unimplementable or Active Directory maybe?)

    4) Have boundaries (used to be called "You have your systems and we have ours", aided by a thing called dns to define the "boundaries").

    5) Try to be stateless - good luck.

    The only problem for people like BEA who sees that they will lose their business if people go to a fully distributed SOA model for apps in the future is: MS has gotten religion in time, this time, and BEA can't compete with MS's devtools and their ownership of a ubiquitous server platform (ie every system running Indigo - which is included "free" with any MS OS) and it fits perfectly with their goals:

    1) Make it easy for any idiot to develop and deploy MS apps
    2) Force people to run clients and servers using only MS OSs
    3) Disallow FOSS software from duplicating functionality or participating as clients or servers

    I think that covers their goals.

    And when they patent everything to do with SOA and roll out Indigo they will have achieved that.

    I don't think there is anything that will keep them from this. Anyone? anyone?

    Copyright 2004 Rob iQEVAgUBQTBHL4GVnbVwth
    Attribution required for reproduction outside of /.
    Why the "uncool" copyright? because every techno-hipster is blathering on and on about SOA these days and I don't want to see my post show up on their "advertise here for $100/wk" techno-histper blogs without proper attribution, even if they do only want to make fun of it.

  54. More SOA, MS Marketplace drivel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    http://www.ebpml.org/indigo.htm

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/default.aspx? pull=/msdnmag/issues/04/01/indigo/default.aspx
    I think this push for SOA is going to be the beginning of the end for OO:

    Object-oriented development focuses on applications that are built from interdependent class libraries. Service-oriented development focuses on systems that are built from a set of autonomous services. This difference has a profound impact on the assumptions one makes about the development experience.

    SOA makes outsourcing easier:

    The notion that boundaries are explicit applies not only to inter-service communication but also to inter-developer communication. Even in scenarios in which all services are deployed in a single location, it is commonplace for the developers of each service to be spread across geographical, cultural, and/or organizational boundaries.
    - - - -
    Object-oriented programs tend to be deployed as a unit. Despite the Herculean efforts made in the 1990s to enable classes to be independently deployed, the discipline required to enable object-oriented interaction with a component proved to be impractical for most development organizations.
    Object-oriented designs often confuse structural compatibility with semantic compatibility. Service-orientation deals with these two axes separately. Structural compatibility is based on contract and schema and can be validated (if not enforced) by machine-based techniques (such as packet-sniffing, validating firewalls). Semantic compatibility is based on explicit statements of capabilities and requirements in the form of policy.
    Every service advertises its capabilities and requirements in the form of a machine-readable policy expression. Policy expressions indicate which conditions and guarantees (called assertions) must hold true to enable the normal operation of the service.

  55. SOA What? SOA This-Jaded buzzwords. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe the reasons all the buzzwords weren't understood is most programmers don't work at the enterprise level. The rest are understandibly old hats who are jaded.

  56. Yea yea yea -- next buzzword, please. by earlgreen · · Score: 1

    Need I say more?

  57. SOA != Web Services by Patrick+May · · Score: 2, Informative
    Service oriented architecture (SOA) is not synonymous with Web Services. Web Services are just one, not particularly elegant, way of implementing an SOA. The core features of an SOA are:

    Dynamic service registration

    Dynamic service discovery

    Support for one or more standard protocols for service invocation

    Note the absence of the acronyms "SOAP" and "XML" on that list.

    Patrick

    1. Re:SOA != Web Services by chthon · · Score: 1

      I thought that CORBA already made arrangements for all these things.

  58. It's just in a different language. by Stu+Charlton · · Score: 1

    It seems to say that companies are moving away from the "big monolith" system and investing in more modular, loosely-coupled systems. This tends to make custom software development and niche-vendor acquisition more palatable, which may cause problems for Big Death Star vendors like SAP.

    The target audience for the article is obviously IT management, and is spoken in their language. This doesn't mean it is content free, it means they focus on different things than technical people usuallly do.

    I actually found the article as a decent one -- it helps add fuel to those of us who think loosely coupled services are a good thing and huge monolithic systems aren't.

    --
    -Stu
  59. well by Stu+Charlton · · Score: 1

    Firstly, I think there is merit to your argument. Microsoft is amassing a patent portfolio, and while they haven't used it yet, they most definitely will at some point.

    But first of all, you're a bit alarmist. Services orientation is not the new programming paradigm, and it is not a sucessor to OO. It certainly is the disruptive successor to OO-like distributed computing technologies such as CORBA, RMI, EJB, etc. But it doesn't kill OO "inside" the services.

    Let's also note that OO is not actually inefficient, it's bad engineering that leads to inefficiency. OO is a tool in the toolbox, a big one at that, but must be used appropriately -- just like XML services need to.

    There are two schools of thought here:
    a) Microsoft wants big in the enterprise. They finally understand they need to interoperate and play well with others to do so. So they've embraced SOA , XML, etc. They will compete on being the bringing tools, performance, productivity, etc. to developers and businesses.

    b) Microsoft's conducting a massive ruse and will crush BEA and IBM with patents -- especially if strategy (a) doesn't work.

    We know from the Wall Street Journal article this summer that Microsoft is quietly starting to go after its own customers in dissuading them to use Linux because of their finger on the patent-trigger.

    If Microsoft does start to use its patents to threaten both clients and other web services vendors, we're going to be in a very interesting time. Microsoft will have to pull off one of the biggest PR coups of all time in order to not ACCELERATE adoption of Linux and other non-Microsoft technologies. Given their recent PR debacles and marketing failures (the .NET brand-name being one, security problems the other), I'm not confident they can pull this off.

    IT departments like Microsoft because they brought costs down in the past and standardized skills. Today, they're becoming more of a liability -- they cost more, they're arrogant, and there are other standardized skills out there, like Linux. And remember -- most IT departments aren't ballsy enough to run their mission critical databases and applications on Windows. z/OS, UNIX and Linux are still key here, and I don't forsee a mass adoption of Mono over J2EE.

    Secondly, IBM will not take this lying down. If Microsoft has a big patent portfolio, they probably have entire warehouses dedicated to IBM patents. IBM can bring 10 lawsuits against any 1 Microsoft lawsuit. So anything MS does will have to be in line with IBM.

    So the only realistic scenario I could see happening is that they outsell and outmarket BEA and IBM, or at least BEA. IBM's already doing a good job at PR-slamming BEA. BEA is the marketshare leader on UNIX and Windows, but IBM's combination of sales, createive branding tactics ("everything is WebSphere!") and mainframe share have made it seem to many that they're clobbering BEA in revenue and wins, when they're reallly not.

    Since BEA is the upstart here, it's quite possible we'll wind up with two major SOA stacks -- .NET and IBM J2EE -- though BEA would probably just be acquired if it starts to falter. Sun isn't out of the game yet either, but they're certainly sidelined. And how HP rises to this arena is anybody's guess. BEA has the ability to win big here, but they don't seem to have the marketing will to become as household a name as Oracle. They need new senior leadership.

    But let's also recognize that technical merit doesn't win market battles. Even if Indigo is the all singing, all dancing thing that Microsoft hopes it will be, it doesn't mean people will adopt it en masse and quickly. Firstly, it's a Windows-only technology. That's a big limit to start with. Second, it's very new and rich. There's a learning curve. Third, other vendors are not sitting still. They can and will compete.

    --
    -Stu