An Irish wake for SOA?

In MJ O'Connor's Pub in Boston this evening, ZapThink is organizing a gathering to discuss SOA. The attendees include Anne Thomas Manes who famously pronounced SOA dead in her "SOA is Dead" post (by the way, it's fun to type "SOA is" into a Google search and see what helpful drop-down hints Google provides for you). Other attendees include Dana Gardner, Brenda Michelson, Sandy Rogers from IDC, and Dave Chappell from Oracle.

SOA as "architecture for the sake of architecture" may rightfully be dead, but many organizations are happily connecting systems together using services (remember, the second part of "SOA is dead" is "Long live services"). Check out our Google Map of Vordel customer case studies. Many of those customers are expressly not doing SOA, but all are very successfully connecting systems together, using service patterns.

So, with the free drink and the conversation about "SOA is dead", is the event tonight just like an Irish wake for SOA? Well, if it is, then the conversation may go like this:

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(First drink consumed)

You know I always liked SOA. I wouldn't hear a bad word said against SOA.

(A few more drinks consumed)

You know what always annoyed me about SOA - all this high-falutin' talk for the sake of it. I always wished SOA would just focus on getting stuff done, not all this talk. To tell ye the truth, I always preferred the services over SOA.

(many more drinks consumed)

It moved! I'm sure I saw SOA move there! Maybe SOA is not dead after all!

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:-)