While most of us were busy barbecuing over the holiday weekend, David Linthicum was occupied with thoughts of SOA — specifically, the somewhat flawed “pay before play” way customers currently buy SOA technologies. Whereas the SaaS or the platform-as-a-service model enables customers to pay for products as they use them, and as they scale up, companies presently have to buy SOA technologies up-front, before knowing if it’s the right fit or works as advertised.“What I’m proposing is that the existing SOA vendors provide the same model,” Linthicum writes in The pay as you go SOA challenge. “In essence, they accept payment only after the product is in production and do so on a subscription-type basis, where the customer can cancel at any time.” Technology Industry