Why are Web Services long overdue?
The information technology revolution of the last quarter century - with its rapid cycles of innovation and never-ending stream of new products, devices and services - has provided incredible value for us as users and businesses. At the same time, there is room for significant improvement. Applications and devices have been built with very narrow focus that have ignored the other parts of our lives. Say hello to Web Services.

"We as users today must change to fit the technology, when the technology should be adapting to us."

We are required to adapt to the differences between the ways we interact with local programs and sites on the web; required to cope with doing things completely differently on our mobile phone, our PC, and any other device, often we are frustrated and confused, I know I am! For instance, entering a friend's new phone number into our PC requires a particular sequence of keystrokes and mouse clicks. But to enter that same information into our Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, or mobile phone, we need to learn a completely different interface, right down to re-learning how to draw the letters of the alphabet! At the time I found it great fun learning the Palm Pilot language, graffiti, now I don't even use it.

We are not in control of the technology that surrounds us. We all have important data and personal information scattered in hundreds of places across the technology landscape, locked away in applications, product registration databases, cookies and Web site user tracking databases. Having a friend's phone number programmed into our mobile phone doesn't solve the problem of needing to get their contact information when using a PC-based email application: those two technologies are unable talk to each other. As an aside I have to say check out this http://www.blackberry.net because when this becomes a phone too, my life and perhaps yours would be a thousand times easier.

If we move across the country, we need to separately re-enter our new address into every Web site that needs it - and if we forget to change our information the once-convenient Internet quickly becomes a headache. Each Website is a silo of data that continually reinforces the fact that we don't control our personal information. We can't easily update our own data, nor do we control what happens to the data we share - and in many cases, we can't even see it once we've given it away. Do you really know what information the credit agencies hold on you without writing them a letter?

The isolation of each application, web site, or service also makes it nearly impossible for our technology to work together and improve our daily lives. Imagine booking a ticket on an online travel reservation system, and wanting that itinerary automatically added to our calendar. Unfortunately, that site and that application can't talk to each other - and even if they did, neither would have any way of knowing that they were communicating about the same person, namely us.

This environment, in which we are forced to adapt to technology instead of technology adapting to us, means that applications, Web sites, and devices are limited in what they can do for us. This not only prevents us adopting new hardware and software technologies, it also limits the development of new products and services by new organisations, as they see no motive.

What are Web Services?
Web Services will make it easier to integrate these silos of information that exist today. Web Services are oriented around us, instead of around a specific device, application, service, or network. We as the user are in control of our own data and information, protecting personal information and providing a new level of ease of use and personalisation. Web Services make our personal consent the basis for who can access our information, what they can do with it, and for how long they have that permission.

Web Services permits software applications and services to co-operate for our benefit, as well as allowing groups and other organisations to share and collaborate with us.

Booking a flight using an online travel reservation service becomes much simpler because Web Services make it possible for that travel service, with our consent, to automatically access our preferences, payment and auditing receipt. If we're travelling on business, and our company has travel policies we need to adhere to, our individual affiliation with our company's Web Services identity will make it possible for the travel service to automatically show us only the choices that meet both our preferences and our company's requirements. Once we've chosen our flight, the travel service can use Web Services, with our explicit permission, to figure out which calendaring service we use and automatically schedule the itinerary onto our calendar, automatically updating that itinerary and notifying us if our flight will be late. And through Web Services, we can share that live flight itinerary with whomever we're going to visit so that they will also know when and where to expect us. The information in our Web Services enabled calendar can then be accessed through our PC, someone else's PC, a smart phone, a PDA, or any other connected device. If it all sounds too good to be true remember for this to be a reality it will probably be at least 2010.

"Web Services makes the technology in our life work together on our behalf and under our control"

Web Services makes the technology in our life work together on our behalf and under our control, rather than today's situation in which we need to adapt to our technology and act as the human bridge between the different devices, applications, and Web sites in our life. We are all more than aware of the problems we personally have with PC, PDA and mobile phone devices …nightmare springs to mind!

We will no longer have to manually copy common information from one service to another; we will no longer have to worry about how (or whether) we can update our address in all of the places we've entered it.

Web Services also turns the industry debate over online privacy on its head. Instead of debating how much organisations can get away with respect to an individual's information, Web Services starts with the assumption that we control all of our personal information and get to decide with whom we share any of our information and under what terms. By putting us in control of our own data, Web Services relies on a consent model (our personal consent) for how applications, services, and devices interact with users.

We own our data!
Any access to that data, any changes to that data, and any use of that data requires our explicit consent. That consent has limited scope (what data can be accessed?) and a limited lifetime (when does the permission expire?). Web Services uses legal and technical mechanisms to prohibit any use of our data that we have not authorised, and that limitation on use will extend beyond the specific transaction in which the data was obtained. This emphasis on our personal control stands in stark contrast to the current situation, where applications and companies own whatever data they can extract from us, with essentially no limitations on what they can do with that data (our personal data), and no way that we as a user can regain control of it. Examine for instance your position with the data held on you by http://www.equifax.com or http://www.experian.com. Effectively this confirms that the concept of company based CRM or eCRM is ultimately flawed as we will manage our relationship and interactions with the companies supplying us at home and at work and not the other way round.

The Web Services Architecture
Web Services then, is a set of services that deliver personally relevant information through the Internet to us, to software running on our behalf, or to devices working for us.

Web Services are accessed through SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and XML (eXtensible Markup Language), which are open access technologies see http://www.w3.org run by world wide web founder Tim Berners-Lee see http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

"Because the myriad of applications and devices in our life will be connected to a common set of information that we control, we'll be able to securely share information between those different technologies, as well as with other people and services."

Web Services can be called from any network-connected device that supports SOAP (regardless of operating system or service provider). SOAP, XML and UDDI are the open Internet standards.

Web Services will be accessed through our applications, devices and services (also known as "Web Services end-points"). When using a Web Services-enabled device or application, that device or application will, with our consent, connect to the appropriate Web Services automatically. Because the myriad of applications and devices in our life will be connected to a common set of information that we control, we'll be able to securely share information between those different technologies, as well as with other people and services.

Software developers will build applications and services that take advantage of Web Services to provide us with the best possible experience. The Web Services platform uses an open access model, which means it can be used with any device, application or services, regardless of the underlying platform, operating system, object model, programming language or network provider.

Initial Web Services expected in 2002:

• My Address - electronic and geographic address for your identity
• My Profile - name, nickname, special dates, picture of you
• My Contacts - electronic relationships, your address book
• My Location - electronic and geographical location
• My Notifications - notification subscriptions like football results or stocks
• My Inbox - inbox items like email, voicemail, including existing email systems
• My Calendar - time and task management
• My Documents - document storage like http://www.xdrive.com
• My Application Settings - single application settings are critical on different devices
• My Favourite Websites - favourite URLs
• My Wallet - receipts, payment instruments for business or domestic transactions
• My Devices - device settings and their capabilities
• My Services - provisioned services specific to you
• My Usage - usage report for above services

For further information on XML, SOAP and UDDI, study these sites:
www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points
www.w3.org/TR/SOAP
www.uddi.org The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) project is a sweeping industry initiative. The project creates a platform-independent, open framework for describing services, discovering businesses, and integrating business services using the Internet, as well as an operational registry that is available today.