More than 42 percent of the 680 businesses surveyed in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, indicated that they had no plans to embark on SOA projects within the next two years.

But it is not all bad news for SOA vendors, noted Patrick Chan, IDC's Asia-Pacific research director for emerging technologies IT services. According to Chan, businesses are now primarily concerned with reducing costs and improving profit margins.

"To drive SOA solutions in these organizations, vendors need to offer a 'right price with the right solution' approach in order to persuade these corporate end-users to include SOA in their future IT blueprint," he said.