Service Oriented Architectures allow computer services to communicate using any platform or operating system. Because different components are independent and perform specific business functions, it is much easier to share information and complete electronic transactions between different organisations.

At the first ever London event of the SOA Leaders Council - attended by 53 experts and interested parties - the benefits of service orientated architectures were clearly outlined. In his presentation, Massimo Pezzini, Vice President, Gartner Research cited among the advantages: easier architectural partitioning, more diverse life cycles of technology, greater synergy of different technologies and improved documentation.

Massimo Pezzini also pointed to greater maintainability of technology and ease of implementation outsourcing or offshoring arrangements. But he warned of an impending skills shortage to put this into action with just 25 percent of large organisations having the technical and organisational skills to deliver enterprise-wide SOA by 2010.

Simon Bennett of the European pharmaceutical distribution company, Celesio, outlined his personal view of the event and of the future of SOA: "For us, the opportunity to hear about other companies' SOA initiatives was very important. We believe that we're reasonably advanced in our thinking about and practice of SOA, but there are still open issues, particularly in the area of registry and repository use and the management of services. Hearing what other companies are doing is useful, but it's the informal talks with other systems architects who are in a similar position to us that are really valuable - especially, when they may be ahead of us in some ways and behind us in others."

Ian Southward, Director of Business Development of global application development company, ThoughtWorks agreed: "ThoughtWorks recognises that SOA is about changing the way elements of a business interact and that there is no technological silver bullet. The SOA Leaders Council is a great opportunity for like-minded technologists to get together and discuss the practical implications of implementing SOA. These events really focus on the relationships between business strategy and architectural decisions and their impact on funding, ownership and governance to help businesses derive the most value from SOA adoption. SOA means so many things to so many different people; we feel that the SOA Leaders Council will help to navigate the ambiguity to deliver sustainable, flexible SOA implementations that will serve their businesses well.”