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WOA a top 10 strategic technology! SOA dead! What’s going on?

I recently stumbled across Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009.

WOA (Web Oriented Architecture) was on the list.  SOA on the other hand has been declared deceased. 

I asked myself, "how can SOA be dead and WOA still survive?"

As explained in SOAs "obituary" it’s the acronym that leaves a bad taste in the mouth not the benefits SOA can deliver or the methods used to achieve these benefits.  The term SOA has just fallen out of favour.

Web Oriented Architecture on the other hand has a feeling of the new and fresh around it, like you may catch some of the Web2.0 bug if you implement it.

So what's the difference between SOA and WOA?

I believe that WOA is a subset of the PHILOSOPHY of SOA, a chapter from the book if you will. Both SOA and WOA aim to satisfy the same end result, scalable, loosely coupled services that enable an enterprise to react to rapidly changing business environments.  One just does it with different tools than the other. WOA uses web services such as http and Representational State Transfer (REST) while SOA has a wider selection of technology to choose from.

The key here is the shared focus of SOA and WOA.  Both are looking to make improvements to how the business operates, to this end the business architecture (the why) must recieve as much attention as the technical architecture (the how) of an SOA/WOA adoption.

Service based architectures must be integrated with the way an enterprise carries out its business and the architects must understand WHY the business needs SOA or WOA.  SOA/WOA has to be developed in close quarters with the business and not just give a nod to it, it must span organisational silos where neccesary and not be constrained by the traditional thinking of "1 system to do this, 1 system to do that".  This ensures fit for purpose services are created on top of a well designed platform. 

SOA is also key to the development of few of the other technologies in Gartner's Top 10.  Cloud Computing and Enterprise Mashups have been made possible by the technical concepts of SOA.  WOA will invariably make the adoption mashups and the cloud in the enterprise easier due to web standards...but only if the business has been prepared for their arrival.

So to answer my question; SOA is not dead. If it goes we lose SaaS, The Cloud, Mashups and WOA along with it all of which have a bright future ahead of them.