Best is Yet to Happen

I think the world is hungry for innovation...

Recent Forrester report claims that the next evolution of IT services would be in Business Innovation. And there is lot of hype around innovation all over the market...There is a talk about open innovation model, innovation networks..Using Technology to Transform business innovatively, etc..

Whether the traditional IT services companies of India are positioned to be a Business Innovation partner or not...is a different story. I will blog about it later..

But, the need of the hour is not business innovation. But IT innovation. Yes...Many may deny that...But that is the need of the hour.

Rising package costs, slow penetration of SaaS, unavailability of competent vendors to the range of IBMs and SAPs, Need for Software Consulting/Services costs...The complexity around large system integration technologies and available options are still extremely prevalant. The magic pill for solving the traditional IT pains using Technology has not been discovered. Please note..the Outsourcing/Offshoring route is only a pain reliever. But, the permanant relief can only happen if the inherent technology that is outsourced to a vendor becomes less complex. The more the complexity decreases, the less the cost can be...

Till date, there are no viable innovations on that front..

So, the World is  pampering all incremental innovations like iPod, iPhone, SaaS, etc..

The best is yet to happen...And as the saying goes..."Innovation happens elsewhere"..

Do you have IT-EA alignment?

Recently I read an article from Forrester that lists the present day challenges of an EA role.

1. Limited Formal Authority
2. Balancing between Tactial priorities and strategic initiatives
3. Lack of talent / demand for more technical architects as part of EA group

I am literally living through these challenges day in and day out. And am sure every Enterprise Architect who is responsible for IT delivery and Technology competency will have these challenges.

The only solution to alleviate all these known issues in the longer term is to ingrain the EA principles into the planning and delivery of IT management.

Yes, its a "change management" initiative that cuts across all sectors within the IT organization. Right from Budgeting, Planning, Delivery and Maintenance.

And the change management does not happen in a day or two. It has to happen gradually with a strong championship/sponsorship from Senior management.

EA as a practice is quite huge. It ranges from architecture to planning to governance/operations.

Like how we talk about Business-IT alignement. There is one more movement that needs to be started, i.e. IT management - Enterprise Architecture alignment. That is the phase, most of the big organizations are going thru now. If and only if the IT shop is in good control, it can really talk about Business-IT alignment.

I strongly believe that in future, Enterprise Architecture has to be part of Management Studies in academia, especially for Management people who are specializing in Systems Management/Software Enterprise Management.

If that happens, the future alignment will be much more seamless.

Using Technology for Competitive Differentiation

Recently I was talking to the client regarding the use of web 2.0 technologies in the eCommerce Portal.

Immediately, the client asked me to list down the business value the client would get by using those technologies.

This has always been the case. Whenever new technologies need to be used in the solution, there is always a question towards BVI. Business Value Index.

My point is that if new technologies are used for competitive differentiation, How long is it going to take for other companies to replicate the same thing?

If we go by BVI, its always possible for the competitor to use the same new technologies innovatively to beat / bring a new competetive differentiation.

Anything that is measurable / quantifiable in benefits is 'repeatable' too. It obviates the competive differerentiation in medium/longer term.

So what is the solution?. The solution is to look for technologies that would build intangible benefits...

Sounding little ambiguous...?..that is how it is..! We cannot measure the benefits like customer loyalty, user experience, brand value, accessability/usability. But these are the key drivers that make a solution unique.

Although its possible to put together a framework around these intangibe benefits to make them quantifiable, the metrics will not be accurate as other tangible benefits like performance, availability, scalability, etc.

But, inherently, the technologies themselves will not be directly addressing these intangible benefits. It is the method/way in which those technologies are used for a particular customer and problem context will determine those benefits and make the solution unique and 'non repeatable'.

Using Technology for Business Value

Recently I was talking to the client regarding the use of web 2.0 technologies in the eCommerce Portal.

Immediately, the client asked me to list down the business value the client would get by using those technologies.

This has always been the case. Whenever new technologies need to be used in the solution, there is always a question towards BVI. Business Value Index.

My point is that if new technologies are used for competitive differentiation, How long is it going to take for other companies to replicate the same thing?

If we go by BVI, its always possible for the competitor to use the same new technologies innovatively to beat / bring a new competetive differentiation.

Anything that is measurable / quantifiable in benefits is 'repeatable' too. It obviates the competive differerentiation in medium/longer term.

