Amazon delivers web services to the masses
Amazon, the online retail giant, has launched a series of web services that allow its partner sites to offer the full range of...
Amazon web services offers developers and website operators a free, comprehensive toolset, based on XML or Soap (Simple Object Access Protocol) industry standard protocols.
The service was first launched in the US in July 2002 and Colin Bryar, Amazon’s director for Associates & Web Services said, “Since then, thousands of developers have used Amazon Web Services to create innovative applications on top of the Amazon platform."
The initiative puts Amazon among the leaders of the web services trend, which George Colony, the founder and chief executive officer of analyst group Forrester Research, this week said would revolutionise the economy.
Colony, speaking at the ICT World Forum, a conference preceding the CeBIT technology tradeshow in Hanover, said, "Web services are not the web and not services, but internet middleware enabling you to link to customers, partners and operating groups."
Box was one of the authors of the original Soap (Simple Object Access Protocol) specification in 1998 to stop developing specifications and start delivering applications.
The software industry has become so fixated on new specifications that it has lost sight of the fundamental goal - using XML to link software applications together.