Recently, I reported on a Cutter Consortium survey of 170 companies from around the world1 (see Distributed Enterprise Architecture Executive Update, Vol. 5, No. 1). Just over 40% of the companies are involved in software development or services, while the rest come from a cross-section of industries. In this article, I will continue to draw from this survey data to consider attitudes toward Web services.

Recently, I reported on a Cutter Consortium survey of 170 companies from around the world1 (see Distributed Enterprise Architecture Executive Update, Vol. 5, No. 1). Just over 40% of the companies are involved in software development or services, while the rest come from a cross-section of industries. In this article, I will continue to draw from this survey data to consider attitudes toward Web services.

Everything you buy, you have to support -- or hire someone else to support. That's the problem with buying and deploying lots of stuff: it all needs attention. To make your support dollars effective, there are a number of things that you need to know. For example, you must know all that you have in your infrastructure: laptops, desktops, servers, PDAs, minicomputers, mainframes, communications networks, routers, switches, business applications, and messaging applications.

A Web service is a programmable entity that provides a particular element of functionality, such as application logic, and is accessible to any number of potentially disparate systems through the use of Internet standards, such as XML and HTTP.

As the next revolutionary advancement of the Internet, Web services will become the fundamental structure that links together all computing devices.

-- MSDN Library, October 2001

A Web service is a programmable entity that provides a particular element of functionality, such as application logic, and is accessible to any number of potentially disparate systems through the use of Internet standards, such as XML and HTTP.

As the next revolutionary advancement of the Internet, Web services will become the fundamental structure that links together all computing devices.

-- MSDN Library, October 2001

Variation in your environment -- whether furniture, heating, air-conditioning, transportation, or your technology infrastructure -- is expensive. But although there are great savings embedded in standardized environments, the whole is fraught with emotion. Nearly everyone in your organization will have an opinion about what the company should do about operating systems, applications, hardware, software acquisition, services, and even system development lifecycles.

Variation in your environment -- whether furniture, heating, air-conditioning, transportation, or your technology infrastructure -- is expensive. But although there are great savings embedded in standardized environments, the whole is fraught with emotion. Nearly everyone in your organization will have an opinion about what the company should do about operating systems, applications, hardware, software acquisition, services, and even system development lifecycles.

One message that comes through loud and clear from this month's CBR on Web services is that we (i.e., the IT industry) are not yet at all sure what we mean by these two words. Maybe that's not surprising. It is the latest buzz phrase, and judging from the data presented in the articles that follow, everybody is piling on this bandwagon (we may not know what it is, but most of us are pretty sure we're doing it). Buzz phrases are vague by nature, and when people start piling on, definitions usually get hazier.

One message that comes through loud and clear from this month's CBR on Web services is that we (i.e., the IT industry) are not yet at all sure what we mean by these two words. Maybe that's not surprising. It is the latest buzz phrase, and judging from the data presented in the articles that follow, everybody is piling on this bandwagon (we may not know what it is, but most of us are pretty sure we're doing it). Buzz phrases are vague by nature, and when people start piling on, definitions usually get hazier.

As we will discuss, there have been a number of recent improvements in patent protection for software and business models. These improvements make it easier to gain and maintain stronger control of many forms of software assets, thereby making it easier to license them more profitably and effectively.

As the accompanying Executive Report discusses, there have been a number of recent improvements in patent protection for both software and business models. These improvements make it easier to gain and maintain stronger control of many forms of software assets and therefore make it easier to license them more profitably and effectively.

The inherent tradeoff between agility and quality is an intuitive concept. With everything else kept the same, increasing agility typically decreases quality and vice versa. Agile decision-making, for example, is often exercised at the expense of exhaustive and time-consuming analyses.

The inherent tradeoff between agility and quality is an intuitive concept. With everything else kept the same, increasing agility typically decreases quality and vice versa. Agile decision-making, for example, is often exercised at the expense of exhaustive and time-consuming analyses.

The inherent tradeoff between agility and quality is an intuitive concept. With everything else kept the same, increasing agility typically decreases quality and vice versa. Agile decision-making, for example, is often exercised at the expense of exhaustive and time-consuming analyses.

There are many people who believe that software "engineering" is not an engineering discipline at all but rather a set of sometimes-followed best practices that, when all is said and done, aren't really the best.

Web services technologies based on XML and the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) are changing the face of distributed computing.

Web services represent a shift in computing that extends the scope of the Web from an infrastructure providing services to people to one providing services to software looking to interconnect with other software. The Web services vision is one in which software packaged as services can be discovered and connected to using established Web protocols such as HTTP, FTP, or SMTP.

This Update reports on data recently gathered by Cutter Consortium. We asked a variety of questions about recent trends and will be reporting the results over the course of the next three to four months. Overall, we had 235 responses from IT and business managers throughout the world. Of that total, 34% were companies engaged in the production and sale of software.