Living through the ESB and the SOA buzz I am acutely aware of the tyranny of the buzzword - Do you have an ESB? What is your SOA strategy? My ESB is better than your ESB! Mr. Customer you need an SOA! - and I lost sleep about the implications of the relentless hype on our customers.

My response always is - "Ms. Customer you dont need a [insert your favorite TLA here]! You need to address your business challenges. And you want to be able to exploit new and emerging business opportunities". 

That is it! That is the bottomline. The rest is gravy.

It is our responsibility as architects to look beyond the hype and both recognize and exploit those ideas and capabilities that will help us address our business challenges; and help us exploit new business opportunities.