Microsoft, Sun propel Web services
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Microsoft and Sun last week tried to chip away some of the hype from Web services by laying out how and when they plan to deliver actual tools and infrastructure components for taking advantage of the latest advance in application technology.
But experts still say Web services, which are designed to let customers create and use applications by stitching together software components on the fly, are probably at least a year away from having any major impact on enterprise network users.
"You can talk about the hype and come up with examples of the technology, but what they have to do first is arm developers who can start building Web services that are real," says Evan Quinn, an analyst with Hurwitz Group.
Indeed, Microsoft, at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, distributed the final beta-test versions on two foundation components of its .Net strategy for building and executing Web services.
The foundation components are Visual Studio.Net and the .Net framework, both of which Microsoft hopes to ship by year-end. Visual Studio.Net is the development suite for building Web services that use a set of standard protocols based on XML, including the Simple Object Access Protocol and the Web Services Description Language.
The .Net framework is the run-time environment for executing Web services built using Visual Studio.Net. The framework also supports applications written in any one of 26 development languages.
"We use the framework and Web services to integrate systems on the manufacturing side of our business," says Fred Durham, CEO of CafePress.com, which maintains 200,000 individual online storefronts and prints original logos and artwork on T-shirts offered through those storefronts. "We were on Java, but we were cobbling things together so we needed a framework to operate within. We looked at WebLogic and others, but .Net solved our database driver and caching needs."
What about Sun?
While Microsoft entertained 7,000 developers, Sun held a one-day summit up the road in Santa Clara to unveil components of its SunOne architecture, a competing platform to .Net.
The most significant development was that Sun made available its SunOne Starter Kit, which includes all the infrastructure products and tools needed to build and run Web services, or what it calls Services on Demand. The kit includes Forte for Java 3.0, a development tool; the iPlanet Application, Web, Portal, Directory and Unified Development Servers; and the latest Java Software Development Kit.
"Sun hasn't shown a lot of integration," says Gary Hein, an analyst with The Burton Group. "They are taking a page from .Net and trying to put together an infrastructure that is integrated and not cobbled together."
Sun also unveiled an Instant Collaboration Pack focused around instant messaging for the iPlanet Portal Server, standards support around Java APIs for XML, and a set of consulting services.
The rollout was just the first phase of a two-year, three-phase attack. The second phase next year deals with creating Services on Demand for use within a corporation, while the third phase focuses on integrating publicly available Services on Demand.
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