This is nothing new, we’ve seen the rise of Salesforce.com, NetSuite, RightNow, and about a hundred other well funded ankle biters, very much like the early days of the Web. What is new is that these guys are moving from providing canned applications with user interfaces, to a collection of Web services that are able to be leveraged inside enterprises as if they were native and local.

Salesforce.com, for instance, is making about 20 percent of its revenue just selling services, and I suspect the others are moving there quickly. So, these guys will become huge enterprise applications that are sold as a collection of services that you rent. Service you don’t need to build, nor maintain, thus enterprise applications done on the cheap as composites. It’s a beautiful thing.

What’s missing is the ability to provide an infrastructure to leverage these service providers. Critical issues have to be dealt with, including; how you leverage your existing enterprise applications with service providers, how you manage security, how you manage integration, and how you manage growth over time. Also, you need to consider synergy with your SOA strategy which is still in development.

Tough issues, but there are some good answers, thus the reason for this blog. Keep tuned in.