SOA and the Economy: Pay No Attention to The Economists Behind the Curtain

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January 17, 2008

SOA and the Economy: Pay No Attention to The Economists Behind the Curtain

"I hear there is going to be a recession. I decided not to participate." - Sam Walton

I've been engaged in an across-the-blogosphere discussion of what the implications of an economic downturn would mean for service-oriented architecture.

Tony Baer discusses our posts and some of the impiciations for SOA here at ebizQ, and Brenda Michelsen raised the issue a few weeks here at ebizQ as well.

My thoughts? We have to first cut through the absolute media hysteria that has been raging out there for the past month or so. Economists really can't agree if this will be a recessionary year or not. And, no, the sky isn't falling, just like it didn't fall in 1982, 1991, or 2001. In fact, in each case, we eventually came roaring out of those downturns.

However, let's face it, when it comes to budget crunches, the pinch was never lifted off IT since the post-dot-bomb and post-Y2K hangovers of 2001. IT has continued to operate under tight constraints, constantly being asked to do a lot more with less. Even if the economy were roaring with 25-percent growth this year, budgets would still be tight. Companies would still outsource.

Hence, the interest in SOA, Web 2.0, and open source approaches to problems. SOA offers a way to trim development costs by reusing and sharing services and eliminate duplication. Web 2.0 offers ways to secure computing and data resources on an incremental or low-cost fashion. Open source software, of course, offers unlimited licenses at virtually or little cost.

Again, enterprises would push for the SOA-Web 2.0-open source troika no matter what the economy looks like outside.

Plus, I think the greatest issue will continue to be a shortage of talent to conceive, design, and maintain SOA-enabled architectures. As I discussed a few days back, the amount of SOA project work out there far exceeds the available talent to fulfill it.

Having said that, it is fair to conclude, as Tony points out, that the forward-looking companies that "get" SOA understand its value and will keep pushing for it. The companies that don't quite get SOA -- and see it as a "special project" to be funded without understanding where the return will be -- are likely to cut off such efforts. Then, of course, there's those really crummily managed organizations that will use what they call "SOA" as a hammer to justify layoffs, but let's not talk about them. (Remember "re-engineering"?)

Tony also notes that previous recessions did not slow down major IT transformations, anyway. As he observes, "the recession of 1990s occurred just as IT was on the verge of another great architectural migration, in that case to client/server. While investments in client/server were obviously slow back at that time, when dollars flowed back several years later, they did so with a vengeance. And that was before IT organizations got caught up in the Y2K and Internet booms."

Lorraine Lawson also does not see a huge impact from a potential economic downturn on SOA efforts and IT shops, echoing Sam Walton's sentiment that they will likely decide not to participate.

In the event SOA proponents are asked to cut back, she offers these pieces of advice. And, I will add, good advice even when the economy starts roaring again:

1. Focus on short-term ROI.
2. Think tactical, not strategic (related to #1)
3. Tie your SOA to Web 2.0 and social networking projects.
4. Tie your SOA to emerging business changes.
5. Focus on the dead or dying. (Use SOA to rejuvenate older legacy systems)
6. Reroute funds from other projects.
7. Try Guerrilla SOA. (My favorite)

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