Don't tell French CIOs that SOA is a new paradigm for developing applications and architecturing information systems. They'd tell you : "I've been doing SOA for the last 20 or 30 years."

Is this true? Well, yes and no. When it comes to architectural design, we've got a great tradition in France. You may have heard about Merise, for instance, the French analytical methodology for conceiving and developing enterprise IT systems (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merise_(informatique).

So in every big company in France, you'll find a team dedicated to these principles, which take the principles of urbanism into the realm of enterprise IT. So SOA principles are not that new to them. What is new is that the technologies themselves have evolved for the last 20 or 30 years. Most of the things urbanists try to do are now possible to do. So they're doing it ? Well, not exactly. Or at least, not at the speed software vendors would like.

There are a few reasons for that :

1) France is not a country of early adopters. We like to think about things for a long time, before doing them. Which is also a good way to learn about others' mistakes before we act (heh heh).

2) France is a country of skeptics. Although we can still believe promises made by presidential candidates, in the computing industry it seems that we are much more difficult to convince. So much money has been spent on ERPs and EAI software, and so few promises have come true, that SOA software vendors have some hard times in front of them trying to sell their solutions.

3) France is a country where software vendors are seen like, well, vendors, and not partners. Maybe it is just marketing, but we regularly hear that big U.S. companies do some kind of partnerships with big vendors. For a French CIO, a vendor is someone dedicated to making money, and not to making your project a success.

Having said all this, I can also say that yes, big French companies are now involved in SOA projects, and some are quite considerable in size. As a study just made by a French systems integrator puts it, a vast majority of companies are convinced of the benefits they can get from an SOA project, and already doing one or thinking about it.

The major problem they identify right now is the lack of guidelines on how to start an SOA project, and on how to get a financial support within their company. Bottom-line, as people say in the U.S., most CIOs in France are doing SOA in one way or another--but are not touting it-and take budgeted resources and advice where they can. Of course, this is probably no different than anywhere else. I guess all companies throughout the world are facing the same problem !

Email : orafal@it-news-info.com