Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization

Industry Leaders Align Around Web Services Interoperability

Accenture, BEA Systems, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP Form Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to Speed Development and Deployment of Web Services

Provide Support and Road Map for Developers and Customers

Armonk, N.Y. and Redmond, WA, USA. February 6, 2002.

A broad group of technology leaders today announced the formation of the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization (http://www.ws-i.org/). This cross-industry initiative is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of interoperable Web services across a variety of platforms, applications and programming languages. Web services are a platform- and language-independent means of building distributed systems that can connect and interact with one another easily and efficiently across the Internet, based on industry standards. WS-I, whose founders include Accenture, BEA Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG, is open to all organizations committed to promoting interoperability among Web services based on industry-accepted definitions and open standards support.

The mission of WS-I will be to provide implementation guidance to support customers deploying Web services, promote consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services, and articulate a common industry vision for Web services.

"Ensuring that Web services implementations interoperate across heterogeneous platforms is crucial to furthering the evolution of Web services and driving customer adoption," said Daryl Plummer, group vice president and research group director at Gartner Inc. "WS-I is an expected and necessary industry initiative that will address the key issue of interoperability, which is instrumental in moving Web services to the next level of acceptance and adoption."

The following companies are signing on in support of WS-I: Akamai Technologies Inc., Autodesk Inc., Borland, Business Objects, Cape Clear Software Inc., Commerce One, CommerceQuest, Compaq Computer Corp., Corechange Inc., Corillian Corp., Daimler/Chrysler AG, Dassault Systemes, J.D. Edwards, Epicentric, Epicor Software Corp., ESRI, FileNET, Flamenco Networks, Ford Motor Co., FrontRange Solutions Inc., Grand Central Networks Inc., Groove Networks Inc., IONA, Jamcracker Inc., Kana Inc., Loudcloud Inc., Macromedia Inc., McAfee.com, Onyx Software Corp., Peregrine Systems, Pivotal Corp., Plumtree Software Inc., POSC.org, Qwest Communications Inc., Rational Software Corp., RealNames Corp., Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Sabre Holdings Corp., SAS Institute, Sybase Inc., Toshiba TEC Corp., United Airlines, Versata Inc., VeriSign, and webMethods Inc.

Customers implementing Web services want their investment to comply with the existing standards-based model that enables interoperability and fast time to market. WS-I will provide the clarity, guidance and direction around Web services that customers have been requesting as they move into the Web services model of computing.

Implementation Tools and Guidance

To assist in ensuring the interoperability of Web services, WS-I will initially create a suite of tools and materials for testing implementation and conformance with "basic level" Web services standards: XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. These testing capabilities are important so customers can ensure that their implementations comply with the best-practices use of these Web services specifications. Tests will be self administered and aimed at uncovering unconventional usage or errors in specification implementations, thus improving interoperability between applications and across platforms.

Road Map for Web Services

As Web services mature and gain mainstream momentum, the need will arise for additional capabilities that are not fully addressed in the current Web services standards. To meet these needs, WS-I will publish an architectural road map for identifying functional areas and capabilities that need to be addressed in future Web services specifications. As new specifications are created and adopted by multiple standards organizations to enhance current Web service capabilities, WS-I will provide a forum to ensure testing materials support the evolving set of requirements and their interdependencies.

About WS-I

In recent technology leaders and industry standards bodies have worked together to develop a set of specifications for a distributed application architecture commonly referred to as Web services. Web services standards including SOAP, XML, WSDL and UDDI have successfully enabled developers to provide interoperability across multiple platforms, programming languages and applications. WS-I is a global organization of industry participants with a wealth of Web services implementation experience that is committed to customer education, awareness and adoption.

