Please wait while the page is being loaded Skip this advertisement >
Saturday | 22 November, 2008
CIO
The Truth About SOA
SOA, the story goes, isn't merely designed to remake IT; it's going to be a magic bullet to transform the businesses that IT serves too.
Christopher Koch 07 July, 2006 16:19:09

With CIOs reluctant to upgrade to new versions of enterprise software, the big vendors are saying: "Look, we can't sell with our old value proposition any more", says Gartner's Sholler. "So they're trying to make [their software] the foundation for other solutions in markets they haven't been able to reach."

But this strategy has put the enterprise application companies on a collision course with traditional middleware providers such as BEA, IBM and WebMethods, which are coming to the SOA party from the bottom up, through the integration infrastructure layer. "Everybody is winding up tangled up in the same space," says Sholler.

Although the integration infrastructure companies have much more experience with the foundational elements of SOA, all vendors are looking to build long-term relationships with customers. Consequently, despite the abundance of Web services standards embedded in their products to ease integration headaches, everybody has a proprietary hook somewhere. Oracle's Fusion applications will work only with Oracle's database. SAP's new applications require NetWeaver middleware, according to Gartner and Forrester Research. Even the integration infrastructure companies have enough proprietary elements to make it difficult to swap out their integration software.

The bottom line for CIOs? Beware vendors pledging to build your SOA for you. Unless you're not worried about dependence on your vendor.

But CIOs on the whole fear dependency, especially in the current wave of consolidation, according to a 2005 Accenture survey of CIOs. While 65 percent of CIOs said vendor consolidation makes for a more integrated software infrastructure, and 61 percent believe it will reduce their vendor management burden, 87 percent said vendor consolidation will lead to lock-in, 61 percent believe it will decrease price competition, and 57 percent believe it will reduce pressures for vendors to innovate. Only 35 percent saw vendor consolidation as a good thing.

For SOA believers like Transamerica's Gleason, an independent SOA controlled by the CIO is one of the best protections against lock-in. "No one vendor can be all things to everyone," he says. "There's always going to be somebody out there who will be able to do a piece of your process better than anybody else can. And the first company to adopt that is going to have competitive advantage."

Related Features
  • +

    Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04 February, 2008 13:01:15

    Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?
    Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?
  • +

    Strategies for Dealing With IT Complexity 24 December, 2007 10:30:47

    Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
    Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
  • +

    9 Paths to Higher Performance 10 December, 2007 14:09:23

    When an organization brings together talented people in a creative, collaborative environment it fosters a culture of high performance, which in turn leads to superior business results
    Like high-achieving individuals, some organizations seem to have the Midas touch. Virtually every initiative they touch earns them gold and even those that fail never seem to cost them much of anything at all
Related Stories
  • +

    Adobe launches hosted services, adds Flash to Acrobat 03 June, 2008 09:02:44

    Adobe to launch Web site offering users free hosted services for document creation, sharing and storage
    Adobe this week is set to unveil the next version of its Adobe Acrobat software, which adds support for the company's Flash multimedia technology. The company also plans to launch a new Web site offering users free hosted services for document creation, sharing and storage.
Featured Whitepaper Sponsors
Market Place
 
Featured Whitepapers

Smart SOA World Tour

Discover how SOA can create smarter outcomes for your business.

Attend and learn:

  • How SOA is helping leading companies to become more agile
  • Where you should be applying SOA processes in your company
  • The top SOA implementation mistakes to avoid

Click here for more information.
  • +

    CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00

    For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders.
  • +

    CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25

    For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders.
  • +

    CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00

    Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
  • +

    CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00

    Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
  • +

    CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05

    Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
  • +

    Chris Hoff on Virtualization and Cloud Computing 20 November, 2008 10:55:00

    Chris Hoff, chief security architect for the systems and technology division at Unisys and an advisor on the Skybox Security customer advisory board, is one of the biggest critics of virtualization security out there. Not because it isn't important - but rather because it is vital and needs to mature rapidly.
  • +

    Cybersecurity is focus of new start-up incubator 20 November, 2008 07:19:00

    Texas uni announces the Institute for Cyber Security.
    The University of Texas at San Antonio Tuesday announced a technology incubator aimed at fostering IT security-based start-ups within the state.
  • +

    Dilip Sarangan on Physical Security M&A 20 November, 2008 11:18:00

    Dilip Sarangan tracks physical security companies for Frost & Sullivan. He expects the industry's "need to have" products to weather the economic storm well, with the big players (now including IBM and Cisco) looking for value-priced acquisitions.
  • +

    International Challenges in PCI Security 20 November, 2008 09:15:00

    In a country that's seen many regulatory compliance challenges this decade, the headaches of PCI security tend to be analyzed from a largely American perspective.
  • +

    PCI council sharpens oversight of security auditors 19 November, 2008 10:53:00

    Quality assurance plan targets security assessors and scanning vendors
    The PCI Security Standards Council Monday unveiled a plan to sharpen oversight of the hundreds of security-service providers now authorized to evaluate merchant networks under the organization's Payment Card Industry data standards.
CIO Webcast Innovation #8 - What are the biggest roadblocks to IT's involvement in innovation at your company?
Watch the latest latest edition of CIO Innovation which is now available for download.
Watch the webcast
Sign up to the CIO Innovation update email


CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II
Listen to the latest edition of CIO Live which is now available for download.
Listen to the podcast
Sign up to the CIO Live email
Whitepaper

Solve Exchange Mailbox Storage Issues Once and for All

Join industry expert Bob Spurzem and Chuck Arconi of Fox Hollow to discover how to reduce Exchange total storage and keep it at a manageable level. Learn how Exchange storage growth can be contained without sacrificing security and accessibility.