VOSibilities

For the last several weeks, there’s been a lot of blog discussion about a Burton Group report on SOA “success” or the apparent lack of it.

An interesting thread of commentary has broken out about the role of CIOs in the success or failure of next-generation application development in business. David Linthicum suggests that CIOs are “…very different animals from company to company.” And Scott Wilson thinks CIOs are in a “delicate position” when it comes to adopting new technologies, balancing needs to progress versus reliable service delivery.

For us, it’s simpler: it’s much more dangerous — bordering on suicidal — to let the fear of change become the rationale for continued stasis. That’s why Burton reports that companies get better results with newly hired CIOs. The new guy has a honeymoon period in which he or she can do the unthinkable. (Marketing execs in software companies are almost as perishable as CIOs. We are often brought in to “fix” the previous guy’s reluctance to change.)

But at the end of the day, a change in leadership doesn’t change the underlying reality that the whole IT organization — from the developer in his cube to the CIO — just isn’t scared enough.

Sure, they’re a little bit scared: “If we have to change, we run a risk.” But it’s the wrong thing they’re afraid of…the wrong fear.

What’s a fossil? Something that stood still long enough to get buried, then wedged into rock to be cooked by pressure over time until it disappears. That’s what developers, analysts, business owners and CIOs are doing: letting the small fear of change become comfortable enough to crowd out the large, more important fear of being fossilized.

And that’s a whole lot scarier. For the business…for individuals.

If this sounds like a wake-up call to developers to lose more sleep at night over why they keep finding reasons not to move to services-based apps, it is. If you think we are saying that enterprise architects should be put on a multi-step program to recovery from PowerPoint architectures, we are. If you think we are suggesting the CIO is more damned if he doesn’t implement today’s visual orchestration systems, you’ve got it.

Yeah, baby! Ain’t nuthin’ like a good blog war-o-words. And a juicy one has just broken out between two influential voices: Nick Malik and Bruce Silver. And I suspect we haven’t seen the last of it. (At least I hope we haven’t. July is a slow month; we could use some American Gladiators-style trash talkin’ right about now.)

Apparently, Nick found the top dead center of the button you shouldn’t push in Bruce’s mind: he says BPM is never going to live up to expectations that non-developers will create applications.

In reply, Bruce — slappin’ Nick right upside the head – replies that Nick has to “prove” his assertion by showing that someone — anyone — in the “BPM community” has made a claim that modeling leads directly to completed applications.

While I hope the histrionics continue, this is really nothing more than two purists trying to keep their rivers from converging.  (I gotta admit that I find these near-screaming matches to be more educational than so-called “polite debate” for the very simple reason that they strip out the fluff in favor of direct frontal attacks everyone can understand.)

We all know from long, bitter experience that the “third rail” in the Microsoft world (touch it and die) is developers. MSFT will do what it takes to keep developers tied to the Windows API. Anything that could loosen that death-grip is a danger, and that includes end users working in standards-based tools that could care less about the underlying OS.

And from what I’ve read about the “BPM community” there’s a fair bit of wishful thinking there, too. Bruce is probably correct that no responsible entity has claimed what he believes Nick is claiming. Yet, you don’t have to say the “E” (execution) word outright to lead people to the conclusion that your BPMS does it directly from pretty pictures. Go ahead, spend five minutes on Lombardi’s site and tell me you don’t see it there.

What do we care? Well, let me be the first to pre-announce our upcoming ActiveVOS release, scheduled for mid-August, in which we actually converge the rivers. We will have the most complete BPMN modeling capabilities and, of course, we have the world’s best and most complete BPEL deployment, execution and management system.

ActiveVOS will make it possible for business users to come very, very close to execution via BPMN. And we believe that developers will take that non-executable model and “finish” it in a 100%-standards-based environment that frees them and their businesses from .NetJail.

Forgive me the nested platitude, but the issue boils down to that old saw that says, “Get the right tool for the job.” Developers need modern, standards-based languages that execute on the metal; business analysts need modern, standards-based ways to describe what systems have to accomplish. Being doctrinaire about which is the “correct” way to serve business and IT is beside the point.

So, while it’s fun to see the purists bloody each other, we intend to deliver an implementable, cost-effective and complete way to achieve what neither side really seems to want. And that, dear readers, is what a visual orchestration system is all about.

Whew…it’s been a busy week. We were at JavaOne, threw a great party (pix soon, I promise), met lots of people and got lots of great feedback.

Oh, and speaking of parties, we crashed SAPPHIRE in Orlando. Yes, it was we who dressed up actors in prison uniforms labelled “SAP County Jail” on the back and had the actors hand out ActiveVOS demo CD’s labelled “SAP Liberation Plan” and “Evidence” during SAP’s big user convention last week.

Why? In two words: public service. SAP bigots may think that’s an over-the-top characterization of what they will label as a PR stunt. But there is a method to our madness. We are convinced that SAP is pulling the wool over users’ eyes about BPM. And while we are realistic about our chances of liberating today’s SAP users, we feel compelled to reach out to them just in case they want a get-out-of-proprietary-BPM-jail plan.

What am I talking about? Consider this interview with an SAP architect who says:

SAP NetWeaver already provides capabilities to model and execute business processes that include both automated activities as well as human-executed activities. As the BPEL4People standardization progresses we will presumably see more and more compliant implementations.

Isn’t it clever to conflate NetWeaver — the most closed, proprietary BPMS on the planet — with BPEL4People? If you can just get a little of that standards-based branding onto your proprietary platform (especially in an press interview about standards), it may be enough to keep the prisoners in lock-down and maybe even bring a new busload or two inside the gates.

By “…we will presumably see more and more compliant implementations” I presume SAP was referring to the announcement last week of SAP’s plans for BPM, in which they purport to “usher in a new era” in BPM. The interview was published before the press release was issued, but if this is what she was referring to, it looks like NetWeaver users looking to free their business processes from proprietary stacks have just had their jail sentences unilaterally extended.

Consider three points. FIrst, there’s not a single standard mentioned in this press release. That’s not ushering in a new era. That’s 1980 all over again. Second, notice the repeated use of the phrase “the planned implementation.” This is all about some SAP NetWeaver product you can’t actually get until Q1 2009. Can you say, “freeze-dry the prisoners until we’re ready?” Third, I fell asleep during a demo of this at JavaOne in which the demoer couldn’t even get a PowerPoint to work.

‘Nuff said (for now). Be sure to watch the hilarious video of our “prisoners” being harassed in Orlando as they attempt to hand out CD’s to arriving guests. We didn’t go inside the hall. We didn’t interfere with anyone…but SAP set the security people on us anyway. Guess a little standards-based competition is too much for the self-proclaimed ushers of a new era.

 

 Video of Active Endpoints attempting to liberate SAP users at SAPPHIRE [2:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (313)

Active Endpoints today announced the Java Advancement Kit, a set of education, training and products that will enable Java developers to take the next step in their professional advancement by quickly and easily using web services to create compelling service orchestrations.

 Active Endpoints Announces the Java Advancement Kit: Download (223)