Report authors Brad Bass and Mary Tobin estimated the U.S. government spends about $36 billion each year to maintain legacy systems. The authors arrived at the figure by applying the estimated 46 percent of budgets respondents said are devoted to maintenance.

The report concludes that federal agencies should utilize a service oriented architecture to "incrementally modernize, emphasizing reuse and not technology, developing shared services where sharing is valuable and agreed upon by the participants.”

In fact, failing to modernize could have dire consequences, according to the respondents. Eighty percent said mission-critical government functions could be impacted if systems aren't modernized.

According to a recent ZDNet report, companies and organizations should adopt SOA because it "adapts to economic realities." When companies are faced with change, as the federal government is with IT consolidation, SOA will increase the adaptability required to gain a competitive edge, the report states.