1. The Line of Commoditization posted: 2005.04.04 - Size:
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This article is the first in a series in which we'll examine some of the changes in methodology that are required for service-orientation. In a sense this may sound somewhat abstract or academic with little relevance to everyday life. My view is actually quite the opposite in that these shifts in methodology are central to the very future of IT. In fact our starting is on a controversial debate on the role of IT that has been raging over the past few months and that illustrates the all too real commercial issues that are currently burning their way into corporate boardrooms.
At a technology level the promise is that Web Services will provide the universal glue for finally solving the well-documented problems of enterprise application integration. This promise extends beyond the organization firewall to easily accessible, highly reusable and replaceable software on a global level.
In earlier papers in this column I have argued that a service-oriented architecture (SOA) is much more than a structure for identifying and managing Web services. For example, it forms an approach for effectively integrating all types of software service with ever changing business processes. In this paper I examine one vital further aspect of SOA that is commonly neglected: the role of the SOA for managing risk
The interest in agility reflects the world in which we live: a world of change in which the quick survive and the slow do not. Agility is also to do with the notions of responsiveness and cost-effectiveness, both of which are important characteristics of successful companies in today's continued difficult economic climate. More specifically one of the promises of Web services is that they will provide much greater agility.
