When does SOA stop being worthwhile? Part II

Joe McKendrick elaborated on my last post pertaining to the fact that SOA will have a diminishing return, and you need to figure out when that occurs.

"In one his latest posts, David Linthicum asks a very good question that everyone will need to think about: When building a SOA, how do you know when you're done?

As with all things, the return is greatest when you start out, reaches some type of crescendo, then falls into a diminishing point of return.

There's some kind of economics curve at work here, like price elasticity, in which raising prices too high will reduce demand, and therefore revenues; and likewise, charging too low will sell a lot of product, but at a loss."

I'm not sure that is the essence of my argument, but that is indeed a new dimension. It's really about attempting to figure out when to slow down the investment in SOA...when the benefits no longer seem to be there in great numbers, or don’t equate to the incremental investment. However, I do agree with Joe's conclusion, and I'm rethinking the domain here.

"Let me throw this thought into the mix: SOA may be more about economies of scale. Perhaps the ROI comes later in the evolution, and the most expenses incurred and risks taken in the earliest years of an SOA effort, since that's when the first components for a particular service area are designed, developed, debugged, tested, and put in the registry/repository."

Joe may be on to something here. In short, he's stating that we spend the majority of the investment to build the platform, and realize the benefits in the out years as the organization leverages that platform. I can't argue with that, and perhaps the formula should change to add a new dimension, that of expected future value. However, I'm not sure how to figure that one out just yet, give me a few more weeks.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on June 21, 2006 06:10 PM