Wednesday, June 13, 2001

Web Services Industry's Effect on Enterprises

Simple in nature and timely in their emergence, Web services will drive the next generation of software, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner analysts said Web services will serve as an attractive means through which enterprises can gain access to software and business services.

Through the second half of 2002, 75 percent of enterprises with greater than $100 million in revenue will interface periodically with Web services. Through the first half of 2003, 50 percent of enterprises with less than $100 million in revenue will interface periodically with Web services.

"Simplicity is both the Web services concept's promise and strength," said David Smith, vice president and research director for Gartner. "Businesses that ignore its potential, or decide to sit out its early stages will find themselves outpaced by rivals that take advantage of Web services to improve their agility and even to transform themselves into new kinds of enterprises."

Web services are software components that interact with one another dynamically and use standard Internet technologies, making it possible to build bridges between systems that otherwise would require extensive development efforts. One of the tenets of Web services is that systems can advertise the presence of business processes, information or tasks that can be consumed by other systems.

Web services seek to deliver the functionality generally demanded through software simply through linkage. Gartner analysts said such flexibility enables radical change, not only in the way software is delivered, but also in the expectations businesses will have of the software.

"Web services standards are simple - they require services to be able to find each other and be found, and to be able to talk to each other or to entities outside the Web services system," Smith said. "The challenge will come in vendors' ability to manage their competition simultaneously with their development of such standards."