The promise of SOA

Apparently Accenture has rejoined the school of "state-the-obvious" and realised that Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is not delivering on the hype.

The industry continues to focus on a single technology at a time, without considering the wider architectural context. On it's own the SOA paradigm moves one step towards and answer, but without considering the components in a business context, it is a futile exercise that does little more than line the pockets of the consultants.

Interestingly the Computerworld article refers to the CIOs that tell Accenture that they need to work more closely with the business. So true. SOA needs to be viewed as an enabler rather than an end in itself. IT must get back to focusing on business relevance. It is interesting to note the number of articles (like this one from Harvey Nash) that point to the reducing influence of the CIO in corporations.

Let's go back to the basics and focus on the endgame instead of technology for the sake of technology.