As businesses trudge toward installing service-oriented architectures (SOA) to serve as their information technology platforms, they're keeping up with more rapid business change by using composite applications as a halfway point toward adopting SOAs, according to the results of a benchmark survey by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company.

Composite applications contain logic and data collected from multiple IT sources and harnessed with web services standards such as XML, SOAP, and WS-*. They can be built and implemented even if the organization has yet to fully develop an SOA.

The survey found that most companies that build and deploy these applications are seeing higher satisfaction among end users. A substantial number of leading, or what Aberdeen calls "best-in-class," companies cite lower costs and quick business reaction to competitive pressures as chief benefits from these applications.

The survey results can be found in a new Aberdeen report, "The Composite Applications Benchmark Report."

"The business focus for any organization should be on optimizing the processes that make it unique, such as customer satisfaction, service delivery, low-cost supply, and fast delivery," said Peter S. Kastner, vice president of Aberdeen's Enterprise Technology research practice and primary author of the report. "Our research found that companies are targeting web-based applications first -- specifically portals and browser-based applications -- when they're looking to build composite applications."

"The Composite Applications Benchmark Report" is underwritten by the following sponsors: iTKO Inc. and Nexaweb Technologies Inc. For a complimentary copy of this report, please visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=3716.