The contention made in this article is that ontologies are pivotal to several seemingly disparate technical endeavours that are currently emergent and have had more or less publicity. These include Event Driven Architecture (EDA), Complex Event Processing (CEP), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Master Data Management (MDM), which are supported by specific ontological initiatives most notably the Semantic Web, which is further leveraged by Model Driven Architecture (MDA). Furthermore how these efforts are all dependent on the adherence to common standards. These endeavours, and their complementary interrelationships, and specifically their relationship to ontology, are explored in more detail below.