So what is the solution?. The solution is to look for technologies that would build intangible benefits...

Sounding little ambiguous...?..that is how it is..! We cannot measure the benefits like customer loyalty, user experience, brand value, accessability/usability. But these are the key drivers that make a solution unique.

Although its possible to put together a framework around these intangibe benefits to make them quantifiable, the metrics will not be accurate as other tangible benefits like performance, availability, scalability, etc.

But, inherently, the technologies themselves will not be directly addressing these intangible benefits. It is the method/way in which those technologies are used for a particular customer and problem context will determine those benefits and make the solution unique and 'non repeatable'.

Changing Role of Enterprise Architects

Being an Enterprise Architect, I always thought what value can I bring to the table to the organization?. I always have questions, Architect - as a position, How can it add value and command the business case for survival and growth?

There are lot of disruptors arising in the industry that influences the role of Architect, especially, the Enterprise Architect.

The key difference is, its not any more technology factor alone that can influence enterprise Architecture. Nowadays, there are lot of other non-technical factors as well trying to influence the role of EA.

Some of them are:

1. Changing Business Models because of Open Source, SaaS.
Companies are evaluating Open Source, SaaS not necessarily because of technical advantages but on economical advantages.

2. Offshoring/Outsourcing
Again, yet another economical factor, where the complete technical solution is outsourced / offshored to an external vendor. Some of the solutions are even contracted for longer-term for economical reasons. These solutions are typically out-and-out managed by the third-party vendor rather than an in-house EA.

3. Industrialization of IT
The big IT vendors are working on the lines of Software Factories/MDA/MDD to industrialize the software development. During my college days, in one of the workshops, I remember reading a poster that says "In future - there is no Programmer". Its mostly becoming true. Now, when I went to SFDC site, it says "There is no Software". Stunning, but a practical viewpoint.

If there is no software, what is the need for EA?. This might look like silly. But It certainly has implications.

In such cases, where the need of a software is more determined by the economical reasons, the technology takes a back seat. Every new technology that comes to the market, need to sell itself, needs to market itself, why it is so cool. The hard truth is - its is business that comes first and Technology comes behind. But, the scenario every EA and CIO want to hear is 'Business and IT comes together always'.

4. Innovation
The Innovation is no longer a fancy word. Its becoming survival in the hypercompetive world. you will have to be innovative in the way you are using solutions as well.

Some of these pressures apply to management positions as well. In the changing world, the managers always need to ensure there are ways to reduce cost and ensure growth.

The conclusion is, the EAs / Architects need to constantly look for new ways to grow their career path considering the above factors.

Composite Applications in SaaS

This is an intersting observation.

I was thinking that SaaS always works in a platform based model. There is no client software that needs to be installed/or on-premise software to be purchased.

It is not always be the case. While SFDC provides a platform based SaaS model, there are other vendors who provide other models of SaaS.

For example, the vendor TwinField provides a Microsoft excel based add-on. This add-on needs to be installed on your desktop to perform extensive analysis on the financial data that is maintained by the TwinField services. The add-on interacts with the TwinField Services platform to retrieve the relevant data.

This is basically a hybrid model where you have little bit of on-premise and a lot of platform based services.

And this is absolutely the same architecture model that 'Composite Applications' follow. Its just that the TwinField does not implement this model in a Business Process/Flow context. Otherwise, it is very identical.

What I see is that, its not just the 'Services' that have the potential to be hosted in SaaS platform. Its also the 'Composite Applications' or some elements of 'Composite Applications' can also be hosted in the SaaS platform.

IT has more business knowledge than Business

If the title interests you, then read on...

Recently I read an interesting thought on Enterprise Architecture.

Traditionally, the business 'ideates', and 'decides' what kind of projects they want to do. IT 'takes the orders' and builds them for business. But eventually, over a period of time, IT gets involved in understanding the business requirements, the kind of changes that are happening in the systems, and becomes masters in those business processes.

The business process knowledge is 'tacit' in the IT folks who are maintaining in those systems. The business sponsors who funded the IT projects might have moved on. But the business process knowledge in those IT systems stays within the IT group.

Now, the question is, How can IT take advantage of this competency?. Its a critical and important question, for a IT organization to "grow" and not just to "deliver".

With this capability, IT has the potential to "propose" new projects based on the technology competency and business knowledge. It can jointly work with business to carve out new projects. The key here is both sides have to respect each others' ideas. That would ensure the collective success.

