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It's no news that SOA and Web 2.0 are both big buzzwords in the IT industry,
with SOA promising a new paradigm of enterprise computing and Web 2.0 promising
a newer, more socially interactive Internet. Each is labeled a disruptive technology
and each has major ramifications for the corporate world. But are they really
two separate camps or are do the two technologies have a lot more in common
than meets the eye?
Speakers at ebizQ's SOA in Action virtual conference considered that issue
and more in a panel discussion called, "SOA and Web 2.0: Mashups, SaaS,
and Collaboration: Putting the Pieces Together."
Two Camps or a Convergence?
According to panelist Dana
Gardner, president of Interarbor
Solutions, the two technologies have a lot in common although they're coming
from different perspectives, and that the two would ultimately coexist in the
marketplace.
"These actually are quite complementary even if they're on separate tracks;
they're both trying to free up sources, give end users data, transactions, and
logic to get work done," Gardner said. "If both operate on that basis,
they're going to meet up somewhere someday."
SOA was initially seen as an emergent technology and possibly threatening due
to the chaotic nature of uncoordinated and ungoverned implementations, said
panelist Phil Wainewright, an industry commentator and strategist on enterprise
software trends. That same fear surrounds Web 2.0, and companies see the technology
as uncontrolled and ungovernable.
"I think it'll be a few years before Web 2.0 and SOA really coexist,"
Wainewright said. "Web 2.0 is so ill defined and people are still using
it to experiment rather than with a definitive purpose."
Startups in both fields are causing a great deal of disruption in the marketplace,
and as with any new technologies, Web 2.0 and SOA startups tend to be the ones
that break new technological ground and build popularity of new ideas. Not coincidentally,
many startups ultimately end up being purchased by larger vendors.
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