Steve Jones wrote:
2009/5/16 Dennis Djenfer <[email protected]>:
Steve Jones wrote:
<snip>
If SOA is just technology then it is of value only to technologist.
- 1. Technology brings value to anybody who chooses to use it, not just
technologist. Let me quote wikipedia: "Technology has affected society and
its surroundings in a number of ways"
At which point it ceases to become "just" a technology and starts to
become the _application_ of technology.
A rock is just a rock until someone realised you could hit stuff with
it, then it became a tool. If SOA is simply about the internals of IT
then it is simply a rock, if it enables the business to better use IT
then it becomes a powerful tool.
Steve
There's two issues here:
1) What is the boundary of IT? When does IT stop and business begin?
2) Is it possible for the "internals" of IT to affect the business or
even change the business?
I don't have a clear cut answer to the first question which makes it
hard to answer the second question, but I will try to illustrate the
point of the second question anyway:
Let's think about a connection to internet for a minute. The medium,
protocol and bandwith used is purely technical things, but it still
affects our behaviour and the business models of Internet providers.
When I had a internet connection with a bandwith of 9.6 kb/s I used it
mainly for browsing purely text based pages. Today, when I have a
internet connection with a speed of several Mb/s, I'm happy to read the
newspaper on internet or even watch a video. The computer is always
connected to internet with gives loads of new oppertunities compared to
my old dial-up modem. Was it an internal change to the IT-system? I
would say so. Only the protocol and the bandwith changed. The internal
change of the IT-system changed my behaviour in several ways and the
Internet providers found new business models enabled by the technology.
The next big change was when I got a 3G connection to my laptop. Did it
change my behaviour? Absolutely! Now I have the possibility to take some
fridays off and take my family to the summer house, where I'm able to
work from a distance. Was it an internal change to the IT-system? I
would say so. Only the medium for transfering the data changed but it
made a profound change to my behavior and the business models used by
Internet providers.
// Dennis Djenfer
