Enterprise Architecture currently and mostly equals IT. With a growing emphasis on business architecture, a question was raised in various fora: how to differentiate it from the existing EA profession and practitioners which mainly deliver IT architecture but promise the goods of, at least, a business architecture. As expectations are not met, the image of EA is tarnished.
IT does its best to provide an IT EA, given the fact that there is no business picture the IT systems can be aligned to. For IT, the business architecture is a departure from the IT job description.
The existing EA IT architects are keen though to move into the business architecture space. And that is not too difficult as long as there is demand, there is no specific body of BA knowledge and no selection criteria for a business architect. I've already seen ads for business architects requiring TOGAF certification, which is essentially IT. Many EArchitects are claiming the business domain by throwing around a few notions like capabilities, process and strategy.

The issue is that the rather new breed of Business Architects would like to differentiate themselves and call themselves otherwise from the existing EA (IT) architects and the current not quite flattering EA image which did not deliver on its promise, lessening its credibility.

But IT architecture is a part of Enterprise Architecture. So are the organization or people and the non-IT technology architecture, seldom covered today, if at all.
The business architecture is the top layer of the stack, as we know, and most important because it shapes them all. Without a business architecture current EA (IT) attempts fail because the IT systems picture does not convey the structure or operation of the Enterprise.

To me, the EA name is relevant. The EA must be seen in its whole, including business, IT, organization... If we change the name of Enterprise Business Architecture to anything new, and leave the EA name to IT, we severe the link to the complete EA framework and we create competition with the EA architects from the IT space attempting to cover the whole EA.

I don't think we need a new name for EA. We just need to qualify the architect title with the EA domain we work in, emphasize the specializations (Enterprise Business/Applications/Infrastructure... architect and also the generalist EArchitect or the Chief EArchitect, covering it all).

But how can one stop the flood of imposture without a decent body of knowledge and selection criteria for an EA business architect (or even for an Enterprise IT architect)? No matter the name, the profession can be easily hijacked. I don't think certfication for the current frameworks is an answer, as many new organizations appear to propose, for the simple reason that certification has to be done against a body of knowledge.
The business architecture body of knowledge is scattered and architecture is not a term in the business vocabulary. Without an agreed framework, the BA will fail to produce the goods.
The E Business Architecture is also claimed by the BPM domain.

To defeat the current skepticim about EA, we have to produce though the overall Enterprise architecture so that the technology and organization align to business operation. For that we have to define what business architecture is, what are its artefacts...
Adrian on EA
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ea-matters/

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