Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Enterprise Architecture: Predictions for 2007
Every year I make predictions on technologies and have a pretty good track record in doing so. Let's see how these resonate with others...
Below are my 2007 predictions:
| | View blog reactionsBelow are my 2007 predictions:
- Innovation: This word has been abused more than agile, only that folks will start to realize it no longer has meaning. Of course the late comers will still figure out ways to call everything they do innovation, but the masses will no better. The marketplace will stop focusing on innovation and get back to focusing on profitability and marketshare.
- Business Architecture: Smart Individuals will start providing amplification as to the importance of this discipline when it comes to implementing service-oriented architectures, product line practices and realizing the true goals of Enterprise Architecture. Of course, CTOs of software companies will avoid any discussion of this within their blogs and attempt to distract us with topics such as Enterprise Service Bus and the latest WS-* specifications. Insulting firms will also popup and attempt to hustle courses to whomever is idiotic enough to think that business architecture can be done by everyone
- Identity Management: The thought leaders in this space aren't telling the whole story when it comes to SoX compliance and Identity Management mainly because their products are incomplete. You may see a spree of acquisitions of startup companies that will couple role modeling and entitlements into a larger identity story. Only then we will hear the likes of Pat Patterson, Mark Dixon, Dick Hardt and others actually talk about conversations you haven't heard to date. Luckily, folks such as Allan Milgate and Shekhar Jha are having conversations that are more honest and transparent.
- Enterprise Content Management: No enterprise does this well and this space costs an aweful lot of money to get right. Luckily, many enterprises are also paying closer attention to open source. Folks such as Matt Asay and his employer: Alfresco are working very hard to make it possible to do ECM correctly. We can only hope that Alfresco gets deep coverage by Gartner and Forrester. I do know that Alan Pelz-Sharpe of CMSWatch and Nick Patience of the 451 Group will be providing deep coverage. It is my prediction that Alfresco will be in Gartner's Leaders quadrant
- Industry Analysts: You will start to see more open source vendors in Gartner's Leaders quadrant in 2007. It is my prediction that in the ESB space, you will see ServiceMix and in the BPM space, you will see Intalio.
- Ruby on Rails: Ruby on Rails will not become enterprise ready until someone who is employed by a large enterprise stands up in a public forum and discusses it. I guess this duty falls on my shoulder. I wonder if I should have so much power as to declare when Ruby is truly ready for the enterprise?
- Agile: Folks in large enterprises will start reading the Agile Manifesto and taping it to their foreheads. They will find even better ways of being agile that the founding members didn't think of and of course will attempt to share but will be rejected. We understand that the founding members are driven to retain brand in order to protect consulting revenues and therefore the notion of agility will start to fork.
