The Same Old Place

Or was that the old Same place? Nevertheless...

I'd sure like to understand this claim and prediction from Eric Newcomer of Iona...

Now with customers deciding on the approach independently of technology, the roles are reversing. Customers are starting to tell vendors what kind of technology they need by creating their SOA based designs independently of their technology decisions.

This strikes me as a very good trend, and appropriate for where we are in the evolution of the software industry, helping to lead us to a place of resolution for the current frustrations with enterprise software.

I see a lot of people putting blind faith in WS-* because the industry has told them to. But then the industry says WS-* interop is not ready and there is no standard for a full service bus, so you have to make an investment in a specific vendor.

Same old story from what I can see. Anyone that wants an agile enterprise can get it using technology that is ten years old or more. There is *no* need to invest in WS-* or an ESB. I think an ESB could be a good investment in some cases but not because of any promise of a "standards-based platform".