SOA before the revolution

Over the winter of 2000-2001 I was consulting at a Portugeuse mobile operator, helping them define their service platform for their next generation launch. They were a new entrant into the market, and our team came up with a transactional portal for them.

However this wasn't like any other portal - it was a collection of hosted and third party web service connected components, managed by a directory, linked by a business process XML workflow language, and with an XML presentation layer to deliver a contextual UI to any of a range of devices - from desktop PCs to phones to interactive TV.

It was everything that we'd call an SOA today.

The client never built the system, opting for the tried and tested walled garden approach. I wrote up the work we'd done as a chapter for a book on mobile commerce. Which was never published. So to help you all see where I come from I'll be posting the piece here.