I was reading InfoWorld from January 9 and its discussion on High Performance Computing. One of the articles was about "Shipping company Con-Way [that] began its SOA journey eight years ago, providing one illustration of how the new architecture works for the long haul." One of the quotes from the article is that "the development team has to be very close to business." It reminded me of a discussion that I had about two weeks ago with one of my peers about how SOA applies the lessons of commerce to the delivery of IT.
What struck me was how quickly our change cycle is shortening. The idea that eight years is now the long haul is rather startling when you think about it. How long did it take for the computer itself to become integrated into the way we do business? How long did electricity (or any public utility) take, for that matter? Moreover, how long did it take for these things to be standardized.
Check out the "War of the Currents". It was only in 2005 that ConEd finally discontinued support for DC for its customer base in Manhattan that required DC for existing infrastructure like elevators.
What does that say about lifecycle and backwards compatibility? Certainly that support phase is much longer than most sunsetting technology products today.
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