In a recent blog post by Anne Thomas Manes, the statement was made:

HP, to paraphrase Steve Jobs among others, would respond by saying “SOA:  Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated”  From HP’s perspective, we are hoping that 2009 does not become the year that industry analysts are lumped in with the sensationalist journalism and quippy sound bites of the TV generation.

Depending on your view, such attention grabbing headlines while attempting to promote and inspire dialog will undoubtedly lead to unintended consequences. 

Let’s start with the positives. The power of a controversial blog such as this one is that the post SHOULD drive people to think or re-think critically about the core issues.  In this case, the issues that IT is grappling with.  In many respects, there has been significant “pollution” of the acronym SOA and Anne is absolutely attempting to get the reader unwrapped from around the terminology axel. SOA is a “how”, not a “what”.

We think the key nugget in the blog is the message that the business doesn't fund "how’s", they fund “what’s”.  We agree with Anne on the premise that IT should avoid technical jargon or TLA's like SOA when speaking to the business or attempting to get funding for projects from the business.

There are at least three statements that Anne made that we fundamentally agree with.

First: “Companies need to become more in tune with what businesses require and understand what the problems are”, she said. “What is required is an examination of application architecture rather than project-by-project integration.”

1) Align their spending objectives with business goals by understanding business priorities and the language of business (not of technology)

and

2) Add an architectural discipline to these business-driven projects rather than just perpetuating individual “technology projects” which result in the dreaded point-to-point solutions – actually have enterprise architecture and it is one driven by intent. (One that represents where you want to end up and not as a result of just what you did)

These two goals are often at odds and this is where the largest challenge for IT leadership exists in ’09 – how to think “global” while funding “local” – IT must have the larger architectural goals and vision defined and be able to translate that and it’s requirements to become part of actionable, specific, business-driven asks.

We believe that the best combination for IT funding and initiative success in ‘09 is having a business partner who fundamentally understands the challenges of IT and architecture, collaborating with an IT leader who is willing to eliminate technical jargon out of his vocabulary when aligning with the business partner and defining projects.Ultimately, IT may know how to design and deliver the solution—via SOA – but the business doesn’t need to know how the solution was delivered, just that is meet it’s objectives. The business does not want to see inside the IT “sausage factory” of sorts.

The second thought from Anne’s blog is a paraphrase of her statement about funding for SOA in ‘09. Funding for "technologies that support SOA--without a business driver" is going to be very difficult to secure in 2009. However, it’s not all gloom and doom.  What we believe will continue, regardless of economic climate, is funding for projects that deliver specific and measurable value to the business!  SOA is one of the best "hows" that IT has to deliver rapidly against business objectives.

This situation is similar to my recent car purchase… I bought a Hybrid vehicle. I didn't buy a Hybrid because I wanted to know how the Hybrid technology worked, I bought it to get 45 mpg.

Third and perhaps most critical, Anne points to the behavior and cultural changes that simply cannot be solved by deploying an Enterprise Service Bus and calling it SOA; “SOA is not simply a matter of deploying new technology and building service interfaces to existing applications; it requires redesign of the application portfolio. And it requires a massive shift in the way IT operates. The small select group of organizations that has seen spectacular gains from SOA did so by treating it as an agent of transformation.”

Now, the downside of these kinds of attention grabbing headlines is that most people don’t ACTUALLY read the entire post.  Another example of a "grabber headline", which we were mailed over and over again, is from November 2008. There was a Gartner survey announcing the slowing of SOA Adoption.  This is an interesting summarization of the actual survey, but if you look at the bottom of the article it says, “The survey found that adoption of SOA and plans for adoption vary widely by region.  SOA adoption is nearly universal in Europe, moderate in North America, and lagging in Asia, Gartner said.”  So, you shouldn’t need a PhD in statistics to understand that the adoption curve is likely to level off from previous years and decline when you reach a saturation point.  Is it really a surprise that the adoption would slow when, according to the report, ALL of Europe has already gotten onboard? 

As a vendor, we are told repeatedly by analysts that words matter.  We have heard the message and we have understood.  Where is the reciprocation?  Unfortunately, there will be unintended consequences as a result of Anne's post; due to poor reading comprehension, misunderstanding, or both.  You can see some of this forming based on the comments that are being provided back.  People who are in violent disagreement or are calling Anne's credibility into question along with her depth of understanding of SOA.  These people clearly don't know her background if that is the case. But, what is clear is that if analysts pursue this kind of strategy to get their message out, they will need to accept the unintended consequences. 

So,is SOA dead?  Absolutely not.

Should we attempt to expunge SOA from our vocabulary? Why would we try to attempt such a thing?  

HP believes that SOA as a term is a lot like the “eBusiness” craze of the late 90’s.  Who says “eBusiness” anymore?  No one. 

Did we have to go on a crusade to expunge this from people’s vocabularies?  No. 

As a vendor of SOA software and solutions, we believe we are only successful when our customers are successful.  No software provides value when it’s on the shelf.  The big impact that the entire SOA community can have in 2009 is showing the application of SOA to business challenges and how IT are using SOA approaches to deliver real value to the business.   Perhaps when we are done exceeding their expectations, we can share with them HOW we did it…if they care to peer inside the "sausage factory."