The Emerging Business of Web Services

An Annotated List of Resources

           

The Business of Web Services

Web services: the very idea

Web services business models

How the market will develop

Miscellaneous

           

Application Case Studies

Web services

Web service-like examples
There are lots of information services out there that don't use SOAP, XML or other technologies typically associated with Web services. Some are presented here as examples of what Web services may come. Also consider: is the Web services story sufficiently compelling to re-implement these?

           

Corporate Web Services Strategies

Vendor overview

Microsoft

Sun

IBM

BEA

HP

Oracle

Others

           

Technology and Standards

Microsoft .NET technology

  • Web Services the Microsoft Way
    Describes how Microsoft's .NET framework relates to Web services.
  • Introducing Microsoft .NET
    by David S. Platt, Keith Ballinger
    While there are some code snippets in this book, it's more of a higher-level description of the kinds of problems .NET is out to solve. Chapters include.NET Objects, ASP.NET and Webforms, Web services and Windows Forms.
  • Introducing .NET
    by James Conard, et al
    A more technical book than Introducing Microsoft .NET, this one is written for programmers. It goes beyond the overview of .NET to discuss C#, VB.NET, VisualStudio.NET, ADO.NET and Enterprise servers.
  • Free download: Visual Studio .NET release candidate
  • BizTalk

J2EE

           

Standards Specs

The core standards

Business-level semantics

Other standards

On standards

           

Related Technologies

Web Services and process
Imagine a future time when Web services are pervasive. It's easy to outsource information tasks, simply by connecting to an appropriate service across the Web. It's easy to augment the capabilities of your Web site by pulling content or other capabilities from a service and feeding it through to present on your site. How do you prepare your business to take advantage of these capabilities?

There is an affinity between Web services and process. Web services can be thought of as process components that can be used to build larger business processes.

  • Web Services and Collaborative Commerce
  • The eProcess Edge: Creating Customer Value & Business in the Internet Era
    by Peter Keen, Mark McDonald
    The authors talk about four aspects of process: automation, out-tasking, in-sourcing and handling exceptions. The first three have to do with Web services. Automation is getting software to do a previously manual job, out-tasking is having your business process go through an external service and in-sourcing is pulling data or other services into your site from outside. The main point of the book is to rethink your business as a collection of process components. Note that this differs from the Business Process Re-engineering view of process as mapping work as it flows through a company.
  • Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs
    by Don Tapscott, David Ticoll, Alex Lowy
    Business webs are businesses virtually integrated through an Internet infrastructure. While this book doesn't address Web services specifically, the vision it describes is consistent with the Web services vision.

EDI
Applications for Web services are often described as B2B transactions. EDI is currently in place and working for many large corporations for this sort of thing. What will be the interplay between Web services and EDI?

Workflow
The workflow view of process is mainly about making sure that work moves through the organization efficiently. It helps to track the progress of jobs, alert people when new tasks come in, alert managers to disruptions and bottlenecks and generally ensure that work gets done and the ball doesn't get dropped.

EAI
Enterprise Application Integration is the notion of tying applications together into an integrated whole. It's scope is generally confined to within an enterprise, although there is no need to be restricted. Application integration is easier within one company because it can mandate standards that all must adhere to. That's less likely outside the entreprise, so we see companies agreeing to standards like those for Web services.

           

Web Services Resources

Directories of Web Services

           

Keeping Up

Newsletters

Newsgroups and discussions

           

Comments or Suggestions?

Know of some great resources we've overlooked? Additional topics that should be covered? Mistakes we've made? Please, let us know!

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