Application Renovation: Calling Vendors’ Bluff

In 2007, insurers interested in service-oriented architectures (SOA) and core system renovation will force application vendors and system integrators to either increase their ante or fold their cards in the current high-stakes game of insurance application renovation. Many vendors and systems integrators have used the industry's interest in SOA as the latest buzzword to sell existing software or drive architecture feasibility road map studies, but insurers are calling that bluff and demanding actual results.

Many insurers have bought into SOA as the means to deploy rational, heterogeneous application architectures and expect the technology industry to begin delivering on that promise. In the coming year, insurers will have a much more clearly defined vision of what SOA is, and will expect vendors and consultants to have comprehensive frameworks to deal with both new application deployments and legacy system integration and life extension.