The IT Strategy Letter
Doug Kaye, RDS Strategies LLC
July 28, 2003
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Adopting a Service Mentality. Is your company prepared to be in the services business? Do the various departments, executives, managers, and individuals understand the differences between products and services? If your company has previously delivered software or data in the form of products, it has some important changes to consider. The Internet has already altered the nature of software-product packaging and delivery, and web services will hasten that change. For example, many software products depend on an Internet connection for registration or real-time help facilities. Delivering a service requires a very different mindset than delivering a product. You might think you're delivering the same thing, but you're not. Consider the difference between cordless phones and cellular phones. You can buy them at the same stores, but the business models and the economics behind them are quite different. Cordless phones are traditional products. You pay for them up front, take them home, and use them. If all goes well, that ends your relationship with the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer, at least as far as that phone is concerned. If the phone fails, you'll once again interact with the manufacturer or the retailer, but it's assumed by all parties that that's a rare occasion. Cell phones are very different. The cell phone itself is almost incidental to the service; it's the service you're really buying, not the phone. You'll select a cellular phone according to its features and price, but first you'll choose a service according to its coverage, price, and other policies. You'll have an ongoing, long-term relationship with your service provider. If all goes well, your service relationship will outlast your phone, which you may well replace without switching providers. Consider the warranty differences, too. For the cordless phone, the warranty covers just the hardware. For the cell phone, there's also a service-level agreement. It's not too sophisticated, and it certainly gives the cell-phone provider many outs--but it does give you certain remedies for dropped calls and the like. If you're currently a software publisher, your primary commitment to the customer is that the software works as promised. The warranty you provide with your software probably only covers the media on which the software is delivered: You'll replace defective CD-ROMs. Most shrink-wrapped software is sold as-is, bugs and all. But like cellular-phone providers, web-services providers promise to deliver value on an ongoing basis. The relationships (and the revenue streams) are continuous. If you don't continue to meet and anticipate the customer's needs as they change over time, you'll run the risk of losing that customer. Consider these differences carefully as you shift to a services-oriented distribution model. The implications are both subtle and significant. [The above is an excerpt from Chapter 20: Providing External
Services, from Loosely Coupled--The Missing Pieces of Web
Services. You can download
the rest of the chapter (14 pages) for US$1.95 or the entire book
for only US$14.95.] |
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Hewett:
Are Web Services Hurting the Software Industry? Julian Hewett,
chief analyst at Ovum, thinks so. "Hewett believes that Web
services is a 'disruptive technology', which may cause enterprises
to move away from buying independent software products and instead
move to a 'services-based architecture', which improves the outlook
for outsourcing and ASPs." [Source: ZDNet Australia] |
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O'Reilly: The Future of Applications? In a similar vein (how the software industry is changing), here's a good interview with Tim O'Reilly by Robert McMillan prior to the O'Reilly Open Source Convention two weeks ago. Some highlights:
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Hagel:
The Pitfalls of Early Web Services Adoption. John writes,
"Web services technology is delivering real business value today
-- that's the good news. Early adopters are generally not getting
the balance right between near-term business impact and long-term
architectural direction -- that's the bad news...There are few,
if any, examples of companies systematically surveying the highest
impact business areas for Web services deployment. The result is
that near-term business impact is generally sub-optimized...Opportunistic,
one-off deployments of the technology may solve near-term business
problems but, unless they are designed to be consistent with a broader
architectural vision, they will contribute nothing towards longer-term
value creation." [Read the complete essay in John's weblog, July
16, 2003] |
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Competing Specs: Rivalry Bogs Down Web Services. Or is the battle essentially over? The latest fight is between Microsoft/IBM/BEA's new WS-Reliable Messaging (WS-RM) and Web Services Reliability (WS-R) submitted by Sun, Oracle, and others to OASIS in February. This is a critical component for advanced web services, and some analysts see the continued rift between these groups as a significant barrier to progress. But the people I speak to when I want to find out what's really going on tell me not to worry. Microsoft and IBM carry so much clout, they say, that it's a non-issue. WS-RM will push out WS-R in relatively short order.
