MicroSOAft?

I saw a recent article by Joe McKendrick (ZDNet) who I actually really respect and generally agree with. In his blog article, he quoted some talk from Microsoft about their SOA strategy:

The Oslo SOA bundle will encompass BizTalk Server 6, BizTalk Services 1 (Internet Service Bus), .NET Framework 4, Visual Studio 10, and System Center 5. Nothing new or dramatic in this announcement, other than firming up Microsoft’s evolving SOA strategy. (And note that they’ve been using the SOA acronym freely and frequently over the past year — hooray.)

Industry analysts are generally favorable to the announcement, but say Microsoft is late getting to the table, and may have a tough time competing with vendors already well-established in the SOA space.

Sorry man. BizTalk is as dead as ebXML. In fact, it died first. I hate to say it but from my point of view, they do not have an SOA strategy. Other than really smart yet underutilized guys like Chris Kurt, I have never even talked to someone else there who rally gets SOA. Chris Kurt's got a great book on the WS-* Architecture that makes a really relevant statement. I cannot quote it exactly, but it reads something to the effect of this:

"SOA is not equal to Web services. It is possible to use web service protocols without a service oriented architecture and it is likewise possible to develop an infrastructure using web services standards without it being SOA".

For this revelation alone, Chris should be hailed as a great source of truth. I hope that Joe will take a close look at some of the work from the OASIS SOA RM TC and make a really pragmatic interview from someone in Redmond and ask them the tough questions (Don't ask Chris - he is smart and will have the right answers). I'd like to see Joe ask the marketing guys from Microsoft and report on that.

hehehehe..yeah - I am feeling rather disruptive today!!! Sorry Joe!