Entering the SOA and BPM debate

Plenty of blogs and mainstream press these days are focussing on SOA (service orientated architecture) and in the business process management world there is lots of debate about are SOA and BPM the same thing? Is one a subset of the other? How do they interplay?

I'm a simple old soul really and perhaps not sufficiently learned about the various, and assuredly complex, layers in all of this however as I see it:

SOA serves the IT community and BPM serves the business community.

My thoughts are guided more along the lines of where the budget holder and project sponsor is than affinity to any church on this.

If the dollars and sense are in the IT division then there is a reasonable likelyhood that SOA will get the nod - it comes with lots of techno-speak that sufficiently disguises it as a complex and IT-driven dark art.

If the champions are from the business then BPM may be more involved in the outcome as the push comes from the outside in and the business will most likely be focussed on costly customer-driven interactions and processes and looking for tangible ways to salve those pains.

If there are drivers at both ends then I think there is a comfortable place in the middle where they intersect with a common goal of driving efficiencies and improvements in service delivery for all parties.