The IBM and Microsoft Specification Stacks

by Tom Welsh

Last month I set out to bring you up to date with the progress of Web services standards over the last couple of years. But this turned out to be a far more ambitious project than I had anticipated. In last month's WSS, I got as far as summarizing all the specifications that have come (and a few that have gone) since 1999, and I hope that this conveyed some impression of the sheer scale of the task facing Web services architects. I meant to wrap up the standards review this month, but by the time I did justice to the efforts of the two main players -- IBM and Microsoft -- and their shifting relationship, a lot of good material was squeezed out again.