This week Accenture, the $15 billion global consulting, technology services, and outsourcing firm announced it would be investing $450 million in service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives and activities over the next three years. The fact that Accenture was betting big on SOA was not news, but by attaching a nearly half a billion dollar figure to its bet, the company made the strength of its commitment obvious to the industry, the media, clients, and prospects. Beyond a successful PR effort, the announcement also enabled Accenture to publicly outline its view of the SOA market and how it plans to be in the forefront of determining how applicable SOA solutions will be for the most complex industry-specific scenarios.

 

Don't focus on the money -- that's just good PR

Accenture was going to spend money beefing up its SOA skills, app and tools portfolio, and marketing anyway, but putting a huge figure around these activities was a smart -- and successful -- PR move. The media, analyst, and technology blog communities may have ignored a press release announcing Accenture's commitment to SOA and its SOA initiatives, but it is hard to ignore a half a billion dollar SOA investment.

Nearly every software and service company has committed in some form to supporting SOA, but most can't get attention -- their PR efforts are lost in the overall noise of the market. However, the half a billion dollar bet not only gained Accenture short-term exposure, the PR effort will most likely have a longer term impact. Months from now, media articles and analyst reports will cite the Accenture move as another data point to support the growth in the SOA market. Importantly, they will also point to Accenture as a leader in the field, given its financial commitment and its ability to impact the market due to its client base.

 

Behind the number, Accenture's "stage four" SOA plans

While the investment figure will garner most of the attention, the announcement is more interesting from the perspective of how Accenture views the SOA market today, and how it plans to deliver solutions tomorrow.

According to CTO Don Rippert," "we've performed over 250 client engagements in this area" and "we have about 11,000 practitioners in the SOA space, of whom 3,000 are part of the core expert group." And from this experience, Accenture believes that user companies are still in the early stages of SOA deployment, and that  complex, multifunction SOA solutions will not emerge for some time.

 

A four stage implementation model 

Accenture is touting a four stage implementation blueprint. An organization's progress in the blueprint is determined by its SOA -related experience, such as:

• Investing in XML. Stage one organizations are experimenting with XML, primarily for data exchange.
  
  
• Rolling out Web services. In stage two, they are using Web services, particularly by service-enabling legacy applications.
  
  
• Deploying an ESB. In stage three, they invest and deploy an enterprise service bus (ESB).
  
  
• Developing composite apps. In the final, fourth stage, they are defining business processes, modeling the processes, and using business process execution language (BPEL) to create multi-service, composite applications.

From its work with clients and research on the SOA market, Accenture says most organizations are in stage one or two, with a few in stage three. No companies are in stage four. The exploration of the issues of stage four SOA deployments is where a large chunk of Accenture's investment will be spent.

 

A lab to explore stage four SOA solutions 

One of the big items Accenture wants to emphasize with this announcement is the creation of the Accenture Technology Lab for SOA Innovation. The lab is designed to develop SOA solutions, tools, and processes for a variety of industries. Relying on model-based development techniques, the customized apps will incorporate industry specific XML, use Web services, and rely on other SOA technology.

The lab's first project will be to create an e-prescription SOA solution for the healthcare industry. Why healthcare? Healthcare is segment in Accenture's Products operating group, the group that reported the highest revenue ($1.1 billion) and showed the most revenue growth (20%) in the last quarter. Creating cutting-edge solutions for healthcare, and the other segments in this group like automotive, consumer goods, and retail, will be critical for growing Accenture in the future.

What is interesting about the e-prescription effort is that Accenture is not guaranteeing SOA solutions can deliver complex, multi-service solutions. As CTO Rippert says, the lab and the its first project will help "... show customers what is possible and what is not ... If this or similar projects aren’t possible, we want our clients to know."

 

Accenture's reach will help test the limits of SOA solutions

With  a large and influential client base -- "including 87 of the Fortune Global 100 and nearly two-thirds of the Fortune Global 500" -- Accenture has the ability to be a leader in understanding the implications and realities of large-scale SOA deployments. And it is clear that the organization needs to lead in this area in order to grow business in industries like healthcare.

We expect other software and service vendors with major SOA practices, such as IBM, to follow up on this announcement with their own news about how they will also be on the cutting edge of enterprise SOA research and deployment. For user organizations, these high-profile vendor investments and technology explorations will be welcome, enabling those who are on the edge to work with vendor partners who are not only committed to the project, but committed to a positive outcome for their own long-term business needs.