Pros and cons
Short implementations offer potentially huge cost savings, but changing technology makes it difficult to commit, says Michael F. Reed of TechnologyEvaluation.com. It's too soon to jump into .Net, and SOAP and UDDI are still immature.
Too early to commit
Web services are one of the most perplexing technologies of the year. Many IT managers understand that Web services can improve their infrastructure, increase return on investment, and decrease deployment time, but they are afraid to commit because the market is too young and don't know which vendor to trust.
The bad and the good:
- Con: The vendors are changing. Major players in this area include Sun Microsystems (Java), Microsoft (.Net initiative), IBM, iPlanet, and niche players such as SAP, which announced its own Web services at Sapphire '01 in June. Customers have trouble separating fact from fluff, which makes it difficult to commit.
- Con: The technologies are in flux. Java technology is mature and well accepted. IBM uses Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Microsoft has come out with the .Net architecture, which is immature but may hold promise. Even though it doesn't quite exist yet, many managers are adopting a wait-and-see attitude towards .Net so that they cannot be accused of choosing unwisely. Additional confusion is added by the immaturity of technologies such as SOAP and UDDI.
- Pro: The potential for cost savings with an out-of-box solution can be huge. After some of the major implementation debacles of the last few years, most companies understand the value of a short implementation time. If they can purchase a product that promises quick returns and a lower IT investment, they have a hard time ignoring it.
