Mashups
Mashup Corporations: The End of Business as Usual
SOA is a new structure and a set of mechanisms for organizing application functionality, but the mechanisms are not the message. The real transformation comes from a new culture that springs up around the mechanisms.
Unlike most discussions of SOA that focus on the mechanisms – services, modeling, patterns, messaging, events – this book explains the shape and value of the culture and how you can lead your company toward a new way of organizing your business.
The power of Service Oriented Architecture comes from its ability to change five kinds of relationships. Specifically the relations between:
- a company and its customers
- a company and innovators outside the company who can lead to customers
- a company and its suppliers
- the IT function and the rest of the company
- the internal parts of the IT function
The culture of SOA is one of empowerment and flexibility, of change and experimentation. For SOA to work properly, many assumptions that have ruled business and IT must be abandoned. New rules will govern the creation of an SOA business culture that is focused on putting as much power as possible in the hands of those close to the customer. Such a culture leads to new markets and harvests value that was never before accessible.
To make SOA work, the emergence of Shadow IT, the role of Web 2.0 Architecture, and the power of User Driven Innovation, must all be understood and leveraged.
This book tells the story of a hypothetical company that achieves a transformation based on SOA and provides many real world examples to provide support. The message of the book is synthesized in a series of rules that apply to each stage of the transition.
In this book we tell the story of a company that discovers how to put SOA to work to find new customers and new markets. As we tell this story, some patterns of success will emerge. Each chapter will identify the challenges, key questions, strategy and tactics, examples, and rules that apply to each stage of the transformation.
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Why Can’t We?
A new business opportunity cannot be implemented doing business as usual. The CEO insists that the company find a way. The CIO explains that rules governing IT must change. The story of the company’s transformation is revisited throughout the book.
Chapter 2: The Company and the Innovators
Defining the company’s offering as a set of Web services unlocks the potential of those outside the company to create Web 2.0 mashups and other applications.
Chapter 3: The Company and its Customers
Instead of traditional HTML, the interaction with the customer is embedded in the in a user interface that is much more pleasing and productive. Errors are reduced, better service results, and new markets can be created.
Chapter 4: The Company and its Suppliers
Defining suppliers as a set of services allows a company to increase efficiency, lower costs, and create an ecosystem in which more suppliers can be enrolled. Such a foundation can lead to new product offerings.
Chapter 5: IT and the Rest of the Company
The use of services can unlock the power of shadow IT, the ability of a new generation of information workers to innovate and meet their own needs, playing by rules for safe conduct set by IT.
Chapter 6: The Internal Structure of IT
The IT organization must change shape to support the different functions involved in defining, maintaining, and composing with services that required to support SOA.
Chapter 7: Our Story Ends, Yours Begins
Advice on how to put the rules and remedies to work in your business.
Appendix: The Mechanisms of SOA
“If you thought the first decade of the Internet was disruptive, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! As the authors of Mashup Corporations make clear, the next generation of Web-related services and technologies is unleashing a raft of next-generation business models that will reorganize the planet. The only question is, where will you and your company be after the re-org? If you want to get a leg up on winning a good post, read this book.”
Geoffrey Moore
Author of Crossing the Chasm and Dealing with Darwin
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