Interesting article on bpm.com about Business-Oriented Architecture by Rod Favaron. In it he talks about how business-orientation is what makes BPM different from services-oriented architecture (SOA). For a business person, the chief value of a SOA is that it removes the need to understand the complex application infrastructure of the company today; this simplifies the conversation – and returns the discussion of process improvement to a business orientation. BPM also provides a set of tools for business users; tools focused on business improvement, not service implementation and management. The ability to quickly and flexibly define end-to-end processes, identify performance goals and then manage to those goals is what sets BPM apart from technology-based tools. Read more about it here