Dis-Integrating Architectures

Although SOA gets most of the attention when the topic turns to composable business capabilities, the discussion is often either superficial or trite. A couple of recent items are welcome exceptions.

The first is a series of articles in the Economist on corporate IT. Although the overall theme is cloud computing, the articles discuss a range of trends that are driving increasing composability. Despite the lack of depth, the collection provides a nice summary of how IT is dis-integrating.

The second, however, provides some real depth. Carliss Baldwin and Jason Woodard recently published "The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View." This fascinating HBS Working Paper (09-034) reviews three waves of research on business platforms (product-oriented, technological system-oriented, and transaction-oriented), considers various aspects of platform architectures, and describes three ways of representing platforms and their architectures (network graphs, design structure matrices (a long-time favorite of mine), and layer maps). This is the sort of article that is essential for understanding how dis-integrating IT intersects the business. Unfortunately, it is also the sort of article that most technology-centric architects are unlikely to ever stumble across since there remains a largely unbridged gap between IT-centric engineers (who read IT publications) and and business analysts (who read HBR and The Sloan Management Review).

Finally, Nick Carr created a bit of a fuss recently in his discussion of cloud computing. His post describing how the emergence of the electric grid triggered a wave of products that had a standard way to plug into that grid was interesting, as was his "typology of network strategies."

These articles/posts provide valuable insight into how dis-integrating technologies are changing the business environment, especially for those who think of WS-* or ESBs when someone says "SOA" . As IT shifts from being an expense to being a source of competitive advantage, the need for those who can bridge the IT-business gap will continue to grow.