IONA launched their new IONA Repository product today. SearchWebServices.com covered the news story. Unfortunately for SearchWebServices and IONA the article's quotes from analysts were pretty far off the mark. Consider these:

"However, analysts say that the main differentiator for the Iona entrant into the registry/repository game is that it is the newest entry in a somewhat crowded field..."

"Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst with ZapThink LLC., said: "What's most unique about the Iona reg/rep is that it's at version 1.0, while HP Systinet Registry, webMethods Infravio X-Registry and LogicLibrary Logidex are now all quite mature products. Even the IBM WebSphere Service Registry/Repository, a relative latecomer, has been on the market longer."

"However, the analysts are somewhat skeptical that the new product will go beyond being of value to existing Iona Artix customers, at least in version 1.0."

For a news story about a new product launch in an emerging market, the skepticism that comes across is unwarranted. For instance, how many businesses do you know that are actually using an SOA registry or repository in production? Further, how many of these are delivering business value in the form of cost savings or time-to-market advantages today? I don't know of any.

The market for SOA Registry/Responsitory products is emerging and the industry and media should take a chill-pill on skepticism.

For Artix customers, the addition of a means to govern the services they build and deploy makes operating an SOA environment better. How? I don't know for now but I have my opinions. I am willing to bet money that...

1) Software developers will eventually turn to repositories more than version control systems to learn the existance and use cases for a set of services.

2) CIOs will turn to a dashboard to see the score-card on how well the IT infrastructure is able to deliver services against an SLA.

3) Sites like Freshmeat.net and sourceforge.net will become repositories.

I commend IONA for shipping the IONA Registry. I hope it does very well in the marketplace, the emerging one.

-Frank