While the hype surrounding SOA isn’t going away, a drill-down into who’s actually using the technology shows that there’s still a long ways to go. Forrester found that only 38 percent of companies with more than 1000 people are not using SOA and they have no plans to use it. Add in another 40 percent of organizations that have investigated SOA but don’t have a clear plan on how to use it, and you find that nearly 80 percent of organizations are not using SOA in any significant way.
But of the adopters, many are spending significant sums. An AMR report found that, on average, SOA
adopters spent $1.4 million on SOA software and services in 2007. And 45 percent spent more than
$500K.
Interestingly, the AMR report found that financial services, typically the biggest spending industry for IT, is trailing the pack when it comes to SOA adoption. Adoption is higher in discrete manufacturing, retail, wholesale/distribution, telecom industries.
SOA is showing a have/have-not divide. While adoption rates are still climbing, the actual number of adopters remains small, but those who have adopted are investing large sums in the technology.
