Technology has always been about hope. As the pace of technological innovation has intensified over the past two decades, businesses have come to expect that the next new thing will inevitably bring them larger market opportunities and bigger profits. Software, a technology so invisible and obscure to most of us that it appears to work like magic, especially lends itself to this kind of open-ended hope.

... Management became accustomed to the idea that buying more computers and more software would continue to cut costs and improve operations. But there are limits, some of which are inherent in the nature of software itself.

The proposed fix for these problems — the next new thing — is service-oriented architecture.

The Lego dream has been a persistent favorite among a generation or more of programmers who grew up with those construction toys. Unfortunately, however, software does not work as Legos do.