Where All Those SOA Dollars Will Go in 2007

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January 12, 2007

Where All Those SOA Dollars Will Go in 2007

In a new piece in ComputerWorld, Dave Linthicum predicts that 2007 is set to witness a significant surge in SOA spending, However, he questions whether it will be money well spent.

"2007 will witness a significant surge in SOA spending, as early adopters evolve POC (proof of concept) implementations into more robust deployments and late adopters buy into the architectural shift. Lack of insight and foresight, however, will spur many enterprises to divert too many dollars to areas that will prove less fruitful in ensuring the long-term success of their SOA."

Where will the money go? First of all, Dave points out, companies will be diverting too much money to follow the hype, Dave points out -- and corporate resources will be consumed in "excesses for steering committees, conferences, and POCs to the detriment of real work getting done."

In addition, a lot of funds will flow toward governance solutions and ESBs, but in many cases, too early in the process, Dave continues. "Many enterprises will look to vendors for an 'SOA in a box' before they understand their own requirements. In other words, they'll buy the house before they know where they're going to put it."

Then, there's that $5.5 billion that will be spent on SOA consultants (according to IDC estimates).

Dave also offers some excellent recommendations as to where all those funds should go. First, he states that companies shift more funds to training -- to bring up IT staffers' skills in managing organizational as well as technical issues. Plus, not enough funding is going to security, which "will again be an afterthought in 2007... Scrimping on funding now will not make up for potential losses down the road.... Exposing services gives SOA power -- not only to reap savings but also to do a lot of damage."

Finally, not enough resources will go into new paradigms such as SaaS (software as a service) and Web services marketplaces -- which could generate the highest ROI, Dave says.

SOA isn't about the bits and bytes that will go into new equipment or consulting engagements -- its about organizational transformation. Unfortunately, as Dave points out, many companies will still fall into the old trap of funneling money to slideware and appeals to fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Posted by joemckendrick in SOA | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us