A half-dozen industry executives will chew that one over Friday at Western Michigan University.

"We are all trying to catch something which probably isn't really new. However, it is a notion that will deeply affect everyone's thinking," said Bernard Han, chair of the business information systems department at WMU's Haworth College of Business.

Even the experts admit service-oriented architecture, or SOA, is a squishy concept. At its most basic level, SOA is touted to simplify I.T. support across different platforms by breaking up solutions into modular units, typically accessible via the Internet.