A market analyst, asked about the big trends at this year's CeBit computer industry trade fair in Hanover, Germany, replies: "Lots of buzz words." True enough. And one of the words (or phrases) buzzing loudest was "service-oriented architecture," or SOA.

The term has been around for several years, but this year the business software concept—which refers to applications that are chopped up into LEGO-like modules and delivered over networks to desktop PCs—seems to have reached critical mass.

German software maker SAP, which began working on SOA in 2003, reports a surge in new customers for SOA products and services in recent months. Peter Ryan, senior vice-president at Sun Microsystems in charge of sales for Europe, agrees: "I think it's here. Lots of people are making huge bets on it in their R&D labs."