Web 2.0 vs. SOA. This topic overlaps the fascinating question of what might bring about Enterprise 2.0 and, as prequel to that, what Enterprise 2.0 might be. To me, it’s clear we’re nowhere near Enterprise 2.0 and architecting systems using Service-Oriented Architecture won’t get us there, not by itself. Web 2.0 fundamentally changes the relationship of the individual to the technology and media she interacts with. The social networking, blogging, tagging, video sharing, podcasting, individual-expressing and people-connecting software of Web 2.0 enables the socio-technological revolution but is not itself the paradigm shift that makes it so exciting. Until business units of enterprises start busting out of their static relationships to their parent organizations, their customers and suppliers, and their sister business units, we’re not seeing Enterprise 2.0. Until flexible software services combined with collaborative knowledge management promote reconfiguring organizations and their trading relationships on the fly, I’m not calling it Enterprise 2.0.
Still, the application of Web 2.0 technologies to big IT problems is very exciting even if it’s not itself a paradigm shift. And SOA intrigues me, if only for all the attention it’s getting. Here are some things I’m wondering about and investigating:
- Is SOA more than just a bundling of good software engineering practices with some particular technology usage patterns?
- Has SOA shown itself to be successful beyond making IT more efficient or productive, i.e., allowing the business to enter into new relationships or take advantage of new opportunities that they wouldn’t have been able to engage in without the supplied software services?
- What do IT architects in big companies think of Web 2.0? Of SOA? Enterprise 2.0?
- Who within a company would push for SOA to be implemented, given that the payoff for the extra work involved is not immediate?
I’m sure I can learn more by bushwacking through the vines that grew last week. If I don’t return within a couple of days, send a search party.
