[Sigia-l] The new face of web info

[Ziya Oz]

"alex wright" wrote:

> More importantly, Web services will open the door to all kinds of
> special-purpose lightweight applications suited to particular kinds of user
> interaction, gradually loosening the hegemony of the Web browser.

Since people have privately asked if I already bought into the web services
phenomenon/hype, I don't mind separating the technical possibilities from
the legal/political/financial realities.

Perhaps the best indication of things to come in the web services field is
the fact that Microsoft just shelved Persona/Hailstorm/MyServices due to
lack of partner support, as reported by NYTimes today:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/11/technology/ebusiness/11NET.html>

"The service, originally code-named Hailstorm and later renamed My Services,
was to be the clearest example of the company's ambitious .Net strategy. It
was intended to permit an individual to keep an online persona independent
of his or her desktop computer, supposedly safely stored as part of a vast
data repository where there could be easy access to it from any point on the
Internet.

At the time of the introduction of My Services, Microsoft also proclaimed
that it would have a set of prominent partners in areas like finance and
travel for the My Services system. However, according to both industry
consultants and Microsoft partners, after nine months of intense effort the
company was unable to find any partner willing to commit itself to the
program."

Some of you may remember that there were members on this list just a few
months ago signing the praises of Hailstorm, telling us how it was real and
how big companies were already writing code for it, etc. They were
dismissive of concerns about monoculture, market dominance, security and the
like. I'm glad BigCompanies didn't blindly surrender and I think the web
community dodged a bullet with this one.

This, of course, does/should not take away anything from the huge promise of
delivering componentized data over the Internet. I'm still interested in
folks' views on if this new mode is good or bad for IAs. :-)

Best,

Ziya