SOA is hot and getting hotter. And if the economy cooled, SOA will get even hotter.
That's the latest prognosis from Forrester Research, found in its recent SOA adoption survey, the third since 2005. (Reported here by SearchSOA's Rich Seeley.) Randy Heffner, vice president at Forrester, notes that whole SOA was plodding along in 2006, the approach took off dramatically in 2007:
"In 2005, the survey found 53 percent of enterprises were 'using or planning to use SOA.' By 2006, that number had grown to 62 percent, and in 2007 it reached 66 percent. More importantly for the theme of the latest survey, enterprises with an 'enterprise level strategy and commitment to SOA' went from 18 percent in 2005, to 22 percent in 2006, and 26 percent in 2007."
Will this support and interest in SOA continue through 2008, even if the economy turns more sluggish? Heffner says not only will SOA survive, but it will thrive. It's possible that tighter IT budgets may actually spur further SOA adoption, he said. "There are conditions under budget stress that actually encourage the use of SOA," he said. "For example, one benefit of SOA is that it extends the life of legacy applications. Say we were going to rewrite this application and spend $X millions, but we figured out we didn't have to because with a fourth of the money we could get where we needed to by SOA-enabling a legacy application."
Above and beyond cost cutting, organizations have been embracing SOA for business reasons, Forrester concludes. "The major theme is the growing recognition of SOA as an important enabler for strategic business transformation," Heffner said in an interview with SearchSOA.com.
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