Given that RIA is primarily concerned about the presentation layer, and that an IT view of services is largely about the business layer, there's certainly a relationship between the two, just as there would be with any presentation layer technology. Beyond that, I don't see strong ties that would lead someone to say that the two are joined at the hip.
If anything, the one similarity that may exist is that at present, we're just as poor at trying to figure out what user interface elements to mash together as we are at identifying what services need to be the heart of an enterprise portfolio. Portals once promised this highly integrated presentation tier, and while there are certainly small successes, one could argue that it was never leveraged to quite the extent that it was hyped. The hype around RIA talks about all of these mashups, but again, if there's not a business need to mash things together, it will be a solution looking for a problem. Beyond the mashup capabilities, there is certainly value in the underlying rich interface technologies to give a more interactive experience, but that is purely about the presentation tier. Using those technologies will certainly require more XML over HTTP, but again, much of its use may be focused on redesigning existing systems to support it, rather than enabling areas that hadn't been touched before. While this message may not indicate it, I'm very much an optimist. The problem I see is that we simply lack the contextual data required to make good decisions on how to leverage these techniques to their fullest potential, from both a producer side and a consumer side. A company that does have the right strategic view may be so far out ahead of demand that consumers of that business simply go "ho-hum". -tb On Mar 24, 2008, at 12:00 PM, Gervas Douglas wrote: > Just how relevant do you think RIA is to SOA and vice versa? > > Gervas
