Perspective on Web Services

Another article on Web Services, this time by a credible source as Eric Newcomer (CTO at IONA). Eric discusses the evolution of Web Services and the roadblocks to a standardized world of Web Services. He writes:

..today we sit at a fork in the road of Web services evolution. There are two paths that the industry can take, with each path leading to a distinct and different future. One road leads to a truly standardized world where corporations fully reap the benefits of Web services by untangling the "spaghetti mess" of IT systems. The second road leads back to yesteryear, where proprietary systems ruled the day, maximizing vendor service and maintenance revenue, and killing end-user flexibility and return on investment.

Accepting that we have the core standards (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI) in place, standardized and accepted by almost everyone, he says that the fight has reached the next level and this is where Security, transactions, reliable messaging and orchestration comes.

True, This is what is hampering the adoption and deployment of web services. Security is the primary concern but we've got a good start with WS-Security specification (and other related specs) but Orchestration and Messaging involves lots of players (few unheard of before) and quite diverse ones two. It would be interesting to see the tug of war between the Vendors and the standards bodies and hopefully we will have universally accepted standards for these also.