August 8th, 2007
Microsoft: when it comes to SOA, 'just do it'
Lorraine Lawson at IT Business Edge recently took up the question as to whether Microsoft ‘gets’ SOA, and reaches this conclusion: the question is irrelevant.
One CIO’s observations from the recently published Aberdeen study on SOA results says it all, Lorraine observes: “it’s about what’s quickest, most readily available and easiest. It’s about what you can do now.” This is a space Microsoft has owned for many years.
I have to admit, I like the Microsoft philosophy around SOA. John Devadoss recently articulated the Microsoft vision around SOA, which emphasizes the “snowball” approach:
“How do you build a big snowball? You start with a small snowball. This is probably the most important take away with respect to leveraging SOA to drive business value.
John advises avoiding the “build-it-and-they-will-come” approach to mega-project SOA. Large, long-lasting projects only will fall behind as the business moves on. “Demonstrate value in rapid iterations. Time-to-value is a critical metric, a healthy metric. The trust-me approach is not a healthy model for customers that want to be successful leveraging SOA… We recommend customers partition their use cases into small sets and build out the entire use case end-to-end, from the data through to the consumption. You don’t learn by planning – you learn by doing.”
If the slogan wasn’t already usurped by Nike many years ago, Microsoft’s tagline toward SOA could have been “Just Do It.”
Joe McKendrick is an author and consultant with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in the technology industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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