2009/5/18 Dennis Djenfer <[email protected]>: > > > > 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?
Its a very very blurred boundary, but there are bits that are pure IT (e.g. internal delivery, programming languages, integration technology, etc) > 2) Is it possible for the "internals" of IT to affect the business or even > change the business? Without the business using them? No. With the business applying them yes. > > 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. Which I agree, a technology _applied to your business problem_ (which happens to be in IT for yourself) can certainly change the way we work and offer us new opportunities to work in new ways. If however the technology was PURELY internal (i.e. you were still on 9.6kbps but the servers were running at 100Gbps) then you'd not be seeing the benefits in being able to change your business but might see a slight improvement in the IT characteristics of the systems. > > 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. I'd disagree that this was an internal change, specifically because the 3G card is something that is placed into your hands and then YOU choose to use it, i.e. this is an externalised technology. If 3G cards were about but you didn't know about them or didn't have access to them as they were reserved for IT internals then it would deliver you no benefits. That is my point about SOA being inwardly focusing. Its like having 3G cards but not giving them to the travelling salesmen. Steve > > // Dennis Djenfer > >
