Here are some findings and follow-ups from Benoit Lheureux on one of his analyst/user roundtables:

Thank you very much for your participation in the discussion about B2B / SOA today. I really appreciate that everyone actively participated, and was pleased that we were able to reach the three interesting (and at least in one case non-intuitive) Findings, which I’ve pasted below (with a few edits for readability, but hopefully without changing the meaning).

Finding 1: Companies immediately (rather than in the near or far future) need to deal with B2B SOA in their B2B projects. 

Finding 2: Some external business partners are beginning to demand SOA, regardless of existing industry standards.  [or, as one of you said another interesting way, “you might need to put SOA lipstick on your existing industry standard pig”]  J

Finding 3: Within industry standards, the payload specifications are more valuable than the protocol / delivery specifications – given that alternative protocol / delivery specifications provide sufficient security and quality of service.

I’d also like to acknowledge Suresh’s insightful observation that (and I paraphrase from memory – please post a correction if I got it wrong) that “a portfolio approach of about ½ dozen ways of doing B2B works best”. I couldn’t agree more, and you’ll see that I discuss this in much of my research. 

In my opinion these are pretty interesting Findings, and have a material bearing, for example, on each of your B2B strategies. For example, because of these Findings you might conclude that you’ll both leverage existing content industry standards, e.g., ACCORD, and deliver the payload using both whatever protocols are pre-approved for ACCORD but also using other techniques, e.g., Web services, once you ensure you’ve got enough security & QoS.

Because you’re all Gartner clients as well I’ve also pasted below links to my B2B research index and a few pieces of research that are related to our discussion, although I also recommend that you all check out research from my colleague Frank Kenney, particularly related to SOA governance, and SOA testing – topics that came up but that we didn’t have time to cover in detail. To make it easier to find relevant research on multi-enterprise (B2B) integration please review my research abstracts online at http://www.geocities.com/benoit_2001/B2B_Research_Index.htm or by simply double-clicking on the attached HTM file. In particular, the following research notes should be relevant to our discussion today:

·         Hot Questions About SOA From Asia – November 19, 2008 (G00161363) à Answers to frequent questions on SOA that I was asked on a recent trip to Asia

·         SaaS Integration: How to Choose the Best Approach – October, 1, 2008 (G00161672) à A decision framework to help SaaS customer choose the best approach to SaaS integration

·         Toolkit: Request for Proposal for B2B Gateway Software – August 26, 2008 (G00154852) à An Excel-based tool (with graphics!) to facilitate your B2B Gateway Software RFP process

·         Magic Quadrant for B2B Gateway Providers – June 3, 2008 (G00157460) à Our rating of 14 B2B Gateway Software (think: evolving EDI software) vendors

·         Magic Quadrant for Integration Service Providers – May 28, 2008 (G00157093) à Our rating of 14 Integration Service Provider (think: evolving EDI VAN) vendors

·         Key Issues for Multienterprise B2B Integration, 2008 – March 11, 2008 (G00155781) à The definition and scope of Gartner’s B2B Multienterprise Integration research agenda

I also welcome Gartner research inquiry on this and related B2B topics anytime – just contact the Gartner quickpath at the number below to schedule that.

Cheers,

-          bjl

P.S. Please contact me directly @ Benoit.lheureux@gartner.com if you have any trouble using my research index. I also welcome knowing whether (or not) it was useful to you!