Sunday, June 29, 2008

Business versus technology

"SOA is not about technology", or is it?

Some seem to forget that business is dead without technology. Especially nowadays. Over the ages of mankind technology always has given birth to business.

Information Technology is complex, so yes, many won't quite understand the bits and bytes. That's why we got experts. These experts use acronyms and terms to point things out and to communicate between each other.

It is not necessary for business people to understand all of this, but these technology aspects are relevant to the business.

Technology experts do know that SOA is ALSO about technology and not only about business. Technology oriented SOA enables the business oriented SOA, so to say.

I really wonder why there is so much aversion against the technical side of SOA. Just because these technology opponents don't understand the technical perspective of the whole? Not very wise to condemn aspects that are not well understood. Ignoring technology won't help the business, it murders the business.

Rethink if you used to evangelize that SOA is not about technology; SOA is about business and at least equally if not more about technology. A good technology oriented SOA will even offer benefits to a lousy organized non-SOA business. The way around - non-SOA technology supporting a business oriented SOA - is hardly thinkable...

1 comment:

Mike Kavis said...

I agree, SOA is about both the technology and the business. The key is that when you talk to the business, you should focus on the business drivers and not the technology. When you talk to IT you should talk about both. You obviously need to talk technology to the techies, but they need to understand the business drivers and keep their focus on those drivers. This helps prevent the technicians from struggling with scope which could lead to analysis paralysis and the failure to ever leave the white board and create anything of value.

My two cents!