Life has never been easier for IT departments: these days business processes can be automated with ease by linking together applications via Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). All the old complexities of integrating legacy applications, new technologies and external entities have disappeared with the SOA revolution and IT managers can really focus on delivering the value to the businesses that is expected of them.
Or so you might be led to believe. The reality is, of course, rather different and messages about SOA are most likely to fall on deaf ears. While most of the few organisations that have managed to turn their IT infrastructure into a service-orientated one have no doubt about the value of having done so, the majority still need educating about the fundamentals. VARs pushing their customers to evolve towards SOA will need to be in the front line helping to communicate this.