Now the question is, IT has been traditionally a development shop. This tacit business knowledge might have been there in documents/individuals. But, how to identity and tap those potential?. It requires a "new" skill. And that, is exactly, Enterprise Architecture is all about.

The EA office would ensure business-IT alignment, collaborative planning, standards, new markets, efficiency and Growth (to business and IT).

Using EA, if IT can propose new projects that are successful and demand a certain share in the new revenue that is acquired out of new projects, IT really becomes a 'profit center', not a 'cost center'.

Otherwise, if IT has to remain as a 'order takers', then its better to 'outsource' the entire IT to India. Because, you will get lot more good deals with better quality there.

Next Generation IT services

One of the biggest challenges that is currently being faced in the Indian IT industry is 'Lack of excitement' among the employees on Technologies.

I have seen the industry for the past 10 years. And the change is visible. The industry has grown exponentially. There are lot of new talents. And Plethora of projects.

But, so far, the industry has always executed the Projects in 'Staff augmentation' model, where all managerial ceremonies are well taken care of. Right from Processes, Quality, Escalation, communication, Resource rampup/Rampdown, Tight budgets, slogging, Schedule, etc.. But, one thing that was left out in the whole ceremony is the poor 'Technology'. It is pity to see that 'Technology' as the odd man out in an 'IT services' business.

Companies have managed to maintain top-line growth and bottom-line productivity. And they ran it as any other business, probably with very good management skills. And now, they are struggling to re-establish themselves as 'Technology / Thought Leaders'.

The last decade has completely established 'IT job' as a lucrative job, rather than a challenging/prestigious job. This has an impact of the new generation of employees as well. The new set of people who are joining has completely different set of mindset in terms of aspirations, again Technology being the last priority.

Studies are showing that while revenues are growing in every other IT company, the productivity per employee is going down year after year. Attrition is increasing year after year.

So, What is the solution?. Relook at 'IT services' as 'Technology-Intensive business'.

Partner with Industry and academia to 'contribute to the ecosystem' and 'encourage Innovation'. Of course, some comapnies are doing little amount of this kind of work. But it is not widespead, even within those companies.

Time has come to rethink our next generation.

Innovation from Customers - And Not Companies

If you observe the whole web 2.0 happenings its an innovation driven by the customers/Internet users.

Influenced by the predominant growth of web 2.0 techniques (not real technologies though), major vendors are being pushed to a situation where they need to brand their latest products as web 2.0 compliant.

Example, IBM is releasing latest portal product with AJAX support, upgrading its Lotus suite of products for business social networking and Peope Search. Microsoft is comingup with lot more features in its latest 2007 release - RSS integration, AJAX support, Social Networking within the Enterprise, Blogs and Wikis.

SAP is comingup with upgrades in the support of Rich Internet Applications.

Google search has entered into the corporate and More and more vendors are lining up to provide search solutions

So more and more, the customer experience on the Internet is driving the Product / Technology Innovations and eventually they will have an impact on Corporates as well.

The solutions rolled-out by the corporates to end-customers are invariably internet users and they would expect the same kind of experience that they get in other sites.

The business solutions that innovatively incorporates these new user experience paradigms are bound to win!

Disruptive Technologies

Over the lunch, I was discussing the IT trends with my colleagues. And one person was quoting on the use of 'Disruptive Technologies'. If there are disruptive technologies to come in future, probably the trends will change. The trend in which indian IT industry works.

The recent story by Business Today claims that the productivity per employee is declining year on year for the past five years for the Indian IT companies. But they are able to show growth in revenues and profits by the sheer size of the company - by adding more and more people.

My point of view was - It will not be 'Disruptive Technologies' that will change the business. It will be 'Disruptive Business Models brought by New Emerging technologies' will change the business of IT.

So far, it was 'SOA' that was claimed as one of prominent Disruptive Architecture (Not a Technology though). But, the implementation of SOA is as complicated as a J2EE platform, that it is holding many people from jumping to SOA world. Or the People who have already taken the deep dive are finding it difficult to breath because of various issues such as Governance, Funding Model, Performance, etc.

So It really remains to be seen which technology would be the next disruptor.

Composite Applications Complexities

If we carefully observe the current trend, the objective of all the big vendors is to support 'disaggregation' in the name of composite applications.

