David Linthicum blogged at Infoworld recently about a Butler Group report on consolidation in the SOA market. In that post, he wrote about how "BHSS" vendors, or Big Honking SOA Stacks vendors, had better think carefully about how the market for SOA technology develops. See the post, but in a nutshell Butler says:
"At the present time SOA vendors mainly target large enterprises, so the market is dominated by high value, low volume sales. Butler Group expects this will start to change within two or three years as the large enterprise market starts to become saturated. The need to address medium-sized enterprises will impact not just sales and marketing strategies, but will also have a large impact on the products themselves, with ease-of-use and reduced administration being prerequisites to mid-market success. In fact Butler Group expects some vendors will find it difficult to address the high volume market."
Thankfully, we placed the bet on the aspect of SOA that most threatens the Big Honking vendors: that it would disrupt the structure of things by enabling a business agility which shakes those Big Honking Stacks to their foundations. And some among us now see the wisdom. Thanks David, and thanks Butler Group.