Half Brain Half Biscuit

IBM's acquisition of AlphaBlox/HalfBrain has prompted a fight between Barry Briggs and Phil Wainewright about fat/thin clients, with additional comments from Eric Newcomer (Iona).

• Applications with Half a Brain
• Rich clients, network wealth
• Thick or Poor?
• It's the mobile device, not the server

I can remember similar fights ever since the good ol' days of client/server. And in the past some IT bosses have taken public stands one way or the other.

But the point about SOA is adaptability. Architectural designs must be structured to leave open those things we are uncertain about. Which means that since we are uncertain about the tactical advantages of client/server in the future, we simply define the required services without binding them to the specific location. Then in principle the fatness of the client can be changed at whim, perhaps even shifted dynamically halfway through an operation according to some network load policies.

In a previous post, I wrote about the implications of this for mobile computing.

You'll notice that Bill and Scott don't fight about this anymore. They obviously understand SOA and its implications.