For all the buzz that service oriented architectures are attracting, the market is remarkably small – and hard to track.

Worldwide there are currently less than 9,000 companies actively engaged with SOAs. Those projects however cost a combined $1bn. That make SOA an expensive hobby at more than $1m per 'engagement'.

The real shocker lies in IBM's market share. When you measure the number of application server, portal servers or SOA repositories that are actually applied to SOA, IBM comes out claiming 53 per cent of the overall market, according to data compiled by Wintergreen Research. Microsoft follows at 8 per cent. The remaining vendors get the crumbs with none of them exceeding 3 per cent market share.

21 May 2007

SOA middleware is clearly in the early adopter stage. But even as the market evolves, it revenues will stay limited. The real money is in the services themselves.

Because those same early adopters are finding that there is limited value in reusing code internally. The true market, Wintergreen founder Susan Eustis projects, will be in providing a market place for services and certifying that services work together and bring the world to automation nirvana.

Because ultimately, individual users will be able to create "business processes" by clicking an icon, select the desired functionalities and building a brand new application. Developers get to what they are good at: developing code. But they will no longer be able to prescribe how users click through menus and applications.