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QCon London 2007: SOA Track

Stefan Tilkov,

So we’ve finished the SOA track here at QCon — and at least from my perspective as a track host, it went extremely well. (Never mind that right now Martin Fowler and Dan North are making fun of some of the session titles :-) Miko Matsumura and I did the track intro together, and I think we did a decent job (especially considering we actually met for the first time 15 minutes before our presentation). Anne Thomas Manes gave a very good talk, especially addressing the question of how to “sell” SOA to management. Paul Downey was excellent, too — his very visual presentation made a great case for the Web as a service platform. Steve Jones had a very different focus, dismissing technology and focussing on the business side, another great talk. Paul Fremantle talked about a lot of different things, but also addressed the REST-vs.-WS-* issue, and it’s very obvious that he knows what he’s talking about (even though I don’t happen to agree with him). Jim Webber’s talk was a great (and very funny) conclusion — if I’m not wearing my RESTafarian hat, Jim’s views are very much in line with my personal beliefs.

All in all, I think all of the speakers have exceeded my already high expectations — and it’s been great to meet so many people I’ve known only virtually before in person. I also managed to interview all of the speakers for InfoQ (except for the one with Paul Downey, which I plan to do tomorrow), and all of the presentations have been videotaped, too — a lot of excellent content to look forward to.