ZapThink: Enterprises Not Buying Service-Oriented Architecture by Name; Consulting Firms Integrate SOA Best Practices with Business-Focused Offerings

BALTIMORE, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 6, 2006–ZapThink released a report today showing that few enterprises are specifically budgeting for or requesting Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) by name. Instead, business buyers budget for specific solutions to their business problems, and more consulting firms than ever before leverage Service Orientation best practices to provide those solutions. The main buyer of such initiatives has shifted toward the non-technical, business part of the enterprise.

“The clear pattern with today’s SOA projects is that they are increasingly business-focused,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst with ZapThink. “Many consulting firms are integrating SOA best practices into a broad differentiated offering that is not necessarily specific to SOA.”

ZapThink expects the percentage of IT projects overall that leverage Service Orientation best practices to continue to grow over time, and those best practices will soon become ubiquitous. ZapThink also expects the percentage of IT projects that are named, SOA-specific projects to peak in 2007, with Service Orientation best practices increasingly subsumed within the expected, routine part of IT projects more broadly after that date.

Key findings of the report include:

• Breaking up a large SOA initiative into multiple, discrete projects is an effective way to manage the risk of architectural change.
• Integration-centric offerings and technologies are taking a back seat to organizations’ need to improve their overall approach to enterprise architecture.
• Many SOA consulting providers are confused by product vendors who often distort the true message of SOA to best fit their product offerings.
• Many SOA consulting firms confuse architecture with implementation, causing significant issues in short-term SOA adoption.
• Average deal sizes for SOA projects range from an average of $150,000 for integration-focused efforts to several million dollars for enterprisewide and compliance-focused initiatives.

The report, available on ZapThink’s Web site at www.zapthink.com, features several firms offering SOA consulting services, including Accenture (NYSE: ACN – News), AgilePath, Alphacourt, Anexinet, Arc Aspicio, Avanade, BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS – News), BearingPoint (NYSE: BE – News), Bouvet, CapGemini (Paris), CherryRoad Technologies, City Practitioners, D. Callingham & Assoc., Daugherty Business Solutions, Definition 6, e-Brilliance, eSigma, gen-i, Geniant, Hitachi Consulting (NYSE: HIT – News), HP (NYSE: HPQ – News), IBM Global Services (NYSE: IBM – News), Infosys (NASDAQ: INFY – News), innoQ, IPT, Kanbay (NASDAQ: KBAY – News), Keane (NYSE: KEA – News), Lydian Technology, MITRE, Modhelus, Momentum SI, MphasiS, MW2 Consulting, Network Effects, Online Business Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ProSolveIT, Satyam (NYSE: SAY – News), Schumacher Partners, Semantic Arts, SentientPoint, SilverTrain, SOA Software, SOA Systems, Software AG (Frankfurt), SRL Group, Statera, Summa Technologies, Synergy International, Systemiclogic, TasmanAve, TeamSOA, Tier1 Innovation, Voyant Group, Wipro (NYSE: WIT – News), WM-Data (Stockholm), and XWebServices. The report also mentions the following vendors: AmberPoint, Composite Software, Fiorano, Forum Systems, Infravio, LogicLibrary, Mercury (OTC: MERQ – News), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT – News), Mindreef, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL – News), Reactivity, RedHat (NASDAQ: RHAT – News), SAP (NYSE: SAP – News), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW – News), WSO2, and WebLayers.

Read more at: ZapThink Press Release

SOA Consulting: Current Market Trends

As the practice of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) matures, professional services firms that offer SOA-related services continue to lead the market in the creation and application of best practices for SOA. For this report, ZapThink surveyed 58 consulting firms who identified themselves as offering SOA consulting services in order to assemble a detailed, global picture of the state of the market for SOA consulting worldwide. ZapThink found a substantial maturation of SOA consulting offerings across the board, with an increased focus on the business value that SOA can provide. While there still remains some confusion over the nature and applicability of SOA, methodologies, engagements, and understanding of the SOA value proposition have all dramatically improved in the last few years to the point that SOA best practices are increasingly being taken for granted as the standard approaches for solving a broad range of business problems in organizations around the world.

Hyderabad-based software firm announces expansion plans

“Up to this point in time, most companies’ SOA investments have focused on the underlying infrastructure — middleware, management, security, development tools. But there has been little in the way of products that service-enable existing applications,” said Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at Zapthink.

“As the SOA market matures, however, there is an urgent need for technologies and approaches that can help companies leverage legacy applications in the SOA environment. SEEC’s technology provides the automation capabilities companies need to efficiently adapt and modernize legacy applications for the future,” he added.

Read more at: NewKerala.com

Companies Choose SEEC Application Manager

“Up to this point in time, most companies’ SOA investments have focused on the underlying infrastructure — middleware, management, security, development tools. But there has been little in the way of products that service-enable existing applications,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst at Zapthink. “As the SOA market matures, however, there is an urgent need for technologies and approaches that can help companies leverage legacy applications in the SOA environment. SEEC’s technology provides the automation capabilities companies need to efficiently adapt and modernize legacy applications for the future.”

Read more at: eBizQ.net

SEEC Expands Relationships with Leading IT Services Firms

“Up to this point in time, most companies’ SOA investments have focused on the underlying infrastructure — middleware, management, security, development tools. But there has been little in the way of products that service-enable existing applications,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst at Zapthink. “As the SOA market matures, however, there is an urgent need for technologies and approaches that can help companies leverage legacy applications in the SOA environment. SEEC’s technology provides the automation capabilities companies need to efficiently adapt and modernize legacy applications for the future.

Read more at: SEEC Press Release

IT companies are hooking up like divorcees at a Vegas wedding chapel

The ZapThink guys have it right that this is only the second inning (given the weather, it can’t be too soon for baseball metaphors) of a nine-inning outing of SOA components and supplier consolidation.

Read more at: ZDnet

Update: OASIS seeks clarity on SOA

“Architecture is very difficult — in fact, architecture is mostly a challenge for people, rather than technology,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to an inquiry. “So, the SOA Reference Model will go a long way to helping people deal with the human aspects of making architecture work, but it will be up to companies to adopt and implement the reference model in ways that directly impact their businesses.”

“I wouldn’t read anything too significant into the lack of involvement in these by larger players, as OASIS encourages small groups of vendors to put together ideas and run them up the flagpole,” said Jason Bloomberg, also a senior analyst at ZapThink, in response to an e-mail. “It’s just a sign that these initiatives are still in the early stages.”

Read more at: InfoWorld

Infosys: Global Consulting Powerhouse

Infosys is a global IT services powerhouse that is transforming the world of professional services, systems integration, and global outsourced IT development and management. Their growth has been unimpeded, even through the difficult post dot-com boom years, mainly due to their innovative Global Delivery Model (GDM) approach.

Web Services and SOA factor into their growth story by providing the technical underpinnings for achieving even greater amounts of efficiency and business value for their customers. This ZapNote explores Infosys’s overall business and one of the implementation frameworks they have developed to bootstrap Web Services implementations by providing an infrastructure for implementing SOA.

What’s the Big Deal about SOA?

ZapThink’s presentation for Infosys Milan.