Japan's IS landscape is characterized by several technology platforms, proprietary systems and legacy applications working through very tight integration. Therefore it has been quite difficult for IS departments to respond quickly to changing business environments.

So while SOA promises agility, widespread adoption of SOA is yet to take off in Japan. The journey of SOA adoption in Japan is expected to be long and arduous. Japanese IS departments generally fall in the group of conservatives in the technology adoption lifecycle and they are closely looking at examples of successful SOA implementations.

That said, we do see a large number of people turning up at SOA events, curious to learn more about the paradigm. Bookstores carry titles on SOA. Technology magazines routinely publish interviews with SOA thought leaders. So it's basically observing and learning at a conceptual level that's happening right now with IS departments.

We are also seeing alliances between SOA platform vendors and Japanese system integrators. However, in addition to the technology, SOA adoption is also about cultural sensitivity of SOA platform vendors most of who are based outside Japan while working with Japanese IS departments and system integrators.

Japanese IS departments (yes, even competing organizations) prefer to move in unison, instead of being lone rangers. For now, SOA platform vendors are persevering to convince Japan IS departments of the viability of SOA initiatives and their own offerings-hoping to open the floodgates of SOA investments as IS departments start moving together.

In the past, vendor lock-in was the name of the game. But given the freedom from vendor lock-in that SOA promises, all vendors have an equal chance to gain when the floodgates open-at least, ideally. The ground reality is the vendors who would have established technological credibility, would have built solid relationships within IS departments and got culturally sensitive to Japanese way of doing business will gain the most.

Email : tenji@soanowjournal.com