With the rapid growth in interest in customer data integration (CDI) applications and service oriented architectures (SOAs), many vendors have rushed to define their solutions as customer data integration (CDI), service-oriented applications. One of the key points of difference is each vendor’s definition of business service. This is a critical point for customers to understand, because the primary functionality and interface into a CDI application are its business services.

This paper will define different vendor approaches to developing business services and the relative cost implications of each approach for the customer.