I think there is so much rush to convict Microsoft now, without allowing any time for discovery, or public comment as the Tunney Act requires, partly to prevent a promising new Internet standard, SOAP, from being adopted, which will favor this standard over Sun Microsystems Java.
IBM's SOAP for Java could potentially become an Internet standard for linking Web-based software. The IBM software is based on XML, a Web standard for exchanging data. The product is a working version of a communication technology developed by IBM, Lotus Development, Microsoft and others.
June 1, 2000 "SOAP will succeed where other technologies have failed Gartner Viewpoint By Mark Driver
news.cnet.com
Interoperability and coexistence is a new Microsoft focus and is a cornerstone of its Distributed Internet Architecture 2000 and upcoming Next-Generation Web services architecture.
Microsoft has reasons to push SOAP. It is the companies first significant attempt to establish itself as a provider of enterprise data center technology within environments in which it must coexist with other platforms, such as MVS, AS/400 and Unix, instead of replacing them.
IBM has similar reasons to support SOAP. The vast majority of large IS organizations will have Microsoft as well as Java platform products.
Ironically, IBM has had considerable input into the evolution of many Java technology areas for some time. However, much of the credit and focus for those innovations has gone to Sun Microsystems.
"SOAP will succeed where Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) have failed because it is simple, Internet-friendly, based on XML and is implementation-independent. ?It is not a replacement for COM or Enterprise JavaBeans or even CORBA components--it is simply a wrapper technology to make those services more accessible over the Internet."
"SOAP will be the first real test of Sun's Java Community Process, as several vendors inevitably will push to include SOAP support directly within the core Java platform." It will be very interesting to see if the not-so-"benevolent dictator" permits it?. |
