Much of the buzz around service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been that by eroding the boundaries between applications it will make the applications obsolete.
Not so, according to a new report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. It contends that the nature of how applications get built will change, but that end users will still interact with a "working business solution," with a look and feel similar to current day applications, despite its composite structure.
"It's not a your-father's-applications kind of scenario," said Forrester analyst Randy Heffner. "In a sense, yes, SOA spells the end of the application as we know it, but the problem with that statement is it doesn't take the thinking far enough."
Heffner made a case that applications are perceptual in nature.
