SOA ROI is a hotly debated topic, with some claiming that an ROI cannot be determined:

“Can You Assign an ROI to SOA? Not so much.” (Ann All)
“ROI doesn’t apply to SOA” (Joe McKendrick)

That last posted generated some discussion which led Joe to post a follow-up entry: “SOA is not above ROI scrutiny, but…” I was a bit disappointed with his first post, but I agree with several of the thoughts that Joe expresses in this latest entry. Determining an ROI for an individual SOA initiative or even an entire SOA strategy is difficult, but it cannot be above scrutiny.

A few weeks back, a client requested a detailed analysis of ROI calculation models for SOA. After putting together the tailored analysis for the client, I decided to leverage the research that I did into SOA ROI calculation and pull together a white paper on the subject: “SOA ROI, Deconstructed”. I hope that the community finds it to be valuable.