I happed to catch this post by Mark Fralick, Technology Editor, Supply Chain Digest who has a rather cool way of ranking SOA vendors. Mark talks about the hype, and how to see the core value of SOA beyond the hype. "Here's my suggestion – fill out the following SOA scorecard for each vendor: If they talk about the technology of SOA (their implementation of it) – give them 1 point. If they misspell SOA on any s I happed to catch this post by Mark Fralick, Technology Editor, Supply Chain Digest who has a rather cool way of ranking SOA vendors. Mark talks about the hype, and how to see the core value of SOA beyond the hype. “Here’s my suggestion – fill out the following SOA scorecard for each vendor: If they talk about the technology of SOA (their implementation of it) – give them 1 point. If they misspell SOA on any slide. Take away 1 point. If they do not know each word making up the acronym SOA, take way 1 point for each of these words. If they pronounce S.O.A as “So-A”, take away 1 point. Add 5 points if they can use Web-Services based Integration. A Web Service is an implementation standard for SOA. Take away 10 points if they did not know this. Add 20 points if they talk about it in terms of functionality and not so much in terms of technology – and can show how to shift the functionality around or move it outside the application.” Mark goes on to say: “If they score between 5 and 10 they probably have some SOA capability. If they score over 20, they are probably pretty far along the spectrum. But, my tongue in cheek scorecard highlights the most important thing about SOA. While SOA is enabled by technology and architectural approach, its real value is to the operation and the enterprise’s business processes.” Here’s my SOA scorecard: If they say “agility” and/or “reuse” more than 100 times in the first 10 minutes take away 10 points for being too “hype-y.” If they can’t tell you how their product works and plays with other products, that’s a 10 point deduction as well. If they promote a standard that’s only in draft, that they wrote, as the savior of SOA, that’s a 20 point deduction for being naive. If they give you a mug, add 5 points. If they can tell you in detail how to leverage their product, including a step by step guide to implementation, add 50 points. If they admit limitations to their product up front, so you don’t have to guess, give them 30 points for honesty. Software Development