Want to get that IT project approved? Forget strategic vision. Over the past 5 – 6 years, conventional wisdom has been that only tactical, incremental projects promising targeted ROI are getting green lighted.
Yet, as we were listening to an IBM conference call yesterday about their latest SOA offerings, they trotted out a customer who described SOA investments as “a journey, not a one-year investment choice.” Were we imagining things? Or did this signify that it’s OK to get strategic again?
Until now SOA has been promoted as a sort of third way. Unlike 1990s-style reengineering, SOA doesn’t require you to rip things out. By wrapping the legacy in a standard container that exposes functionality as a WSDL service, you can isolate change to the new services layer, letting sleeping dogs lie.
