New Book Review: "The Service-Oriented Enterprise"

New book review for The Service-Oriented Enterprise: Enterprise Architecture and Viable Services, by Tom S. Graves, Tetradian Books, 2009:

At the outset, Graves explains that "everything in the enterprise is a service. Everything the enterprise does is a service. Everything the enterprise delivers is a service – even products are services, in a sense. And the enterprise itself is a service. Everything is a service. That's the key idea behind the service-oriented enterprise: a view of the enterprise in which everything is seen in terms of services and their interactions and interdependencies, providing consistency and simplicity everywhere, and creating new space for agility and innovation in the enterprise." It is important for the potential reader to understand the definitions that the author explains along the way within this text, because like his earlier work, "Real Enterprise Architecture: Beyond IT to the Whole Enterprise" (see my review), he provides his own interpretation of industry terms, most of which add value to his discussions. And unlike some other enterprise architecture texts (within the space of which few are currently available in the marketplace), these interpretations are based on the author's personal experience in the field. In explaining his goal for this book, the author mentions that "although there's a fair amount of theory, the keyword here is practice: the aim is to give you something that you can use".