Even if it looks as if a major vendor has a solid technology stack for creating services-oriented architectures, before purchasing you should be sure to look more closely, at least according to consultancy Macehiter Ward-Dutton. The IT analyst firm this morning issued the first in a series of reports that will examine how vendors are having trouble aligning their SOA product offerings with what customers actually need. The initial report looks at BEA Systems and SAP; subsequent ones will focus on IBM and Microsoft. Service lifecycle management is the main weakness that arises from these strung together product portfolios, the firm wrote. Macehiter Ward-Dutton also found that established vendors each have their own strengths, but “what may appear to be cohesive stacks are really marketing initiatives wrapped around mixtures of existing, newly-developed and third-party products.” What’s more, the offerings “have multiple gaps and overlaps within them that are not immediately apparent and which will have a significant effect on customers’ ability to efficiently tackle SOA projects.” With that in mind, the analyst firm recommends that customers thoroughly question their providers, particularly about the level of integration among their products and any requisite third-party offerings, and demand that vendors make product road maps clear to them. The entire report is available at www.mwdadvisors.com/articles free of charge. Perhaps it will help change some minds at Macehiter Ward-Dutton that BEA announced this morning a new iteration of its WebLogic Integration software. Version 8.5 better integrates with third-party tools and supports BPEL, according to the news story by my colleague Paul Krill. Technology Industry