Update: Phil Wainewright thinks Standards dissent is overblown.
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Gartner:
Web Services Spending Down But Not Out. "Shrinking IT budgets
have forced corporations to cut back on Web services spending, but
such projects still remain a top priority, according to a Gartner
report released Wednesday." Some media outlets focused on the positive
side of this report, while others emphasized the negative. [Source:
MSNBC News] |
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Verbose XML : HTTP Compression for Web Services. With all the talk about the verbosity of XML, I wonder if the existing compression capabilities of HTTP 1.1 aren't a reasonable solution. Certainly, this doesn't make XML any faster to parse, and it applies only to web services over HTTP, but it's an existing standard that's widely implemented. GZIP compression of XML should be reasonably effective. This article by S. Radhakrishnan on IBM developerWorks inspired this question. I'm sure my readers will help me here. Are the HTTP 1.1 compression
capabilities already in use in web-services contexts? Are they effective?
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Windley: Pipelining the Web. In yet another good InfoWorld article, Phil Windley compares four alternatives for web-services active intermediaries:
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Collaxa:
Orchestration. Catching up on old (some very old) reading,
I came across this February 2002 PDF white paper published by Collaxa.
It's a good introduction to orchestration and the need for asynchronous
messaging. |
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ZapThink:
Portals and Web Services. Ron and Jason's latest ZapFlash
newsletter explains the role of the user interface in web services.
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Rodgers:
Getting to Grips With Web Services. "Regardless of scale,
early adopters of web services agree on one key issue: if you don't
plan your services management strategy at the outset, you're heading
for trouble...Whether the motivation is to manage diversity, unpredictability
or change, the message is the same: be prepared, or you'll face
mounting problems." [Source: Keith Rodgers, LooselyCoupled.com]
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Arthur:
The Future Rests in the Hands of CIOs. According to economist
W. Brian Arthur, Citibank
professor at the Santa Fe Institute, in an interview
with CIO magazine, "This country's one and only economic driver
for the next several decades rests solely in the hands of CIOs."
That's a bold statement and one that seems to fly right in the face
of the IT
Doesn't Matter Anymore mindset. [Source: Phil Windley] |
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Linthicum:
"Management by Magazine." That's a great phrase
I heard from David Linthicum at the Burton Group Catalyst conference
two weeks ago. He was referring to the mistake of making decisions
based on what you read in the trade press. |
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LAMP.
Okay, so I'm 2.5 years behind on this one, but maybe you are, too.
"LAMP" is an acronym for the standard (or at least common) open
source web platform based on Linux, Apache, mySQL, and Perl|Python|PHP.
[Thanks, Anne.] |
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IT Conversations are recorded (audio) interviews with the gurus of information technology. They're a new production of RDS Strategies LLC, and we hope you'll enjoy them. Stream IT Conversations to your desktop or laptop, or download them into your MP3 player and listen to them while you drive, workout, or sit on the beach with that piña colada. The following IT Conversation is new since the last edition of the IT Strategy Letter: |
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Loosely Coupled--Now Available as a PDF (at a 63% Discount)
As an alternative to the hardcopy edition, you can now download my latest book in PDF format at a substantial discount using PayPal or BitPass. From the time you purchase the eBook version, you have 7 days during which you can download the content up to 10 times. The PDF files can be printed, but the text cannot be copied or modified. Amazon.com Review of the Week:
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"I
was *VERY* pleasantly surprised! Loosely Coupled is
a great book: It is comprehensive yet easy to read. It provides
thoughtful insight on what web services are and how they can
help you address complex integration challenges."|
CDBI Recommends "Loosely Coupled" "Finally we are starting to see some decent books on Web Services that go beyond the minutiae of XML programming at one extreme, or provide more depth than overview hype at the other. Doug Kaye's 'Loosely Coupled' is one such book." [Source: Lawrence Wilkes at CDBI Forum; Bronze (free) membership required]
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Presentations, Conferences, 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.
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