On one side, in the name of web 2.0, everything is internet enabled. Your Office applications are available on the Web. You get rich user experience using AJAX kind of technologies. In the name of SaaS, the business applications are also exposed as services over the web. This I call it as 'Webifying everything' in your desktop and Access it on the Internet. Access/Interact & Execute everything on the Web. Internet is the Platform.

OK. This is one side of the story. Other side of the story is, to bridge the structured and unstructured world of the enterprise. The structured business process is always available as web application / Portal on the Internet/Intranet. The unstructured communication always happens over a range of tools including your email client, office applications, workflow, etc. all happening right there in your desktop.

So, Do you see a conflict?. One side - One Team is webifying everying saying 'You dont really need to have anything on your desktop except your browser. Other side - Another Team is saying 'Your desktop is reality. It will not go. And Your Internet app is again a majority. And the best practice is to bridge them both effectively, so that the business process gets executed in entirety without any fragmentation/disconnectivity'. This whole paradigm is now packaged as 'composite applications'.

All the IT solutions will inevitably be torn between these two ends.

And the real solution will emerge only if we meticulously analyze the user requirements and choose the best platform / tools to develop the end solution.

Here is a sample:

Now, the important one - Are composite applications portable across platforms?. The real answer is No. IBM is developing its own set of desktop tools/clients using Eclipse platform. Microsoft is having its own office applications. And SAP is building its own set of composite application using its partnerships between Adobe and Microsoft.

If you develop your composite using any one of the platform, Can your end-user / external user having a different client platform really be able to access the composite application?

The summary is the composite applications do not have the same benefits of SOA, just because it is associated with SOA. They have their own complexities and limitations.

Software Factories

Recently one of my colleagues spoke to me regarding Microsoft Software Factories.

And in the last SAP TechEd too, I saw a similar article that is titled on the lines of 'Manufacturing IT'.

Before reading the introduction from Microsoft, I guessed it has something to do with Model Driven Architecture. And I am not wrong.

Microsoft defines the Software Factories as the development environment that is configured to support the rapid development of a specific type of application. Yes, let's say you are developing smart clients clients (repeated activity of development), then having software factories for mobile clients would greatly improve the productivity& standards in the development.

Essentially, the software factory embodies patterns, tools, application blocks, and best practices.

This is the concept that most of the IT services companies of India are trying to achieve over a long time. But, as far as I know, no body has achieved any significant results / nobody has published/promoted those kinds of properietary/home-grown frameworks to the market.

The reason is - IT services companies executes projects for various kinds of clients from various geographies. And each of the solutions that they build have their own specific business requirements/context specialization.

So, its literally impossible to say 'One size fits all'. Its very difficult to say 'One framework will be able to solve all the problems in a specific area'.

And the significant difference that I see from a traditional 'Manufacturing factory' and a 'Software Factory' is that - Manufacturing Factory produces the 'same' kind of products, more in number. Each and every product that gets out of the factory has to look-alike, compliant to quality controls, and produce same end-user experience. There cannot be any exceptions.

The software factory can be applied to product line architectures for companies that build and deliver software products.

But, here, the number / volume of software products that get manufactured is immaterial. (Unlike Traditional manufacturing).

And thatz true for software service companies as well. They build 'one-off/pointed solutions' for customers. So why would they need to invest in 'Software Factories'?. Neverthess, the service companies have gone ahead in the past and built the most common denominator as the 'Framework' that can be repeated across several projects.

2007 Predictions

No! This is not about Horoscope!. :-)

Am discussing something that would interest us...

"North America's Tech spending to slow down in 2007" - Gartner.

"Organizations are increasingly dissatisfied with vendors" - CIO journal survey

"CIOs are finding difficult to acquire business-savvy technologists' - CIO journal

"In 2007, the Outsouring to slow down, because the companies are not able to sustain the right talent and increasing cost" - One of the Enterprise Architect's blog.

All this lead to 'Insourcing' again.

The companies may revert to 'Insourcing' as the vendor satisfaction is low and the SI's are not able to deliver what they are expected to deliver at the right cost.

Within 'Insourcing' itself, CIOs are looking at 'Enterprise Architecture' as the tool to rationalize the IT portfolio and reduce cost eventually.

In my opinion, 'Enterprise Architecture' can be applied towards 'cost reduction' or to 'enforce standardization' or to 'prepare for agile enterprise'.

Am sure whoever (CIO) is taking the lead in EA initiatives are going to have the long term benefits and leadership in IT.

Till then, outsouring is here to stay with its ups and downs...

