No one can predict the future of Enterprise Architecture, not the authors of this book, not IT consultants, and not IT industry analysts. However, some interesting trends are emerging around the discipline. Enterprise Architecture has a long history of being viewed as too technical, too theoretical, or too slow to react to changes in the business environment. More recently, however, and partially because of the commitment to using facts as the basis for recommendation, EA is being used to help set strategic direction. It is being used not only for setting IT direction, but for helping to set business direction as well.
We have seen in this book how to create a place where everyone in the company can go to find facts. The EA repository is that place where facts exist. The EA function within the company may not even be called EA in the future. Yes, there will likely be IT Architecture and it may exist within the IT area. However, true Enterprise Architecture is more likely...