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 NEWSIBM turns face to Sun By Ed Scannell and Tom Sullivan May 3, 2002 3:28 pm PT update IBM'S APPARENT ABOUT-FACE over a proposal to add two more seats to the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) board has left Microsoft exposed as the only entity opposed to Sun's inclusion.
Sun, for its part, has previously claimed that Microsoft and IBM squeezed it out of the WS-I by not extending the invitation to join until the same week the group was formally announced. Under IBM's plan, the companies to occupy the two new seats will be determined by an election to be held at least two months from now, according to Bob Sutor, director of IBM's e-business standards strategy in Somers, N.Y. Sutor would not speculate on whether he thought the board would accept the proposal for an election, but was optimistic it would. He said the board will have to amend some of the organizations' bylaws so the election can move forward. He said that Sun still has not joined the WS-I, although that would not be contingent on the proposal being made and the election going forward. "This election idea makes sense no matter [whether Sun joins or not]. If Sun does not run for election then that will be the end of this whole discussion with them," Sutor said. Ed Julson, Sun's group marketing manager, XML and Web services, said that Sun is excited about the prospect of joining WS-I. "It's pretty obvious Sun has broad-based support [for joining the WS-I]," Julson said. "Regardless of how they have been painted by others, Sun is a leader in Web services. How many companies of Sun's stature are trying to get on the board?" IBM officials stated that they are optimistic that Sun will be able to join. "I would expect that Sun would get one of those two slots, and this whole situation will clear itself up," said Steve Holbrook, IBM program director of emerging e-business standards. Although Sun is hoping the proposal will lead to its inclusion in the board, a Sun spokesperson said that it is currently too early to determine which Sun executive would serve as the company's WS-I representative. Sun has been criticized during the last several months for not wholeheartedly backing the protocols. This week, however, Sun said that it is building a server that customers can use to set up UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) directories. Analysts believe the debate ultimately comes down to Microsoft versus Sun, both of whom are vying intensely for Web services' mindshare among corporate purchasers and developers. "There is no essential link between Java and Web services. Just as Microsoft has this innate instinct of wanting to keep things tied to Windows, Sun equally wants things tied to Java. It can't be all of one or the other if this whole deal is going to work," said analyst Will Zachmann, president of Canopus Research in Kingston, Mass. Zachmann and others believe that Sun playing an integral role in the WS-I can only help move forward the development and delivery of Web services over the next few years if, in fact, Sun and Microsoft in particular can calm the political tensions between them. "My guess is that while Microsoft does not want Sun as a founding member, it doesn't make sense that they not be involved either. But for this thing to really happen, it must involve collaboration and cooperation among the major players and Sun is certainly one of those," Zachmann said. Other industry observers said that thus far IBM and Microsoft have been fostering the protocols through standards bodies, while Sun has been largely absent from the development of Web services initiatives, namely SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language), and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration). "I don't think people care, or that it matters all that much, that Microsoft and IBM are muscling the standards in the early versions," said Bernhard Borges, managing director of the advanced technology group at PricewaterhouseCoopers, in New York. Borges calls the roles of Microsoft and IBM a "benevolent dictatorship" and said that what will matter more in the long run is how effectively different vendors support the standards. Microsoft was not available for comment. Ed Scannell is an InfoWorld editor at large. Tom Sullivan is an InfoWorld senior editor. Mark Jones and Michael Vizard contributed to this report. SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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