There are a bunch of things about Linthicum's book that I like, but the top two are (1) that he addresses the question of business value of cloud computing head on in chapter 4, and (2) that he has a data-centric or data-first approach. From my perspective, the lack of focus on these two areas are the biggest reasons why many organizations, even after 5-10 years of applying SOA concepts, are still in the "trough of disillusionment". Cloud computing is a natural extension of SOA and if we want to avoid the trough and move directly to the "plateau of productivity", these two aspects should be top priorities.



I applaud David for tackling the issue of articulating the business value of esoteric concepts such as IT clouds (at least they might seem to be so from a non-techie perspective). If we can't don't do this, then IT really doesn't matter (as per Nicholas Carr). Furthermore, SOA always was about data - but it seems like pretty much everyone has been focusing on the "service" or "architecture" aspects and forgot that at the heart of information systems is information. Clouds have the same issues so I for one am thankful that David is helping to fuel the thinking that we need to deal with the data issues first and foremost.