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IBM advances Web services
strategy IBM announced Wednesday the
next phase of its Web services game plan. Big Blue is shipping a new
version of its WebSphere
application server--fortified with support for the leading Web services
protocols and standards--that it plans to make available to developers for free.
As the battle for developer
mind share in the Web services market is heating up, each of the major software
companies is attempting to play to its strength. In IBM's case, that means its
middleware Internet infrastructure software and related development tools. "This is the first
application server to deliver all of the major Web services" in a single
package, said Scott Hebner, IBM director of marketing for WebSphere software.
"It is an investment we're making to get the developers the platform
sooner." Giga Information Group
analyst Mike Gilpin agreed with Hebner's assessment. "IBM is really the
first to (make generally available) tools like these that are needed for Web
services to take off," Gilpin said. Gilpin added that widely
available tools, such as those in IBM's WebSphere Technology for Developers
release, will likely take the pain and expense out of hand-coded Web services.
Most existing payment, insurance and travel Web services have been built by hand
from scratch, Gilpin said. WebSphere Technology for
Developers includes built-in support for XML (Extensible Markup Language); UDDI
(Universal Description and Discovery Integration) standard; SOAP (Simple Object
Access Protocol); WSDL (Web Services Description Language); and J2EE (Java 2
Enterprise Edition) technology. XML
is the new lingua franca of the Web, designed to make sharing data easier. UDDI
acts like a Yellow Pages for Web services by exposing them and helping
developers to locate them. SOAP is an emerging standard for distributed
computing interoperability. WSDL is an XML format aimed at improving Web
services messaging-interoperability technology. And J2EE is a standard
technology for developing and launching enterprise applications.
To obtain a free copy of WebSphere Technology for Developers,
a developer must be "referred" to IBM as a potential WebSphere
customer by either an IBM salesperson or an IBM partner. Developers can contact
IBM for a referral. IBM announced the WebSphere
release in conjunction with its weeklong WebSphere 2001 trade show in Las Vegas.
IBM also announced on Wednesday availability of a version of its WebSphere
Internet infrastructure software that has been written to run on its eServer
z900 and OS/390 mainframes. All of the leading tech
vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems, are
pushing their own technologies as the premier vehicles for individuals and
companies interested in writing and running Web services. IBM does not have an
umbrella term, such as Microsoft's .Net or Sun's Sun ONE, that it uses to
describe its Web services initiative. But the company is emphasizing its
middleware and development tools as the crux of its Web services development
business. Microsoft, for its part, is
building Microsoft.Net software-as-a-service technologies into its development
tools, operating systems and applications. The company also is repackaging its
Web-based applications--such as its Hotmail e-mail service, Passport Internet
authentication technology and MSN Messenger instant messaging client--as
horizontal Web services building blocks code-named Hailstorm.
Microsoft is expected to announce Hailstorm on March 19. As companies such as
Microsoft, IBM and others manage to get Web services development tools more
widely circulated, one possible new danger could emerge, Giga's Gilpin said. "It's going to be
easier to screw up and write bad services," he cautioned. "But that's
true whenever you first get a set of new tools widely into the hands of
developers."
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