Web services are the future of IT and can deliver cost
savings within months. That was the message from Mike Thompson,
principal research analyst at Butler Group.
Speaking at the IT Director's Forum, Thompson said that although
web services had been over-hyped, they would become a "fact of
life" for IT departments.
Web services are currently used primarily for internal
communication within companies, but will begin to replace the
supply chain data exchange standard EDI over the next few years,
and by 2010 will underpin external online services for customers,
Thompson predicted.
"Web services will become a fact of life," he said. "[Web services]
are to do with the whole ethos of your business and they can give
you the ability to rethink your business."
Benefits of web services technology - defined by Thompson as making
IT systems talk to each other using internet data exchange standard
XML - include making business processes in the supply chain run
more efficiently by getting functions on demand and being able to
modify systems to reflect changes to industry and government
regulations.
To develop web services, businesses need to map out their IT
systems and business functions and break down the elements within a
software application into separate components
Although the initial review can be time consuming, Thompson added
that it could help cut running costs within three months because
the business is more aware of its IT infrastructure and business
processes.
The easy-to-use components of web services technology will also
play a key role in supporting utility services which allow users to
share computing resources, said Thompson.
Microsoft was one of the first suppliers to launch web services,
under its .net technology. Microsoft's web services tool includes
Visual Studio .net, an alternative to Java-based web services.
Microsoft is in discussions with IBM about agreeing a common
standard for web services.