In the business world the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield
-Warren Buffett

.NET vs J2EE
December 2004 column in SD Times, Allen Holub, a Java expert and one of its staunchest defenders, questioned the relevance of the JCP, saying, "Just look at created-by-committee junk like EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans Technology) and JSF (JavaServer Faces). I personally believe that EJB has been responsible for the failure of more companies than almost any other single technology. EJB is too expensive at every level."
(extract taken from https://partner.microsoft.com/global/40009708)

TOP STORY
Adobe agreed to buy Macromedia for $3.4 billion in stock, in a deal that would create a software company with broad ability to distribute media to PCs, cellphones and hand-held devices.

Acquisitions are on the rise and the order of the day is to acquire your competitor and get his market share. Though the compaq taker over was not very successful for HP.. it was due to the fact that the products of the merger was not strategically aligned by HP. Whereas Macromedia take over appears to be promising for Adobe. In time we will know.

Courage is worth nothing if the gods withhold their aid
-Euripides

Answers of life:

Life gives Answers in Three ways,
It says YES and gives Whatever u Want,
It says NO and gives u Something Better
It says Wait and gives u the Best

There are two primary components to IT... the design/development of services, and the opertaion/delivery of services.
"Business - IT Development" alignment is driven by business requirements (functional, service level, cost, time-to-market, etc). SOA isn't a "requirement", but a technique that helps IT achieve the desires of the business to support their business processes.
"Business/IT Operations" alignment is properly performed as defined by ITSM/ITIL Best Practices, and as illustrated in my graphic below. Business and IT need to work as a intimate partnership to define, implement, deliver, and continually refine an optimized Service Portfolio at contracted service levels and an established and predictable cost point. Again, SOA is simply a technique that helps IT achieve operational excellence.
All other functions are internal to IT. The fact that requirements are fleshed out in an Agile fashion and constructed/deployed using a SOA strategy is meaningless to the Business Unit. They simply want IT to build the capability they need, adjust it when asked, and deliver it as expected.

John Crupi - CTO of Sun's Enterprise (On SOA)
"[W]e cannot do SOA without a mutual effort between IT and the BU. Gone are the days of throwing the requirements over the fence and hoping it hits. Not only do these two groups have to work together, they have distinct roles and responsibilities. Basically, the BU runs the show and owns the business drivers, use-cases and processes. IT implements the BU requirements and owns the service definitions. It's unfortunate that we really do have to refer to this as a "shift", because we should be doing this anyway. But, the reality is that IT and BU typical function as disparate groups and rarely work together to have the business use-cases drive the process and service definition."

John Evdemon made two points on SOA relevant to this issue several months ago:
SOA does not enable or ensure the alignment of IT and business. The IT industry has been promising this for decades – there is no silver bullet for aligning IT and business. Alignment of IT and business is an organizational issue that will not be resolved by an architectural design philosophy alone.
Service Orientation will happen in your organization in one of two possible ways: chaotically (typical approach) or in a disciplined manner. The path your organization takes (and the cost of later fixing that path) is up to you.