Dave - Is this a blog? Where's the link to this line, "...just did a Q&A all about how Microsoft..."

Since other readers haven't said anything yet....

I'm really happy to have Dave blogging again -- Dave's kind & gentle views on the software market were sorely missed ;-)

Seems that my MS rant hasn't been published yet. There is another part of my interview with ITBusinessEdge Architecting the Future with SOA

Here are my raw comments:
Question: So. You're among those who feel Microsoft doesn't 'get' SOA? Why do you say so? Do you think they don't get it - or don't want to get it?
Rosenberg: I would say that not only does Microsoft not get SOA, they purposely are trying to usurp the whole concept for their nefarious doings. Microsoft offers nothing in the way of architectural development tools or infrastructure that supports the ideas behind an SOA. The Microsoft architecture of .NET is not designed to be service-enabled and when you try to service-enabled it yourself--when you try to build the infrastructure so you can take advantage of reuse, you find yourself in a very customized system having defeated the purpose. If you look at Microsoft infrastructure, it's all about trying to lock people into their hegemony and SOA is all about giving control to the user.

Question: Did you see Microsoft's 100-something page thesis on SOA, titled "SOA in the Real World?"
Rosenberg: I can't tell you I've sit there and poured over every word. It's not unlike their 'Get the Facts' anti-Linux campaign - it's simultaneously interesting and full of crap at the same time. What's interesting to me about Microsoft's approach is the obvious thing to do with SOA is to say, "Of course we have a strategy - here's what you do now and here's what we'll do in the future." What should've been very easy for them to say, "Yes we'll be a part of this and we want to start to think about our way of doing," - that would be acceptable. Instead they take this bizarre approach.

There's no clear answer from Microsoft on what their vision for SOA is or how their products or things you'd buy from them would participate in a SOA. For that matter, there's nothing from Microsoft that would say to someone, "I should use these products for my SOA." All the sudden .NET went from being a language, to an application framework, to being a "Windows platform" again. Developers are quick to shun things that they don't trust and I think Microsoft sets the tone for how their development community thinks about larger scale concepts and so far they've succeeded in making SOA confusing.

Question: So, is Microsoft's talk about SOA a barrier to it's acceptance among developers?
Rosenberg: From what I can tell, they're not doing themselves any favors. The whole sort of wait and see approach is not great. What's interesting, is developers do eat that Microsoft dogfood pretty fiercely. They wait for Microsoft before they make choices. It's a challenge for architects in terms of being flexible and having agility in their work. If you look at IBM or BEA, it's very clear what their vision of SOA is. With Microsoft it's just not clear.

I think some of that is related to the fact that .NET was not built to be a SOA or a services platform. They don't want a heterogenous environment, they want the entire Microsoft suite everywhere. For instance, a couple of months ago they were calling it service-oriented infrastructure. What is the rationale with not going with the industry standard terms?

Before I started this company, I was the CIO of financial services firm. Initially we had an all LAMP and java infrastructure. Prior to my getting there, they outsourced the development of a .NET application. We went from having a highly scalable, flexible infrastructure that was able to consume data and services across the enterprise and added a .NET application into the infrastructure - it was a complete and utter silo. It was built around this framework that was not meant to go in a services direction, and we basically had to adjust everything else in the enterprise for this one application that couldn't align itself with the rest of the business. And that is the unfortunate side of what .NET has done to development. Conceptually, Java guys are more likely to understand the SOA model than the .NET guy are--developers are not trained to think about other applications in .NET. They aren't trained to think about wanting to consume or expose a service to another application. That has so far been a barrier to using .NET as a platform to do SOA.

For better or worse this development style is what .NET developers live and breathe. If Microsoft doesn't have a component, it doesn't exist. But in the real world, you still need to solve that problem.

How can a company that in the know be so clueless about as an important concept as this? This is the world's largest technology company and it's proven to be completely impotent and useless with SOA so far.

Question: So, do you think this is a sort of marketing ploy by Microsoft or just because they didn't anticipate that SOA would take off?
Rosenberg: I think it's a bit of both. What I'd tell you is that they should embrace SOA. Open source, you can see why they don't embrace it - but SOA, they should say it's awesome and encourage it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. In the real world, we see people who have similar situations to the one I described, with one or two .NET applications they want to get on the bus (enterprise service bus). Does Microsoft give you an obvious answer? Kind of, but not really.

I was at Microsoft for a long time, from 1987 to the end of 2006. One of the reasons I left was that it was obvious that Microsoft was less interested in finding the most efficient/elegant solution to a problem, or delivering what was the best solution for customers. These were always secondary priorities to what was the best thing for Windows/Office. (IBM acted the same way with the PC. Truly ironic.)

However, that said, one of the things I always said when I was at Microsoft was that Microsoft's critics gave it way too much credit: that if we had been half as clever as people gave us credit for, we'd be even more successful. I think you're doing that here too. You're implying that there's some master plan to undermine SOA and entrench MS technologies instead.

I'd think to succeed at that master plan would require MS to understand SOA pretty deeply and the fact is, I don't think they do. SOA is based on the principle that the best way to design distributed, scalable applications is to focus on the black boxes of the application and how they talk to each other, and that exactly what's inside the black box doesn't matter, arguably CAN'T matter.

For Microsoft to admit that what's inside a black box doesn't matter is like a priest saying it's possible his or her God doesn't exist. It really is a religious issue. Most Microsoft folks just don't go there -- some are well aware of the contradiction, but for Microsoft to embrace SOA and really, really get it, means admitting that what's inside the black box can't matter as much as they want it to, NEED it to matter.

I think what you are seeing is that Microsoft THINKS they know what SOA means and this is their attempt to support it. Honestly, I think it's well-intentioned on their part. Unfortunately, Microsoft has a hard time even thinking about things in a non-Windows-centric way, not because of some evil plan (although that's a far more exciting explanation) but because they can't.

Windows-centric SOA is an oxymoron (as is LAMP-centric SOA or Java-centric SOA). Anyone who truly understands SOA would agree, I think. But Microsoft just doesn't think that way. That, I believe, is the reason they act the way they do.

Yikes, I'm losing my ability to track time. I left MS at the end of 2003, not 2006.

(File under: "In Case Anyone Cares" department.)

Woh there, Nellie!

We had to split the interview referenced above into two parts. You can read the complete Q&A at:
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=33378 and
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=33486

I also talked about the Biz Talk Server in our Integration blog today.
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/mia/?p=214

Points missed?

Perhaps the point is this: Microsoft is a for-profit entity whose existence is based on the preference of its customers to use Microsoft-developed and Microsoft-supported software for their purposes.

To expect Microsoft to offer any other point of view is, to put it bluntly, STUPID.

It is up to the loyal opposition to PROVE their points of "elegance" and open-ness, and to make a business case for the alternatives.

As this blogger proves, generally the opposition is too scatter-brained to do same.