The new definition of innovation in the enterprise is how easily someone can connect disparate sources of information to reveal some greater truth or streamline some operation.

That question seems to be at the heart of every new service oriented architecture (SOA) coming out of IBM these days. Most recently, the company updated the IBM Mashup Center software for creating composite applications on the fly while also releasing a new version of its MQ messaging software that adds enhanced support for a publish-and-subscribe approach to integrating applications in addition to the Java Message Service.

Those announcements come on the heels on a recently introduced Business Space tool for the desktop that makes it easier for users to connect the dots between various business processes. The tool basically makes it easier to not only see business processes, but then also invoke some of the needed mashup technologies required to link various processes together.

What all this means is that IBM, once renown for developing some of the most complicated products in the market, has really embraced the whole concept of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise. This is significant because instead of talking about business process integration from the perspective of a very expensive consultant from IBM Global Services, IBM is trying to democratize the creation of composite applications in the enterprise.

That approach can add more value than any combination of new technology advancement because the problem with corporate computing today is not the technology per se. Rather, it's the simple fact that most of the technology in place is inaccessible to the average IT or business professional.

By embracing many of the concepts commonly found in business-to-consumer applications on the Web, IBM is saying to customers that the same level of data management flexibility should be inherent in all business-to-business applications.

Unfortunately, all the focus on SOA over the last 10 years or more has not resulted in as much progress as it should have. Most IT organizations are still taking an evolutionary approach to SOA and many are frustrated by the associated complexity.

That's why instead of taking a top-down approach to business process integration as personified by SOA, may be the time has come to unleash the pent up creativity inherent in a bottom-up approach. Clearly, the people working in the business unit have the most to gain from business process integration. By making it easier for them to unleash that creativity, IT organizations might accomplish more for their business in the next 18 months than they did in the last five years.

That doesn't mean IT organizations should stop working on SOA. But SOA is really a means to an end. And that end might be accomplished a lot faster by putting Web 2.0 technologies in the hands of users today while we continue to let the underlying application architecture evolve to support that.