SOA met its demise on 1 January 2009, when it was wiped out by the impact of the economic recession.

It is survived by its offspring: mash-ups, business process management (BPM), software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud computing and all other architectural approaches dependent on "services".

Once thought to be the saviour of IT, SOA instead turned into a great failed experiment. It was supposed to reduce costs and increase agility on a massive scale. However, except in rare situations, it has failed to deliver these benefits.

Despite huge investment in the concept, many IT systems are in worse shape than before - costs are higher, projects take longer and systems are more fragile than ever. The people holding the purse strings have had enough. With the tight budgets of 2009, most organisations have cut funding for SOA initiatives.

This is a tragedy for the IT industry, because most organisations desperately need to make architectural improvements to their application portfolios. Service-orientation is a prerequisite for the rapid integration of data and business processes.

It enables situational development models, such as mash-ups. It is also the foundational architecture for SaaS and cloud computing. SOA, as it was originally conceived, may be a thing of the past, but the requirement for service-oriented architecture is stronger than ever.

Arguably, the acronym got in the way. People forgot what SOA stands for. They were too wrapped up in silly technology debates (e.g. "What's the best ESB?" or "WS-* versus REST"). As a result, they overlooked the important stuff: architecture and services.

Spectacular gains

Successful SOA (i.e. application re-architecture) requires disruption to the status quo. SOA is not simply a matter of deploying new technology and building service interfaces to existing applications; it requires redesign of the application portfolio. It also requires a massive shift in the way IT operates.

The small, select group of organisations that has seen spectacular gains from SOA did so by treating it as an agent of transformation. In each of these success stories, SOA was just one aspect of the transformation effort.

And here's the secret to success: SOA needs to be part of something bigger. If it isn't, you need to ask yourself why you've been doing it.

Shiny new technology cannot make things better on its own. Incremental integration projects will not lead to significantly reduced costs and increased agility. If you want spectacular gains, you need to make a spectacular commitment to change - like construction company Bechtel has.

It's telling that the Bechtel story doesn't even use the term "SOA" - it just talks about services. Amid all the jargon, that simple word is the one on which we should concentrate from this point forward.

For more on the SOA debate, read the viewpoint of Chris Turner, CTO of Unilever.