The speed of thinking

Of late, I was thinking it was too time consuming to logon to Blogger site and create a post and then publish it. I was thiking how nice it would be if I could just write my blog in my own Microsoft Word and then publish to my blog site directly from there...Sounds comfortable!. Isn't it?

Then I thought If I am thinking this comfort now, somebody else would have already thought about it and created a word plug-in for Blogger site. With that assumption, I searched for a word plug-in and immediately found one, and that too from Blogger site itself. Just install the plug-in and you are ready to post right from where you are.

Thats the speed of thinking thats happening in the web 2.0 age.

Another similar discovery was on the bookmarking...

I found lot of websites having a hyperlink to bookmark the site address into sites like Technorati (social bookmarking). Once you click the bookmarking link, you will be asked to logon to the social bookmarking site and add the link to your favorites.

This is time consuming again.

How comfortable it would be if I can have a IE plugin that would simply require me to click (example. a link in the IE toolbar) and adds the link to my respective social bookmarking site.

And thats available too!.

So whats the speed of your thinking...

SAP TechEd Updates

Last week, I attended SAP TechEd. This is the first time I attended the SAP TechEd workshop.

The cover note from the SAP Chairman in the handout made some big promises. He said 'If you are attending this TechEd for the first time, be prepared to have a drink from fire hose'. Daring statement, isn’t it?

The opening keynote address was indeed impressive and stood up to the promise. SAP Vice-chairman showed a live 'Composite App' demo, by assembling the visual components. (yes, you read it right, ‘assembling’ and no ‘coding’).

This is the direction SAP is striving for – Enabling the business users to compose IT applications as and when they require it and how interactive those apps need to be…

Overall, the workshop was very informative with lots and lots of updates on what SAP is doing.

I believe SAP has a strong vision and if they pursue the initiatives in the same pace as today, I think SAP will be the leader in the ‘Composite Apps’ space soon.

web 2.0 : The network effect

Of late, I have been reading a lot on Web 2.0 to find out its real business value.

Sure, The new paradigm ropes in million$ business for giants like Google, Amazon and Salesforce.com. But is it a Hype or reality?. One of the articles in CIO journal discounts that most of the startup companies behind web2.0 - other than the giants like Google/Amazon - are not going to sustain for a longer time. The reason being that they dont have a sound business model to survive in long run. There are many more startups in the Internet joining the web2.0 bandwagaon, offering free services/open APIs. But it could be the next dotcom burst, when all these small startups crash because of their business models.

But, I strongly believe that the technologies behind web2.0 are here to stay. And they are already making an impact. If you are authoring or reading a blog, Editing a Wiki, Consuming RSS updates, - Then you are already benefiting from web2.0.

Its amazing to find out how these technologies are helping people. Some of the events that I find interesting are: - After the katrina disaster, a website embarked into an initiative for collecting the information about the survivors from various websites/blogs in one single place, that is searchable in a consistent format.

Corporates are encouraging employees to write blogs to attract and hire talents from outside. And freelance bloggers are getting media deals like orders for writing books.

So, its already touching the lives of people who are using the web. For the enterprises, its the right time to evaluate what is the web 2.0 technology that is right for them to harvest the potential benefits.

Beyond SOA - SOBA

SOA in practice can be applied at two levels. One is strategic where SOA is primarily applied to bring business-IT alignment. Another is operational, to bring interoperability and Standards - E.g Application Integration/Portal Integration.

But the real value of SOA can be achieved only when an organization's business processes can be modeled, implemented, monitored and optimized. This places a lot of emphasis on how well SOA gets implemented. And What is the process in which SOA initiatives are translated from requirements to executable code.

As the industry understands this case, lot of work has been happening on this front.

1. SAP, Oracle are revamping their packaged business applications into Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBA). The traditional way of implementing ERP systems is fitting your business processes into the applications' capability. The new way of implementing is to customize your application to implement your very own buisiness processes. SAP goes one step further on this front and unwraps all the business processes embedded in their applications as "models", so that these models can be customized according to organization needs and implemented.

2. Lot of industry specific frameworks/models are becoming available. HP provides specific frameworks for industries such as Manufacturing and Banking. IBM has models for Retail Banking, Insurance and Retailing. These models encapsulate the industry knowledge and promise to jumpstart the SOA initiatives.

