After almost a year of some of the worst infighting that the tech industry has seen, it looks like IBM, Microsoft, and Sun are about to let at least some of their bygones be bygones.
Last week, the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced that Sun is one of six companies nominated for election to the group's board of directors. The other five are Cape Clear, Nokia, SeeBeyond, VeriSign and webMethods. These six companies are vying for two additional board seats that the WS-I announced last year it would open up. The elections are due to take place this month and the results are expected to be announced on March 28.
I hope Sun is elected. It's not that the other five companies aren't deserving, but Sun's role in XML and Java has more than earned it this spot. If it Sun is denied this spot, there'll be a lot of eyeball rolling and well- justified "here we go agains."
Nearly a year ago, when IBM and Microsoft first got together to form the WS-I, they approached a select few companies that they considered to be leaders in Web Services technologies and asked them to become founding members. In what appeared to me to be an industry power play, Sun was not one of the select few.
Despite Sun's deep ties to two key Web services technologies (XML and Java), officials from IBM and Microsoft had argued that Sun didn't satisfy their criteria for Web services leadership. (Ironically, IBM has on at least one occasion drawn its own leadership role into question. Defending the need to upgrade the current XML standard to be compatible with its mainframes, IBM subsequently argued that the source of the incompatibility was traceable to its lack of involvement in the development of XML 1.0 -- a key Web services protocol that has Sun's fingerprints all over it.)
Sun declined an invitation to join as a regular WS-I member, saying that if it couldn't join as a founder, it wouldn't join at all. Later, in mid-2001, testimony in the Microsoft antitrust proceedings revealed that the decision to keep Sun off the WS-I board had come straight from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
As the WS-I gained momentum, Sun could only sit out for so long. In October 2002, Sun capitulated, agreeing to join as a contributing member. When it looked as though the organization was open to Sun getting a seat on the board, it only took about a week for Sun to climb on.
Now, it's voting time.
The WS-I downplays any influence it has over the creation and ratification of standards. Its self-proclaimed role in the industry is to promote interoperation of Web services technologies via standards that are ratified by other bodies. Because that influence is not to be underestimated, it's important for the board to truly reflect the industry's diversity.
Much of the Web services standards work has yet to be started, let alone completed. With so much in flux, an organization like the WS-I can have significant influence over the widespread adoption of pre-standard specifications. An example of where this risk now exists is in the area of Web services choreography and transaction-enablement. With two competing specifications (WSCL and BPEL4WS) vying for the official spot in the standards-based Web services stack, a WS-I board that heavily favors one specification over the other has the power to turn that specification into a de facto standard before the standards bodies have sufficient time to weigh the pros and cons of each. IBM, Microsoft, and BEA --- two of which are founders and all of whom are WS-I board members --- are also the top cheerleaders for BPEL4WS.
In recognition of market realities, the outcome of any standards body work could end up having less to do with the merit of the standard and more to do with the self-interests of the most influential "lobbying" group. Already, news has surfaced that those interests could have something to do with patents. As I have posited before, there is a hidden toll of patents on standards. By electing Sun to the board of the WS-I, the entire industry is offered a measure of assurance that the WS-I will serve the interests of all technology buyers and all Web services solution providers instead of just a handful of the latter.
Should Sun be elected to the board of the WS-I? Place your own vote in ZDNet's poll. But if voting is not enough for you and you want your own take on the issue to be heard, use ZDNet's Talkback below or write to me at david.berlind@cnet.com.
