The problem with IT: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Just when one concept is finally understood and gaining traction, the pundits, marketers, and industry standards-bearers come up with a new and confusing phrase to confound us all. In this iteration of IT's fascination with new TLAs (three-letter acronyms for the acronym-challenged), bloggers and hypesters galore are talking up the concept of Web Oriented Architecture (WOA). Given ZapThink's distaste for old wine in new bottles, we have to ask: is there anything new in the WOA concept? And if there are new ideas, do they have any substance? More importantly, if there are indeed new ideas in the WOA concept, how do these compare and contrast to the SOA concept?
What is WOA?
At the time of writing this ZapFlash, there's no Wikipedia entry page on Web Oriented Architecture, which is both a sign that there isn't sufficient interest to create one (although perhaps the simple act of writing this might spur an entry), as well as a reflection that the term is too new to have garnered any sort of consensus definition. However, over the past year or so there has been a flurry of impassioned blog writing and research work yielded a number of detailed definitions.
