Publicly Speaking

Any PR pro will tell you that one of the most powerful tools you can have to support a good PR program is a credible, articulate spokesperson. I’m pretty lucky in that I don’t just have one, or even two people like I’ve just described. IONA is made up of really talented, really smart people, several of whom I can rely on to speak to the media (sometimes at a moments notice), tell our story and explain why the activities and technologies in which IONA is involved is relevant to the “real world.” I’m also lucky that I have access to spokespeople who are often times sought out by the media to simply provide comment and insight into what’s going on in the world of SOA, Web services and other related topics. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of requesting that Eric Newcomer’s or Steve Vinoski’s blogs be posted and linked to from other sites. Sometimes it’s a request for comment about industry news and events. And sometimes IONA’s active involvement and leadership role in the development and advancement of new computing standards prompts a request for updates. Recently, Eric posted to his blog some thoughts about progress being made in the OASIS Transaction Technical Committee. This prompted an email exchange between Eric and Stefan Tilkov of InfoQ (a very cool site if you haven’t visited). The result of the exchange and the subsequent interview is this great Q&A on what’s happening in the world of Web services transactions.

There are two major trends shaping the high technology landscape in 2007. One is clearly Service-oriented Architecture, an emerging computing model that allows customers to make better use of their existing IT assets and investments to address changing business requirements, more rapidly introduce new products or services or simply lower the fixed cost of their IT operations. And while it can be difficult to separate the vendors’ hype from reality, it’s not just the vendors that are betting on SOA.

In fact, a recent Goldman Sachs research note indicated that the firm believed that SOA was going to go further mainstream in 2007, and be one of the major technology shifts that would destabilize the status quo landscape. The firm believes that, as with other shifts in computing models that have come before, this change is going to create opportunities for new companies, and force many existing companies to change their product roadmaps to cash in on the opportunity.

Interestingly, what many traditional vendors have done is merely changed their positioning – not their underlying technology – and are trying to attack new challenges with outmoded approaches that are counterintuitive to the very nature of SOA.

The other force driving significant change in the technology landscape is the continuing mainstream adoption of open source software. This is corroborated by industry analyst findings that indicate that by 2010, more than 80% of enterprise investment in infrastructure will be investments in open source derived technology. We’re all aware of the success of Linux and of open source technologies such as application servers and databases. But, this success came long after the maturity of their traditionally company developed counterparts. What we’re seeing with the convergence of open source and SOA is that the infrastructure required for companies to adopt this computing model is being developed in parallel in open source communities and vendor R&D facilities.

There is a convergence taking place that will change the fundamental nature of IT and IONA is at the center of it. Where many vendors are trying to offer warmed-over EAI or J2EE stacks as the answer to SOA, IONA has taken a differentiated approach that embraces the truly distributed nature of SOA. We’re also actively involved in the communities that are developing today’s open source alternatives for SOA infrastructure, giving customers real choice as to how best meet their SOA technology needs.

Through our approach to how customers can deploy SOA, we’re changing the game from that of “one size fits all” technology decisions to one where customers can deploy the technology they need, when they need it and easily adapt their technology choices as business requirements change. We’re offering customers a convenient way to bring open source into their SOA deployments, adding a new dimension of cost savings, flexibility and transparency.

I’ve always been a fan a Dana Gardner. I remember dealing with him (and now I’m dating myself) all the way back to his days at InfoWorld and IDG News and always remember him to be quite insightful about the trends that are driving and shaping the industry.

We’ve had the opportunity to put a couple of our folks in front of Dana to talk about open source and its potential impact on the adoption of SOA. I think the podcast from back in December came out really well and is really worth a listen, but it’s one of Dana’a more recent entries that I found quite relevant to what IONA is all about.

Dana gathered a number of industry analysts – including Steve Garone, Tony Baer, Joe McKendrick and Jim Kobielus (in no particular order) – to talk about the Soul of SOA. The conversation, to my mind at least, naturally came around to what value does (or can) SOA bring to an organization. Each analyst has some pretty interesting views on the value of SOA and how you can measure things like ROI.

I don’t want to simply cut and paste quotes from Dana’s transcript of the conversation, because I believe they’re better, and more impactful, taken in context of the conversation. But after you spend some time with Dana and his cohorts, I’d welcome you to take a closer look at IONA and our distributed SOA infrastructure solutions including Artix and our open source offerings in the Celtix family. The kind of value these analysts are talking about is the kind of value IONA delivers to its customers every day.