Gartner's Web Services expert, Dion Wiggins, told a packed Gartner Symposium IT Expo in Sydney today that, while Web Services would be the dominant area of new information technology investment by 2004, information technology executives needed to act now to ensure they remained "in the game".
"Get in there now," Wiggins said."If you are doing something next year you are behind the game already. Do some simple projects to demonstrate business value."
He said the market for Web Services solutions, consisting of application integration, middleware and professional services, would grow to US$28 billion worldwide.
However, expect a backlash early next year as technological promises give way to realities, warned Wiggins. In 2003, companies would become disillusioned with the realities of Web services relative to the hype, and information technology managers would be forced to defend their investments in the area.
For this reason, Wiggins suggests companies implement simple Web Services projects to demonstrate the business value in the technology, as well as gain experience in the process ahead of more complex initiatives. "Even simple little projects will give you the understanding you need," he said.
"Perfect implementation is not going to happen for some time," added Wiggins. "As long as you're heading in the right direction you can make adjustments from time to time."
Web Services are not the 'Next Big Thing', according to Wiggins, but will be used to fulfil the broken promises of previous 'Next Big Things', such as distributed computing.
Web Services will create new business opportunities and give enterprising companies an advantage over rivals through the year 2004. After that they will become mainstream, so will not offer vendors long-term competitive advantages, according to Wiggins.
Just hilarious! Why wasn't this analyst told that his job's to lie, not blurt out the truth! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!