Salesforce moves into hosted SOA

However, Salesforce might have a challenge in attracting an audience to the software, according to Ron Schmelzer, founder of analyst firm Zapthink.

CRM software is traditionally sold to salespeople looking for a suite that requires minimal set-up. The company has attracted some developers with its Apax hosting platform, but has limited traction in the application integration field.

“Salesforce could do it, but it remains to be proven. But the model is pretty interesting,” Schmelzer commented.

Read more at: VNU Net

Build, buy or rent? Salesforce says build

Its decision to do so illustrates one of the conundrums (conundra?) when building a loosely-coupled services infrastructure (which all on-demand SaaS implementations are, as I recently explained). ZapThink’s Jason Bloomberg has just posted a superb analysis of The Lego Model of SOA in which he uses the Lego analogy to highlight both advantages and drawbacks of service-oriented architecture. Here’s the pertinent one:

“The larger you build a structure with Lego blocks, however, the more fragile it gets. In other words, loose coupling comes at a price. While tightly coupled interfaces reduce flexibility and reusability, they also can increase efficiency. Loose coupling, on the other hand, can limit the efficiency of the implementation.”

Read more at: ZDNet

Big Companies Embracing Software Mashups

Experts say that although enterprise mashups promise to help make software development easier, they also present a new set of challenges. One of the key characteristics of enterprise mashups is that they put more power in the hands of end users. “The average I.T. establishment is reluctant to give users more power,” says Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at consulting firm ZapThink. The answer, he says, is for the I.T. department to provide oversight, defining what kinds of mashups are allowed, and then to govern that process. Software and service vendors can help companies implement management tools.

Read more at: CIO Today

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

Vendors release SOA programming model

“We’re past the point of companies being able to have the luxury of deciding whether or not to do an SOA,” says ZapThink analyst Ron Schmelzer. “It’s very clear that’s the direction all of those vendors are going.”

Read more at: ComputerWorld New Zealand

Grand Central Communications: Integration on Demand

The Grand Central Business Services Network offers an implementation of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that follows the “on demand” model of delivering software functionality as a Service. Through a virtualized set of integration and Service capabilities, businesses connect to the Business Services Network, allowing them to combine and share business Services within and between organizations without the constraints of having to pay for and host their own integration infrastructure.

In addition to a wide range of Services that Grand Central provides, third-party companies and partners also publish Services to the Network for global access and sharing by partners, customers and other business units. The Business Services Network thus offers the capabilities, business value, and agility benefits of Service-oriented integration as a Service to multiple companies, allowing them to conduct business with each other in a flexible, cost-effective manner, without having the bear the burden of ongoing infrastructure investment.

Coming of Age

“There’s been an overall lull for IT spending, but Web services has been a bright spot,”
says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink, which forecasts sales of $4.4
billion in 2005 and $43 billion in 2010 for Web services and related technologies such
as identity management and Web services security.

Read more at: The Daily Deal