Overview

Microsoft s Web services initiative, as embodied within its .NET program, is incisive, pervasive, and aggressive. This is to be expected. It is also remarkably realistic and pragmatic, which may come as a surprise to some, but let s face it Microsoft, as the idiom goes, put skin in the game. Actually, Microsoft, the world s most successful software company has a lot of skin in this game. Microsoft, one of the founding fathers of Web services, along with IBM, knows exactly what is at stake here. Ironically, this very alliance with IBM accentuates to Microsoft s senior management on a daily basis the dangers of what can happen if you do not pay adequate attention to a potentially important software technology.

Twenty years ago, IBM and Microsoft also collaborated, not as the peers that they are today but very much on a David and Goliath basis, on desktop software for the then-nascent PCs, in particular the OS/2 operating system. IBM, sated by continuing success in the mainframe and mid-range sectors, was somewhat lackadaisical in rallying its considerable resources to decisively exploit this emerging market in a timely manner. IBM took its eyes off the ball. Microsoft stalked it like a hawk. The rest is history.

IBM is still paying the price for this miscalculation and hoping that the new Web services oriented software model, coupled with the growing acceptance of Linux, might give it a chance to redress the balance when...