Microsoft has made a critical (if not fatal) mistake of turning SOA into a developer initiative focused on standards-based interoperability. Their punchline is that SOA is about "connected business." Isn't that what B2B integration and XML is basically about? With this perspective, they've so minimized the meaning of SOA that they've disconnected themselves from the reality that is SOA today. Even the customers they trot out on their conference calls and in their events claim to have implemented SOA on Microsoft products, but when pressed admit that it's nothing more than Web services-based EAI.

What's most astounding is that focusing on the developer/integration value proposition is not in Microsoft's long term interest, nor is it in their competitive sweet spot. Microsoft excels when they focus on user empowerment. When they try to focus on enterprise integration aspects that make the technology hidden, they lose their competitive advantage.