The IT Strategy Letter
May 9, 2003
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Bookwatch: Loosely Coupled--The Missing Pieces of Web Services is still new and therefore somewhat hard to find. (The official publication date isn't until August.) In some cases, vendors can't keep it in stock. (We like that case.) In other cases there are just gaps in the distribution infrastructure. Here are some tips as of today:
Review of the Week:
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CNET
Radio Direct on Web Services. For five days during the week
of May 19, CNET will deliver programs about web services via streaming
audio. They're looking for case studies. Tell 'em I sent you. |
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A Web Services Manifesto. Phil Windley gave this talk to "a bunch of Federal CIOs with a few people from state and local government thrown in."
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Web
Services Reference Collection. IBM's developerWorks website
has published a "reference collection" of 100 articles that cover
a full range of web services topics, including: what web services
are, why use web services, case studies, web service design, messaging/SOAP,
WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description
Discovery and Integration), SRP (Service Registry Proxy), security,
reliability, transactions, user interfaces, and more. [Source: LinuxDevices.com]
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Writing
Applications in PowerPoint? According to Carroll Pleasant
of web services early adopter Eastman Chemical, using development
tools from NextAxiom is
"the closest thing to a Powerpoint-to-VB compiler that you're ever
going to see." The quote comes from a good, detailed case
study by Eric Parizo at searchWebServices. [Source: Phil Wainewright]
Also from Phil... InfoPath and the Chasm. "But what Moore couldn't have forseen back in 1991--and Microsoft's present-day strategists haven't recognized--is that in today's networked world, a visionary doesn't need the existing infrastructure of a large enterprise to impose adoption...As Jon [Udell] notes, 'The most vibrant XML applications today are coming from the grassroots up.'" Some very interesting points in Phil's essay, although I don't
agree that the grass-roots phenomenon somehow invalidates Moore's
chasm concept. After all, Microsoft has rarely been an innovator
or early adopter themselves. The company almost always waits until
someone else invests in getting a new idea as close to the chasm
as possible. In the case of the Internet, Microsoft admits they
waited too long. It crossed the chasm without them. |
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Debuzzifying On Demand (OD). In the latest ZapFlash, Jason Bloomberg explains the pieces of OD, what the vendors are doing in the world of OD, and how OD is tied to service-oriented architectures. [Source: ZapThink]
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The
Digital ID Federation Myth. Erick Herring wrote back in
January, "The Digital ID federation concept sounds attractive, but
doesn't include the customers, whose voice and stake in the game
are like American Indians in post-Civil War America. Just because
the federation issues get ironed out doesn't mean they'll do us
any good." This has been my gripe with The Liberty Alliance (and
others) since publishing my original
essay last October. The Liberty Alliance specifications look
pretty good from a technical perspective. But I take issue that
the organization and its members are pitching this as a benefit
to consumers. That's pure spin, and I wish they'd admit it. Outside
the corporate firewall (i.e., when used for public web sites) the
primary beneficiaries of federated identity are the merchants, *not*
consumers. Indeed, I assert that for consumers, the risks outweigh
the benefits. The technology is great, but let's tell it like it
is. For example... Microsoft
Admits Passport Breach. The important issue here isn't this
particular incident, but rather the inherent risk of *any* system
that stores or shares identity data. No matter what the vendors
tell you, your personal data will never be as safe with them as
it is under your own control, so long as you use best practices.
Federated identity isn't about benefits for consumers. It's all
about merchant revenues. [Source: Allen
Weinberg, Glenbrook Partners] Meanwhile... Liberty
vs. Passport at RSA. "The recent RSA 2003 Conference revealed
that the Liberty vs. Passport clash has more to it than Sun trying
to put one over on Microsoft...It seems that Liberty might be moving
in the right direction but is no better than Passport (or TrustBridge)
and is still very light on the policy definition side." [Source:
John McIntosh, IT-Director.com,
special to SearchWebServices.com] |
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Web Services: The Next Big Lie? "Web services is the next big lie in CRM. It makes integration simpler, but not simple; there is still a lot of programming involved." --Zach Nelson, president and CEO, NetLedger "The intersection of CRM and Web services is the one thing businesses have
to be looking at right now." --Chris Selland, president, Reservoir
Partners [Source: destinationCRM.com] |
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Credit
Card Micropayments. Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch has analyzed
the economics of Apple's iTunes music service. It's based on aggregation
of multiple small purchases within a window of time. [Source: Scott
Loftesness] |
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The Semantic Web Will Be Loosely Coupled. "The Semantic Web will advance the relational database model and overturn old ways of organizing information, Berners-Lee said. Rather than listing information in tree structures, it will create a Web based on the relationships of people, places and things as they exist in the real world...The Semantic Web doesn't follow a document model; instead, it models real-world things, said the director of the W3C and inventor of the World Wide Web." [Source: ADTmag.com]
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Web
Hosts Run Windows Server 2003. Some shared-hosting providers
who were part of the Windows Server 2003 beta program were prepared
to run part of their sites on Windows Server 2003 prior to launch.
The three providers with the largest number of active sites on Windows
Server 2003 are all Microsoft Certified Partners while the fourth
largest is Microsoft itself. No one else had more than 1000 active
sites running on Windows Server 2003 at the start of May.
Posted Tuesday, May 06, 2003 7:37:34 AM |
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META Group on Managed Hosting. "META Group Inc. (metagroup.com) announced the availability of its newest METAspecturm evaluation for the managed web hosting outsourcing market...In terms of focus, the report emphasizes the fully managed segment and is restricted geographically to the North American operations of 11 vendors: AT&T (att.com), BellSouth (bellsouth.com), Cable & Wireless (cw.com), Conxion (conxion.com), Digex (digex.com), EDS (eds.com), Genuity (genuity.com), IBM (ibm.com), Qwest (qwest.com), Sprint (sprint.com), and Verio (verio.com)." [Source: The Web Host Industry Review]
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Must
Be Present to Win. In my latest column for Web Hosting Monthly,
I offer my advice to owners of small web-hosting firms on how to
finance their companies. (Based on personal experience.) Achieving
Hosting Success: Stay in Touch. And in my latest column
for The Web Host Industry Review, I explain to vendors the importance
of my ENC (Expect Next Communications) Rule for customer satisfaction.
It's not just for hosting; I think it applies universally. |
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WiFi Wants to Be Free. Pay-per-use WiFi in Starbucks, hotels, and airports won't last. At least that's my personal prediction, and I'm sticking to it. Do you use any of these services? I don't. I can certainly wait until I get where I'm going. OTOH, if I find a WiFi hotspot, I use it. And if I know of a coffee house that has one, I'm likely to head there for a latte and to check my email. One reason I expect to see free WiFi succeed is that it's a simple and low-cost decision for small businesses. Most bars have TVs, and their costs are comparable to that of providing a WiFi hot spot. It's hard to imagine a bar charging for the "use" of their television. [Source: Scott Mace]
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Doug's Recent Appearances and Webcasts
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The IT Strategy Letter is published weekly by RDS Strategies LLC. Much--but not all--of the content is published earlier in Doug Kaye's weblogs.
This newsletter is governed by a Creative Commons License.
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