"The more governed an enterprise mashup becomes, the less like a Web 2.0-style mashup it'll be," says Jason Bloomberg (pictured), Senior Analyst and Principal at Service Orientation and Enterprise Web 2.0 advisory and analysis firm ZapThink LLC.

Without loose coupling, mashups are little more than toys from the enterprise perspective, Bloomberg will argue at his upcoming session at SOAWorld 2007, "Enterprise Mashups and SOBAs: Which is the Tail and Which is the Dog?"

SOBA stands for Service-Oriented Business Applications. The reason for much of the chatter about mashups and SOBAs arises from the fact that mashups, and Web 2.0 in general, are primarily social phenomena, while SOBAs, and SOA generally, are primarily business phenomena, he will explain .

 "Tthe 'B' in 'SOBA' indicates their purpose is to deliver flexible IT resources to meet continually changing business needs," Bloomberg notes, as he prepares for next month's Conference. 

Does it make sense, then, to consider an enterprise mashup to be a rich, collaborative SOBA consumer environment?

Bloomberg's view is as follows:

"For a mashup to be an enterprise mashup in that it addresses a particular business problem, tight coupling between provider and consumer software would be a serious concern. Most of today’s mashups, however, care little about loose coupling. Mashups that meet business needs, therefore, will require SOA, and the SOA infrastructure necessary to guarantee loose coupling.

Most importantly, however, SOBAs require governance. Clearly, no business would risk allowing any of its employees to assemble and reassemble business processes willy nilly, with no controls in place to ensure that the resulting SOBAs followed corporate policies. The problem is, today’s mashups are inherently ungoverned. The bottom line is, the more governed an enterprise mashup becomes, the less like a Web 2.0-style mashup it’ll be. In any case, the true promise of SOBAs depends upon user interfaces sophisticated enough for a broader business audience to use. Few such tools exist today, but the writing is on the wall: the enterprise mashup is the future of the SOBA consumer."

Bloomberg is a thought leader in the areas of Enterprise Architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture, and helps organizations around the world better leverage their IT resources to meet changing business needs. He is a frequent speaker, prolific writer, and pundit.

His latest book, Service Orient or Be Doomed! How Service Orientation Will Change Your Business (John Wiley & Sons, 2006, coauthored with Ron Schmelzer), is recognized as the leading business book on Service Orientation. 

He has a diverse background in eBusiness technology management and industry analysis, including serving as a senior analyst in IDC’s eBusiness Advisory group, as well as holding eBusiness management positions at USWeb/CKS (later marchFIRST) and WaveBend Solutions (now Hitachi Consulting). He also co-authored the books XML and Web Services Unleashed (SAMS Publishing, 2002), and Web Page Scripting Techniques (Hayden Books, 1996).

"For a mashup to be an enterprise mashup in that it addresses a particular business problem, tight coupling between provider and consumer software would be a serious concern. Most of today’s mashups, however, care little about loose coupling. Mashups that meet business needs, therefore, will require SOA, and the SOA infrastructure necessary to guarantee loose coupling.

Most importantly, however, SOBAs require governance. Clearly, no business would risk allowing any of its employees to assemble and reassemble business processes willy nilly, with no controls in place to ensure that the resulting SOBAs followed corporate policies. The problem is, today’s mashups are inherently ungoverned. The bottom line is, the more governed an enterprise mashup becomes, the less like a Web 2.0-style mashup it’ll be. In any case, the true promise of SOBAs depends upon user interfaces sophisticated enough for a broader business audience to use. Few such tools exist today, but the writing is on the wall: the enterprise mashup is the future of the SOBA consumer."

Bloomberg is a thought leader in the areas of Enterprise Architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture, and helps organizations around the world better leverage their IT resources to meet changing business needs. He is a frequent speaker, prolific writer, and pundit.

His latest book, Service Orient or Be Doomed! How Service Orientation Will Change Your Business (John Wiley & Sons, 2006, coauthored with Ron Schmelzer), is recognized as the leading business book on Service Orientation. 

He has a diverse background in eBusiness technology management and industry analysis, including serving as a senior analyst in IDC’s eBusiness Advisory group, as well as holding eBusiness management positions at USWeb/CKS (later marchFIRST) and WaveBend Solutions (now Hitachi Consulting). He also co-authored the books XML and Web Services Unleashed (SAMS Publishing, 2002), and Web Page Scripting Techniques (Hayden Books, 1996).

SOAWorld 2007 is the 11th successive international conference and expo produced by SYS-CON Events devotes to SOA, Web Services, and allied topics. The event will help developers, architects, IT managers, and CTOs to “get to work” on their SOA iniatives by suffusing them with technically astute insights and information. By the end of the three days they will be deeply informed about multiple aspects of this fast-emerging style of information systems architecture that enables the creation of applications built by combining loosely-coupled and interoperable services.

“The event, originally planned for 500 delegates, has struck such a chord with the industry that it has been expanded,” said Carmen Gonzalez, President & COO of SYS-CON Media.

In addition to Bloomberg, speakers will include some of the leading exponents of Service-Oriented Architecture in the world and the Conference program will be complemented by a full Expo floor featuring the world’s leading suppliers of software, Web services, and consultancy.

The full, expanded five-track program includes tracks on “Web 2.0/AJAX and SOA,” “Tools & Frameworks,” “Interoperability,” “Real-World SOA” and “Enterprise Open Source.”

Topics covered will include ESBs, Capability Modeling, “Outside-In” SOA, BPEL 2.0, Service-Oriented Modeling and Architecture, REST and RSS, Semantic Web, SOA Governance, The Internet as a Global SOA, Security Issues, Message-Oriented Middleware, and more.