WS-I Member Quote Sheet

Accenture

"Web services will become important tools for our clients. They will allow for new types of business applications -- new ways for them to work with their customers and partners. They also hold the promise of easing integration with legacy applications. But the key to success lies in the hard work of building workable standards and architectures. As such, we see efforts such as WS-I as critical to the successful adoption of Web services." -- James Hall, Managing Partner, Technology Business Solutions Unit Accenture. PR Contact: Michael Corrado, Accenture; 917-452-8956; michael.corrado@accenture.com

BEA

"As a longtime evangelist driving open standards and a staunch proponent of interoperability among Web services across platforms, it's only natural for BEA to be a founding member of WS-I. WS-I promotes a common industry goal to help speed the adoption of Web services by delivering consistent, reliable interoperability guidelines that span platforms, applications and programming languages." -- Adam Bosworth, Vice President of Engineering BEA Systems. PR Contact: Susan Siegel, BEA Systems, 408-570-8364; susan.siegel@bea.com

Fujitsu

"For many years, Fujitsu has played a leading role in Web services and Internet standards and consortia organizations. In all of these groups, Fujitsu has emphasized the importance of interoperability among the various specifications and application interfaces being developed. Fujitsu welcomes this opportunity to join with other industry leaders in creating an organization dedicated to the success of Web services by ensuring their interoperability." -- Junji Maeyama, Senior Vice President and Group President, Software Group, Fujitsu. PR Contact: Jill Matthews, Fujitsu, 408-456-7875; jmatthews@fs.fujitsu.com

Hewlett-Packard

"HP is excited to be a part of this evolving Web services interoperability activity. We believe that the interoperability of key Web service components is one of the most vital interests of the customer community, and we plan to devote considerable resources to ensure full interoperability with HP Web service products." -- Bob Bickel, General Manager, HP Middleware Division, Hewlett-Packard. PR Contact: Sherri Stuart, Hewlett-Packard, 856-638-6249; sherri_stuart@hp.com

IBM

"Interoperability via evolving open standards is the cornerstone of Web services. That is why WS-I is crucial for ensuring the continued deployment success of Web services technology within and between enterprises. The momentum of vendors and the cross-industry commitment behind WS-I demonstrate that the Web services community is maturing and focusing on customer needs. WS-I will speed the worldwide adoption of Web services by providing critical interoperability guidance and testing materials that work across multiple platforms." -- Rod Smith, Vice President Emerging Technologies, IBM. PR Contact: Angela Lee, IBM, 212-745-2954; a1lee@us.ibm.com

Intel

"WS-1 is consistent with Intel's long-standing efforts to promote definition and convergence of open standards for e-business and Web services. It is our hope that the group's hands-on approach to driving interoperability events will promote rapid innovation and growth in the computer industry. Intel's same hands-on approach to driving standards, whether it be through interoperability events, the chairmanship of OASIS or key roles in W3C, RosettaNet, UDDI and WS-1, all provide more platform choices for users." -- Will Swope, Vice President, Software and Solution Group, Intel. PR Contact: Seth Walker, Intel, 503-264-2190; seth.walker@intel.com

Microsoft

"The cross-industry collaboration that led to the creation of WS-I is a very important step in advancing a systematic, consistent and standards-based approach to adopting and deploying new Web service technologies. The membership of WS-I shares a common vision of Web services as a critical way to cross the boundaries between platforms, applications and programming languages. The benefits and value of Web services for customers and partners cannot be overstated." -- Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft. PR Contact: Erik Denny, Waggener Edstrom, 425-638-7000; erikd@wagged.com

Oracle

"A steadfast commitment to open standards is essential to unlocking the value of Web services. As a founding member of WS-I, Oracle will collaborate with other industry leaders to drive the development and adoption of Web services throughout the enterprise." -- Charles Rozwat, Executive Vice President, Server Technologies Division, Oracle. PR Contact: Rebecca WindOracle, 650-506-1683; rebecca.wind@oracle.com

SAP

"Web services help companies engage in collaborative business processes across different technologies and applications. SAP shares the common WS-I vision to ensure the interoperability of Web services. SAP builds on its strong history in business process and infrastructure experience to drive the technical and business interoperability of Web services. With the mySAP.com e-business platform based on the open integration infrastructure mySAP Technology, SAP customers have an open, standards-based Web services architecture available." -- Karl-Heinz Hess, Member, Extended Executive Board, SAP PR Contact: Hilmar Schepp, SAP AG, +49 6227 7-46799; hilmar.schepp@sap.com

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See the news item: "IBM and Microsoft Announce Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."

