by Jignesh Shah, VP Business Infrastructure Products & Solutions
twitter: jshah0209
 
Earlier this week Software AG was ranked as the top leader in the 2011 Forrester Wave for Enterprise Service Bus. Although Software AG has been rated a leader in all of the past three waves, this the first time that Software AG is #1 with highest scores for current offering (4.89 out of 5), strategy (4.6 out of 5) and market presence (4.78 out of 5).
 
Wondering how Forrester came up with a simple Wave graphic summarizing a very sophisticated technology space? It’s based on 109 detailed criteria questions that we responded to and are available as part of the report from Forrester. Forrester also required detailed briefings, demos and reference calls with customers who are using the rated products in productions. All-in-all, the ESB Wave process with Forrester took about 4 months from start to finish. While participating in the wave is quite an effort by itself, the reality is that the leading position is a culmination of years of effort and persistence.

Posted by Jignesh Shah, VP Business Infrastructure Products & Solutions, Software AG.

Twitter: @jshah0209

Cox Communications presented what’s behind their SOA success story on the SOA Rock Stars webinar series. Cox is the third-largest cable company in the United States and is known for its customer service. Bruce Beeco, who introduced SOA at Cox in 2002, described how SOA has helped Cox improve its customer service by opening up new channels and providing a consistent experience across all of them.

Posted by Jignesh Shah, VP SOA Product Management & Marketing, Software AG.

Twitter: @jshah0209

In his key note address at this year’s Gartner AADI Summit, Jeff Schulman, Vice President, Gartner, compelled everyone to focus on SOA Governance. He described SOA Governance as the key to adopting SOA and realizing its benefits. Further, he felt that SOA Governance was do or die and without governance one might as well flush their SOA investments down the drain and update their resumes! While this statement may sound a bit over the top, it simply emphasizes the fact that it is not possible to benefit from SOA without SOA Governance.

Posted by Jignesh Shah, VP SOA Product Management & Marketing, Software AG.

Last month I met several customers at Software AG Tech Fairs hosted in Boston, Chicago and DC. At each event, we conducted a special session to get feedback on our ideas for the future and what customers might expect from us. One of the topics was support for additional WS-* standards. Across the board, this topic drew blank stares, shrugs and an occasional cynical remark like – “the good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from”. The latest feedback from our Toronto event is more of the same – no interest. This lack of interest is a huge shift from just a couple of years ago when WS-* standards were highly discussed and hotly debated.

Posted by Jignesh Shah, VP SOA Product Management & Marketing, Software AG.

SOA adoption continues to take root and grow at many organizations. But there is still much misinformation about the concept and how to best apply it. The situation is made worse by continued theoretical and philosophical debates about SOA. Now, a group of SOA practitioners and thought-leaders is attacking this distraction head on by creating an SOA Manifesto. The group has created an explanation of SOA and its guiding principles available at http://www.soa-manifesto.org/.