Gartner Forecasts Big Growth for SOA

Gartner says that through 2008, "the upfront investment for large-scale service-oriented applications will be justifiable only for projects with a planned lifetime of three years or more."

Gartner also says: "However, despite the falling cost of technology, more widespread know-how and availability of SOA services from systems integrators, the incremental upfront cost of SOA vs. a traditional architecture in most cases can't be justified for fast return-on-investment, opportunistically oriented projects."

Regardless of the hype-filled headline, if you read Gartner's entire press release, it seems the firm actually comes out very cautious.
Steven J. Schuchart Jr.
Network Computing Managing Technology Editor

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I agree entirely. The prediction is also fairly meaningless as they don't really define what they mean by SOA. Initiatives like SCA mean that all the major development platform vendors are building some form of SOA compatibility into their products, so apps developed with them are likely to be service-enabled anyway. It would be a much bolder prediction if Gartner mentioned specific product categories.
Andy Dornan
Network Computing Senior Technology Editor