IBM, Microsoft ride herd on B2B Web services
ZDNet | at | by Mike
Late last week, IBM and Microsoft published two more seminal Web services specifications--WS-Coordination and WS-Transactions--which will together establish a common business process framework for B2B interaction. For process management app development, IBM's Web Services Flow Language (WSFL) and Microsoft's XML Language (XLang) will also be merged into the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services.
The degree to which these two mammoth companies are working hand in hand to craft the future of Web services is nothing short of amazing. Who--aside from Sun Microsystems--would try and stand in their way? Certainly not BEA Systems, which joined IBM and Microsoft in making the announcement. In fact, the new WS-Transactions spec appears to be little more than the Business Transaction Protocol (BTP) first submitted by BEA to the OASIS standards committee in March 2001, except with an IBM/Microsoft-sanctioned "WS-" in front of it.