Just been to a seminar in London on Web Services and the Financial Sector, interesting presentation which I'm sure wasn't aimed at someone as techie as myself. It shows that the strategy some companies are now adopting are along the lines of "We'll never persuade these companies to rewrite all their mainframe stuff into funky new containers, so lets create a marketplace out of writing adaptors/connectors into the legacy"
Ok,so it's not a particularly new strategy, but the energy and vigour in this seminar was apparent (at least from the presenters), and for some reason wrapping it all up in bulky SOAP packets was the right answer for speed and security. I remain sceptical of their claims, but admire the push for standards adoption. Trouble with standards is there are so many and these guys seemed to think that the few they were focusing on would eliminate everyones problems. I've been in the business long enough to see that, admirable and energetic as they are, the problem is still being moved around, but not yet tackled.
However the food was good, and the venue was excellent, the presentations well aimed and focused, and I might even look at the vendors products...
nice venue (I'm sure 'Trust' was filmed here)