SOA and the economy: from slightly bearish to slightly bullish

Dave Linthicum, who keeps his finger on the pulse of SOA through his consulting work, said last year at this time that he was seeing a slowing in SOA projects -- as things got rocky with the economy.

However, in one of his more recent posts, Dave now signals an uptick in SOA project work. Remember, not only has the economic climate been ostensibly hammering IT budgets, but there's also been the prevailing notion that SOA (as we've known it) is "dead" or at least on life support.

But SOA seems to be returning to its roots -- from corporate big-budget boil-the-ocean approaches to well-focused, even entrepreneurial ventures within the enterprise, offering better and more cost-effective ways to bring technology to the business. Dave reports a lot of interest from C-level executives in supporting this kind of thinking. He lists what's driving the renewed interest in SOA these days: 1) SOA strategy, 2) efficiency and cost reduction, 3) SOA staff augmentation, and 4) SOA as an on-ramp to cloud computing.