During the week of Jan. 12, IT Business Edge posted a series I wrote about service-oriented architecture (SOA).

I think it is only coincidental that during the week of Jan. 5 Anne Thomas Manes declared SOA dead and a host of other analysts, tired of the same old buzzwords, piled on. Joe McKendrick and others — including me — disagree, by the way. Or at least Joe is saying the obit was written prematurely.

With no conceit, I recommend you read my series on SOA to understand what the analysts are arguing about. But I’ve moved on, based on a comment I received from a reader of  the three articles, the one about SOA standards. The reader said:

I also like the plug you made for more standardization participation.  In another 4 to 6 years, maybe we'll be humming along with SOA.

At least one reader doesn’t think SOA is dead. I had said in the article:

… (the) good news is that the user community — and the supplier community — have begun to coalesce around a common vernacular.

I didn’t mean it as a plug, but simply that if you want standards that are of value to you in the IT department, it’s up to you to make them happen.

Most IT standards to date benefit the vendors not the users. The user community has to take charge.