It’s not easy being a small, services oriented architecture (SOA) management and governance player. But if anyone was wondering about the likely longevity of this tiny niche, or whether it will simply be subsumed into broader systems management or business service management frameworks, SOA Software has news for you.

Yesterday it was announced that probably its nearest rival, AmberPoint, would be acquired by Oracle; yet today SOA Software announced that it is not withering but expanding. The firm claims it grew revenue 55% last year and made an operating profit.

Now it says it’s expanding its European presence with the appointment of Steve Pope as VP of Europe, and Simon Parker as director technology Europe, to, “Support and drive the company’s rapid growth in the European markets”.

SOA Software counts IBM, Microsoft, JBoss (Red Hat) and SAP among its alliance partners. No surprise that Oracle’s not on that list, especially after yesterday’s news.

On balance though, one can’t help wondering whether this little segment is long for this world. SOA projects are never undertaken for their own sake and nearly always suck in other elements that may need more traditional systems or service management capabilities anyway. So won’t this type of technology just become part of broader suites, as being suggested by Oracle with its AmberPoint buy?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]