From: tim finin ([email protected])
Date: 10/18/01
Here's a relevant artticle in the Post from today. Too bad it doesn't mention DAML+OIL or the semantic web, even though it does refer to software agents. Maybe we should write and send an overview article to "Web Services Journal" (http://www.sys-con.com/webservices/). Tim -- Web Services: High Stakes Amid The Hype By Leslie Walker, Washington Post WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 18 Oct 2001, 6:51 AM CST A new magazine practically jumped out at me the other day when I went into a Borders bookstore: Web Services Journal. Since when do Web services rate their own magazine? I thought they were still just a dream being chased by software vendors. But thumbing through other technology magazines this month, I noticed they, too, were dishing up stories about Web services. Despite vague explanations about what they are, Web services seem to be shaping up as the most hyped technology of the year -- and perhaps the least understood. Yet they are key to understanding the battle between Microsoft Corp. and AOL Time Warner Inc. to deliver online subscription services. Web services, you see, are the hoped-for byproduct of a new set of standards being developed for Internet software. These emerging software standards, with an alphabet soup of names (SOAP, UDDI and WDSL), supposedly will help programmers create smarter services online, in part by spawning software "agents" that will do work people now do manually by surfing to various Web sites. Microsoft released the first whiff of Web services last week when eBay, CNBC and Microsoft's MSN Carpoint site began offering custom electronic alerts for such things as auction bid updates, stock prices, traffic congestion and flight changes. The alerts, made possible by the new software standards, can be delivered to most e-mail addresses, cell phones, desktop computers and personal digital assistants. Microsoft named another 20 companies that are planning to adopt its alerts. Most people don't realize what a sea change the underlying new standards are for Internet computing, an industry that historically has resisted standards and relied on propriety programming languages that can't talk to one another. As a result, big businesses have for years had to hire legions of programmers to write special code to integrate their hodgepodge of programs for accounting, inventory and other functions. Now the grand idea is to make Internet software more interoperable by agreeing to common communication conventions that would allow disparate programs to snap together like Lego blocks. Microsoft bought into this vision and has given it greater credence by rewriting most of its own software to conform to the nascent Internet software standards. The company dubbed its little-understood suite of forthcoming software and services ".Net." But the movement is bigger than Microsoft. There is even a fledgling directory at Uddi.org that functions as a kind of Yellow Pages for Web services, allowing programmers to look up whatever program they need and get instructions on how to meld it into their own product. For example, I might create "Leslie's Daily Tech News" by using this directory to license software programs from various companies -- a billing system, say, from PayPal, access to a multi-device alert network from Microsoft, news photos from Agence France-Presse, a Web site builder from Yahoo. Voil�! All I would have to do is write the hourly news stories and I have an online service. There are plenty of skeptics who say the Internet's decentralized nature could prove hostile to complicated Web services delivered by different providers. "I think the idea of building interactive applications and running them across the public Internet is stretching its capabilities too far," said one prominent technology executive who didn't want to be publicly quoted as challenging Microsoft's vision. Another industry player, Ticketmaster chief executive John Pleasants, agreed the vision may be a tad ambitious, saying: "It's going to get soupier and uglier before it gets better, but in general I do believe we are headed in the right direction." Ticketmaster just rolled out a new "AOL Box Office" that integrates online ticket sales with the AOL service, and it plans a ticketing service that would let people order tickets as part of Microsoft's .Net services. Pleasants, though, conceded online integration between companies poses challenges. "What happens when you don't get your tickets you ordered . . . ? Microsoft is not going to want you to call them, they're going to want you to call us." While some developers are happy Microsoft has adopted the Internet's new standards, Sun Microsystems and other competitors are crying foul, contending that Microsoft is trying to hijack the standards by creating programming tools containing proprietary tricks that won't work with competitive products. The rivalry is so intense that Microsoft removed support for Java, Sun's programming language, from its new Windows XP operating system. Microsoft's foes seem angriest about its Internet identity system called Passport, which allows people to access participating Web sites by typing in a single user name and password. While the system has raised privacy alarms, Passport is crucial to Microsoft's larger strategy because .Net ultimately requires central identification to synchronize and personalize services from different providers. But competitors see Passport as a Trojan horse designed to turn the Internet into a cash register for Microsoft, making it easier for the company to collect fees for services it doesn't get a dime for today. And to the alarm of rivals, Passport is tightly integrated with Windows XP, which the company is officially releasing next week, along with a redesigned version of its flagship portal, MSN.com, and its Internet access software. All are cross-linked and compatible with the new .Net software standards. Whether the larger Web services movement can succeed remains to be seen, but most big Internet players can't afford to ignore it now that Microsoft has jumped in front. You can see an expanded Web guide to many sites referenced to the last few ".com" columns about how the Internet is responding to the war against terrorism by going to www.washingtonpost.com/walker. Leslie Walker's e-mail address is [email protected]. Reported by Washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com 06:51 CST Reposted 09:50 CST (20011018/WIRES ONLINE, TELECOM, BUSINESS/ATWORLD/PHOTO) � 2001 The Washington Post Company
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : 03/26/02 EST