SOA Adoption: Strong Similarities Across Verticals

Across industry verticals, the rates of service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption among enterprises are more similar than they are different. Broad-based use of and plans for SOA indicate that SOA's applicability is general in nature and not specific to particular industry situations. Looking beyond adoption rates, we find bigger differences evident in the patterns of usage across different verticals. For example, media, entertainment, and leisure firms have notably higher rates of external integration with SOA than do firms in other verticals. SOA adoption rates among small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), while not as high as those among enterprises, are still broad-based across industry verticals — but different verticals lead SOA adoption among SMBs and among enterprises. As with other SOA adoption data, architects should use this data to bolster their cases for the applicability of SOA within their organizations.