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The SOA (service-oriented architecture) marketplace has been a morass of vendor-speak, focused on selling software stacks instead of addressing the core issue, which is how to develop a cohesive architecture that will scale with your organization.

The more acquisitions, the more product confusion and the less ability for an end-user to figure out if the products serve their needs.

Over at InfoWorld, Dave Linthicum highlights five things that SOA vendors should know.
1. Make sure your product works.
2. Make sure you know what SOA is.
3. Get wise about the approach to SOA.
4. Don't sell yourself as "one stop SOA shopping."
5. Consider the future.

I would add one more thing: get your product into users' hands.

One of the inherent advantages of open source is that a product is available for download. Some vendors, like Oracle, make their whole SOA suite available for download, whereas other companies, like Software AG, make components available, and still others, like HP and SOA Software, make you pay before you get to do anything.

An SOA approach is as much about initial design as it is about refinement. A user needs to be able to try the products out and see if they work for their use-case before they are forced to choke down a massive license fee.

My post on whether BEA Systems is screwed hasn't even been up for a full day, and the company decided to one-up me with this press release, marking a 180-degree turn from everything they have been pushing for the last two years.

The company had been talking about Aqualogic as an SOA (service-oriented architecture) story, and now it's pitching it as a blog-wiki mashup: "New Web 2.0 service solutions from enterprise infrastructure software firm BEA, along with enterprise social-computing products, are designed to accelerate the next generation of user participation."

BEA is clearly trying to push outside its bread and butter, but the message doesn't make much sense in relation to how the company is positioning the rest of their products.

BEA's statement goes on to suggest that the company could also be powering buzzword-compliant Web 2.0 initiatives: "BEA's enterprise social-computing products are designed to deliver the next wave of knowledge worker productivity--vital for increased business efficiency, growth and innovation." ... Read more

Once again Microsoft continues to muddy its SOA (service-oriented architecture) strategy with a push into model-driven development (MDD). While on the surface it may appear that this is meaningful, in fact all Microsoft is doing is dumbing down the already mediocre tools and "prescriptions" that currently suggest an obvious misunderstanding of the fundamental (primarily vendor-enforced) components of SOA, which usually include items like business process management, enterprise service bus, registry and governance.

Instead, Microsoft has a set of things that are not in line with any other vendor or standards group: "a bundle of BizTalk Server 2006 R2, SharePoint Server, Visual Studio Team System and SQL Server, known as the SOA and BizTalk Process Pack."

All this does is reinforce lock-in to Microsoft products and defeats the purpose of even associating with SOA.

Modeling in and of itself is a good thing in a lot of cases. For instance in Japan, our (MuleSource) partner OGIS has built a whole development strategy around MDD, but the models are relative to the subjective SOA vs. this Microsoft junk.

In a story posted Tuesday on eWeek, Darryl K. Taft writes:

Modeling is a key component of Microsoft's new "Oslo" strategy. As part of Oslo, Microsoft will work to deliver a unified platform integrating services and modeling, moving from a world where models describe the application to a world where models are the application.

I hesitate to call it pointless but I can't figure out why it matters. As Savio Rodrigues over at InfoWorld said:

You know, SOA and especially Composite Applications, are supposed to be about heterogeneous environments. I didn't find a thing that leads me to believe that Oslo has much to do with interoperability. So, "extends SOA beyond the firewall" should really say "extends SOA beyond the firewall from one 100% Microsoft shop to another 100% Microsoft shop."

Is this just a marketing exercise?

IBM is set to announce on Wednesday a set of services geared at boosting its services-oriented architecture (SOA) consulting services and products.

The company has devised an assessment tool that allows companies to compare the efficiency of their business processes with others in their own field.

It also has developed a program that allows end users to adjust which indicators they like to track how their business is performing, such as how quickly orders are fulfilled.

These SOA consulting offerings and IBM's WebSphere tools include information that has been customized to particular industries including banking, health care, telecommunications and insurance.

SOA describes a way of designing software systems to be modular and flexible. IBM is investing heavily in SOA technology through acquisitions, and it has developed a whole line of specific SOA services.

Robert LeBlanc, general manager of global consulting services and SOA at IBM Global Business Services, said that IBM deals with customers who approach SOA from both a technology and business process efficiency standpoint.

"We see people coming at it from an IT perspective, typically with an integration thought looking for how to integrate information on how to collaborate," LeBlanc said.

Increasingly, however, he said that IBM's SOA business stems from business consulting engagements or companies looking to streamline existing processes, a project that includes SOA technology.