It is hard to avoid service oriented architecture. SOA is a technology the whole IT industry is talking about. Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sun, Novell, BEA, Tibco and other leading suppliers all have an SOA product line. SOA represents the latest method to link enterprise systems together using EAI (enterprise application integration).

The internet and HTML has shown the value of global standards and this has led to the concept of web services. As he explains in this ComputerWeekly.com interview (www.computerweekly.com/podcasts), Andy Mulholland, global chief technology officer of Capgemini believes that SOA makes IT integration easier because it deals in standards.