A relatively interesting TechRepublic article entitled Will Web services and SOAs change the development world? suggests that Web services and Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) will break the strangehold of corporate IT departments and eventually make application development as simple as building a spreadsheet is today
There is also a related piece about the experiences of a consultant implementing such techniques within client organisations:
Web Services to break the stranglehold of IT departments?
by Lee BryantOne Response to Web Services to break the stranglehold of IT departments?
smarter, simpler, social
The presumption that all company-wide corporate application development is necessarily carried out by the IT department is wrong.
Clued-up organisations have already worked out that just because certain people can administer networks, email server, fix printers, etc., it doesn’t necessarily follow that these people should be developing applications to improve knowledge sharing, handle business process workflow, etc.
Many companies have set up separate teams to develop intranets and other tools – sure, these teams require programming skills, but also a deep understanding of employees day-to-day jobs and the political nouse to get projects up and running.
SOAs will help these teams distribute their tools, but the real drivers here are not to do with application architecture – its the economics of finding the right people to produce the best results, wherever they sit in the organisation.
Besides, I would imagine that a proliferation of web services around an internal network would require some extensive administration and infrastructure to make sure everyone knows what tools are available and how to use them – which will probably end up being the IT department’s responsibility.