SOA dead??? I don't think so !!!

I was going through ZDNet the other day and was startled to see this article by Joe McKendrick which read - 'SOA' dead as of January 1st, analyst says and it made me think: (You might want to read this post first before reading further).

1. 1. How can it be DEAD?? It is an architecture !!
   
3. 2. What happened to all those companies who were moving away from the traditional method of development to SOA?

3. What happened to the vendor companies who were building their products based on SOA?

4. What happened to all the hype surrounding SOA?

DEAD !!!...... How can it be????

Argument 1: The analyst(Anne Thomas Manes) says that SOA hasn't been delivering ROI and the current economic downturn made the matters worse.

I agree that the current economic condition did not help and organizations had to cut short their IT budget and stall some of the projects (SOA projects being one). However, the Enterprise Architects/Tech gurus of organizations should have known that the initial cost of migration from traditional monolitic methods to SOA was huge (a Gartner report suggests that the initial cost of developing an SOA based application costs 80% of the total cost of the project. 80% !!!!). Once the project is past this stage, it will deliver the expected ROI. The ROI being that the company is flexible enough to change their business processes quickly and easily as required, thus making them more agile and competitive.

Argument 2: "Anne says companies have been fiddling with SOA for some time now, and to little or no avail. SOA “turned into a great failed experiment—at least for most organizations. SOA was supposed to reduce costs and increase agility on a massive scale,” she explains. “Except in rare situations, SOA has failed to deliver its promised benefits. After investing millions, IT systems are no better than before. In many organizations, things are worse: costs are higher, projects take longer, and systems are more fragile than ever." (from the article)

The basic principle and the motto of an IT shop should be to help the business/organization. Some technology, however easy or great it may be, should not be used unless there is a valid business case behind it. There is no point using a technology only because it is easy to implement or the IT manager promotes it, and if it does not improve the way the company does business.
For most of the failed projects, I bet they were not very well planned and designed and the organizations were not ready for such change.

Although the current economic condition might drive the maagement to stop SOA initiatives, I believe it is the right way to go forward. Management can always excercise the option of 'Abandon' and 'Differ' and start the initiative when the economy is back to normal.

Towards the end, I agree with what Joe McKendrick has to say about SOA being a philosophy, methodology, and set of best practices or patterns that shapes the way enterprises address problems through IT and hence, it cannot be dead!!!