Web services spec gets makeover
C|Net | at | by Mike
A Web services directory effort spawned by Microsoft, IBM and Ariba has been updated before its submission to an industry standards body. The specification, called Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), identifies and catalogs Web services so they can be easily found online. A consortium of 220 companies is releasing a third version of the specification on Tuesday and submitting the technology to a standards body known as the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).
Microsoft, IBM and Ariba proposed the directory technology nearly two years ago as sort of a Yahoo for business services. The idea was to build an online database using UDDI that would help companies find Web-based software services that could be used as part of their own business systems. For example, an e-commerce site could use the directory to search for a business that handles credit card transactions. If a match were found, all the elements of the transaction--even the price and payment--could be handled electronically.