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This cross-industry initiative is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of interoperable Web services across a variety of platforms, applications and programming languages. Web services are a platform- and language-independent means of building distributed systems that can connect and interact with one another easily and efficiently across the Internet, based on industry standards. WS-I, whose founders include Accenture, BEA Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG, is open to all organizations committed to promoting interoperability among Web services based on industry-accepted definitions and open standards support. The mission of WS-I will be to provide implementation guidance to support customers deploying Web services, promote consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services, and articulate a common industry vision for Web services. "Ensuring that Web services implementations interoperate across heterogeneous platforms is crucial to furthering the evolution of Web services and driving customer adoption," said Daryl Plummer, group vice president and research group director at Gartner Inc. "WS-I is an expected and necessary industry initiative that will address the key issue of interoperability, which is instrumental in moving Web services to the next level of acceptance and adoption." The following companies are signing on in support of WS-I: Akamai Technologies Inc., Autodesk Inc., Borland, Business Objects, Cape Clear Software Inc., Commerce One, CommerceQuest, Compaq Computer Corp., Corechange Inc., Corillian Corp., Daimler/Chrysler AG, Dassault Systemes, J.D. Edwards, Epicentric, Epicor Software Corp., ESRI, FileNET, Flamenco Networks, Ford Motor Co., FrontRange Solutions Inc., Grand Central Networks Inc., Groove Networks Inc., IONA, Jamcracker Inc., Kana Inc., Loudcloud Inc., Macromedia Inc., McAfee.com, Onyx Software Corp., Peregrine Systems, Pivotal Corp., Plumtree Software Inc., POSC.org, Qwest Communications Inc., Rational Software Corp., RealNames Corp., Reed Elsevier, Reuters, Sabre Holdings Corp., SAS Institute, Sybase Inc., Toshiba TEC Corp., United Airlines, Versata Inc., VeriSign, and webMethods Inc. Customers implementing Web services want their investment to comply with the existing standards-based model that enables interoperability and fast time to market. WS-I will provide the clarity, guidance and direction around Web services that customers have been requesting as they move into the Web services model of computing. Implementation Tools and Guidance To assist in ensuring the interoperability of Web services, WS-I will initially create a suite of tools and materials for testing implementation and conformance with "basic level" Web services standards: XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. These testing capabilities are important so customers can ensure that their implementations comply with the best-practices use of these Web services specifications. Tests will be self administered and aimed at uncovering unconventional usage or errors in specification implementations, thus improving interoperability between applications and across platforms. Road Map for Web Services As Web services mature and gain mainstream momentum, the need will arise for additional capabilities that are not fully addressed in the current Web services standards. To meet these needs, WS-I will publish an architectural road map for identifying functional areas and capabilities that need to be addressed in future Web services specifications. As new specifications are created and adopted by multiple standards organizations to enhance current Web service capabilities, WS-I will provide a forum to ensure testing materials support the evolving set of requirements and their interdependencies. About WS-I In recent technology leaders and industry standards bodies have worked together to develop a set of specifications for a distributed application architecture commonly referred to as Web services. Web services standards including SOAP, XML, WSDL and UDDI have successfully enabled developers to provide interoperability across multiple platforms, programming languages and applications. WS-I is a global organization of industry participants with a wealth of Web services implementation experience that is committed to customer education, awareness and adoption. WS-I Member Quote Sheet Accenture "Web services will become important tools for our clients. They will allow for new types of business applications -- new ways for them to work with their customers and partners. They also hold the promise of easing integration with legacy applications. But the key to success lies in the hard work of building workable standards and architectures. As such, we see efforts such as WS-I as critical to the successful adoption of Web services." -- James Hall, Managing