---
title: What SOA really means - A Customer Perspective
date: 2004-11-16T00:54:58Z
modified: 2004-11-16T00:54:58Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/what-soa-really-means-a-customer-perspective/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 69
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2004-11-16T00:54:58Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

The customer quote in this [roundup by Phil Wainewright](http://www.looselycoupled.com/blog/lc00aa00072.html) just screamed at me:

Ben Moreland, manager of application infrastructure delivery for insurance and financial services group The Hartford, makes a telling comment at the end of a [Network World article about SOA adopters](http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/110804soapart2.html):

“One of the comments we make to vendors in this SOA world is, ‘**the easier it is to replace you, the more we like you**‘. We want to have a lot of flexibility to pull in a new vendor without having a major 18-month application rework.”

There is a lesson in there for [Microsoft ](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000169.html)and others. Service orientation means mapping to a set of decoupled services that the market defines, not delivering monolithic platforms. [Stephen](http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/) has been [tussling with](http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000251.html) similar issues of [service definition](http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000264.html) recently.

I am with Ben- and the counterintuitive argument that success comes in **not** locking in customers, rather than the other way around. That way commoditization lies? Just so–if you’re a tech vendor, deal with it…