Greg the Architect: SOA What?

Did dinosaurs really become extinct or did they just evolve into birds? Did all the Neanderthals really die or did they devolve into us? (Remember, evolution doesn't necessarily mean better, it just means more apt to survive current conditions.)

Thus I view with enormous skepticism the various Death of SOA commentary found here and there. Jeez, it's as if some people write teasing headlines, thoughtless questions, and vapid observations just to grab web traffic. I'm shocked, shocked. After all, isn't SOA just evolving into The Cloud? I mean, after all these decades the mainframe and COBOL are not dead yet. Why would SOA be?

Speaking of vapid, I've posted an interview I did with Greg the Architect about a year ago. It ran in a print issue of NOW Magazine in 2008.

But now, as with, you know, The Basement Tapes (ID check in force to see if you truly remember what I'm talking about), this interview has been rediscovered and posted at my author's site.

It wasn't easy interviewing a small, plastic figurine, as these outtake from the interview attests:

Me: How would you rate the difficulty in implementing SOA?

Greg: Difficult

Me: How difficult?

Greg: Very difficult

Hey, bring on Joaquin!

Greg was in the throes of a SOA implementation at the time we interviewed him. I've been trying to reach him over the past few days to see if he's thinking about The Cloud yet. I'm sure his thinking has evolved over the past year.