Partner, Technology Business Solutions Unit Accenture. PR Contact: Michael Corrado, Accenture; 917-452-8956; michael.corrado@accenture.com BEA "As a longtime evangelist driving open standards and a staunch proponent of interoperability among Web services across platforms, it's only natural for BEA to be a founding member of WS-I. WS-I promotes a common industry goal to help speed the adoption of Web services by delivering consistent, reliable interoperability guidelines that span platforms, applications and programming languages." -- Adam Bosworth, Vice President of Engineering BEA Systems. PR Contact: Susan Siegel, BEA Systems, 408-570-8364; susan.siegel@bea.com Fujitsu "For many years, Fujitsu has played a leading role in Web services and Internet standards and consortia organizations. In all of these groups, Fujitsu has emphasized the importance of interoperability among the various specifications and application interfaces being developed. Fujitsu welcomes this opportunity to join with other industry leaders in creating an organization dedicated to the success of Web services by ensuring their interoperability." -- Junji Maeyama, Senior Vice President and Group President, Software Group, Fujitsu. PR Contact: Jill Matthews, Fujitsu, 408-456-7875; jmatthews@fs.fujitsu.com Hewlett-Packard "HP is excited to be a part of this evolving Web services interoperability activity. We believe that the interoperability of key Web service components is one of the most vital interests of the customer community, and we plan to devote considerable resources to ensure full interoperability with HP Web service products." -- Bob Bickel, General Manager, HP Middleware Division, Hewlett-Packard. PR Contact: Sherri Stuart, Hewlett-Packard, 856-638-6249; sherri_stuart@hp.com IBM "Interoperability via evolving open standards is the cornerstone of Web services. That is why WS-I is crucial for ensuring the continued deployment success of Web services technology within and between enterprises. The momentum of vendors and the cross-industry commitment behind WS-I demonstrate that the Web services community is maturing and focusing on customer needs. WS-I will speed the worldwide adoption of Web services by providing critical interoperability guidance and testing materials that work across multiple platforms." -- Rod Smith, Vice President Emerging Technologies, IBM. PR Contact: Angela Lee, IBM, 212-745-2954; a1lee@us.ibm.com Intel "WS-1 is consistent with Intel's long-standing efforts to promote definition and convergence of open standards for e-business and Web services. It is our hope that the group's hands-on approach to driving interoperability events will promote rapid innovation and growth in the computer industry. Intel's same hands-on approach to driving standards, whether it be through interoperability events, the chairmanship of OASIS or key roles in W3C, RosettaNet, UDDI and WS-1, all provide more platform choices for users." -- Will Swope, Vice President, Software and Solution Group, Intel. PR Contact: Seth Walker, Intel, 503-264-2190; seth.walker@intel.com Microsoft "The cross-industry collaboration that led to the creation of WS-I is a very important step in advancing a systematic, consistent and standards-based approach to adopting and deploying new Web service technologies. The membership of WS-I shares a common vision of Web services as a critical way to cross the boundaries between platforms, applications and programming languages. The benefits and value of Web services for customers and partners cannot be overstated." -- Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft. PR Contact: Erik Denny, Waggener Edstrom, 425-638-7000; erikd@wagged.com Oracle "A steadfast commitment to open standards is essential to unlocking the value of Web services. As a founding member of WS-I, Oracle will collaborate with other industry leaders to drive the development and adoption of Web services throughout the enterprise." -- Charles Rozwat, Executive Vice President, Server Technologies Division, Oracle. PR Contact: Rebecca WindOracle, 650-506-1683; rebecca.wind@oracle.com SAP "Web services help companies engage in collaborative business processes across different technologies and applications. SAP shares the common WS-I vision to ensure the interoperability of Web services. SAP builds on its strong history in business process and infrastructure experience to drive the technical and business interoperability of Web services. With the mySAP.com e-business platform based on the open integration infrastructure mySAP Technology, SAP customers have an open, standards-based Web services architecture available." -- Karl-Heinz Hess, Member, Extended Executive Board, SAP PR Contact: Hilmar Schepp, SAP AG, +49 6227 7-46799; hilmar.schepp@sap.com Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See the news item: "IBM and Microsoft Announce Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."