SOPERA: Beyond the SOA Soap Opera

I'm not the biggest fan of the SOA idea, which I find rather modish and ripe for being replaced by the next buzzword du jour, but I can hardly disagree with the second part of this statement:

„SOA und Open Source sind zwei der wichtigsten Trends in der IT. Die Verbindung von beiden bringt Unternehmen mehr Flexibilität bei geringeren Kosten“, sagt Ricco Deutscher.

["SOA and open source are two of the most important trends in IT. Bringing them together offers businesses more flexibility for lower costs," says Ricco Deutscher.]

Herr Deutscher is the CEO of the new company Sopera GmbH, which has just done something rather fine:

Deutsche Post World Net places SOA platform with Eclipse

IT service provider SOPERA will drive forward development of the platform at Eclipse

Bonn, 15 May 2007: After already announcing in April that it plans to make its SOA platform also available to other companies by the end of the year, Deutsche Post World Net has now secured a key basis for development with the Eclipse Foundation .

...

Deutsche Post’s IT service provider, SOPERA GmbH, will play a leading role in further development of the platform as a board member of the Eclipse Foundation. SOPERA managing director Dr. Ricco Deutscher describes the development perspectives: “It’s all about establishing an open-source, modular and standard-based SOA platform as part of a future open source stack.

This is good news for everyone, and emphasises how pivotal Eclipse is becoming - not just for open source, but computing in general. (Via James Governor's Monkchips.)