3. SOA fabrics - Lot of vendors are providing industry specific SOA fabric / wrapper code that can be wrapped on a corporate's IT systems. One such example is Webify - that provides SOA fabric for Banking and Insurance sectors.

So Which industry you are into and How are you planning to go about doing SOA?

Do Mashups have a place in the Enterprise?

Of late, creating mashups have become a child's play. For few who are new to the terminology, mashups are the new ways of creating a new web application by combining/repurposing existing web applications. The most popular ones are built around the Google maps, where a real-estate information (like availability of apartments/houses in various areas within a city) provided by a realty web site can be mashed with a Google map of that city to produce a new UI that plots the availability right on the map itself.

Nowadays mashups are created with a wide range of technologies - Javascript, Web Services, XML APIs over HTTP or AJAX.

My thought is Will they have any place in the mission critical Enterprise web applications ? (e.g. Online Banking). Am not sure whether any enterprise has ventured into mashups so far.

But this new paradigm will certainly change the way in which applications would be built in future. Typical IT project cycle is waterfall model - For a defined set of business requirements, a set of candidate technologies/solutions would be analyzed to find a better suit. But the mashup way of creating applications reverses the game. Using the existing APIs/services, what new applications can be built innovatively that will add value to the business & customers.

Composite Services Vs Composite Applications

Recently one of my friends questioned me what is the difference between composite services and composite applications. Are they same ?. If they are different, what is it?

On top of my mind, I could say both are different. But I couldnt explain it very well.

When I did some (re)search, this is what I understand - Composite services are micro-flows. When multiple elemental/basic services are combined to be offered as a single service, then it is called as a composite service. These services are stateless, unlike 'Process' services where also orchestration of services takes place, but in stateful nature.

While composite service is a design pattern in SOA, 'Composite Apps' looks like a new way of 'architecting solutions'. There are several vendors in the market who provide tools & platforms for building composite applications.

Typical example, that I find in many sites - is integrating the set of distinct applications used by a contact center representative in Banks/sales. Typically, the contact center agent needs to shuttle between multiple applications in his desktop to service a client. The service process might include - duplicate entry of customer data, different security levels, fragmented/manual steps. How nice would it be, if the contact center agent gets a single unified application interface that enables him to accomplish the business process?. How good it would be, if the agent doesn't need to switch between apps to accomplish a task/process?. The solution cannot be just a 'dashboard' that provides links to access multiple apps via single interface. The solution needs to be much more intelligent in terms of automating steps, encapsulating business rules, eliminating redundant data entries, seamless integration of back-end systems, seamless presentation flow across different apps.

Ok, now you may be wondering, this is what 'Portals' are supposed to accomplish. Yes, Portals can also be the platforms of composite applications. But so, far Portals have been used only as 'Dashboards' or 'Lightweight EAI' of applications. It has not been utilized to an extent where Portals can be used to automate a complete business process, where each step of a process, draws logic from several layers (presentation, business logic and data access) of participating discrete applications.

But, the apps need not be always built on 'Portals'. It can be built as a 'Desktop' solution as well. Some of the tool vendors promise to integrate the native user interfaces of participating applications (thick client/green screen emulators) in a composite application.

The Gartner definition of Composite applications goes like this - "Composite applications differ significantly from multistep processes because they integrate vertically among the tiers within one step of a business process, rather than horizontally across multiple steps".

Some of the characteristics of composite applications are :
- Built on SOA standards
- Integrates with various enterprise applications
- Model driven development, minimal coding
- Applications can be assembled from reusable artefacts that are already available in the enterprise.
- Can include Workflows, BPMs, and Microflows

While there are many vendors out in the market, there seems to be little emphasis on 'Standards' for building those apps. While Portal standards JSR-168 has been enhanced to include inter-portlet communications, that is vital for building composite apps, Other forms (e.g Desktop) of composite apps remain properietary solutions of vendors.

Hello everyone,

Am an Enterprise architect in one of the leading technology solutions company in Bangalore, India.

Pre-web 2.0, I used to read and record my notes in Outlook. Now with the advent of blogs, it gives me a new platform to structure my thoughts, share it with fellow architects and eventually get feedback too.

I am planning to blog about my areas of interests including web 2.0, SOA, SaaS, Enterprise Architecture and anything else that is creating a buzz and current in IT. Am also planning to write about my thoughts on IT services, offshoring and Work culture of Software Architects.

Keep reading. I would try to make sure it is worth reading.

Bye for Now,
Bala.