Microsoft unveils its 'Internet Service Bus' vision
More indications that Microsoft is getting serious about SOA:
Chris Kanaracus of Redmond Developer News has brought to light some very interesting activity coming out of Microsoft regarding delivery of the SOA paradigm. Namely, Microsoft is planning to deliver enterprise service bus functions on a Software as a Service model.
Microsoft is previewing enterprise service bus functions on a Software as a Service model
Now, there's been plenty of talk as of late about Integration as a Service, (my colleague Dana Gardner recently provided a good perspective on opportunities in this space), but when Microsoft gets into the game, you know there's a mass market for it. As I've said before, Microsoft is a key bellwether on whether SOA has moved into the mass market.
With its recently launched BizTalk Services initiative, Microsoft aims to offer an "Internet Service Bus" (ISB -- sorry, another acronym added to the lexicon), which is BizTalk (ESB) hosted somewhere else. Steven Martin, Microsoft's director of product management in the Connected Systems Division, is quoted as saying that the service is Microsoft's "best-kept secret."
The article observes that Google's growing presence in the market may be spurring Microsoft's ISB initiative. I think there are other competitive threats looming as well, such as Amazon Web Services' Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
However, Ronan Bradley (who pointed me to this report -- thanks, Ronan) says these online integration services do not yet pose a serious threat to Microsoft. "Microsoft is not doubt thinking hard about Google, but it is only fair to point out that this is not a market where Google is relevant as yet," he says. Ronan notes that this type of service is "not a new departure for Microsoft or even Biztalk," as Microsoft was talking about Internet-based integration through BizTalk as far back as 2000.
Microsoft says its ISB technology is currently available at CTP (Community Technology Preview) status, meaning its an early release meant to solicit feedback and experimentation. Microsoft has posted details on its ISB vision here, and a discussion of the business benefits here.
The software giant says that its ISB is intended to provide a low-investment shortcut to connecting SOA-enabled composite applications and connections.