News
META Group Touts Web Services in Year-End Report
Informationtechnology analyst firm the META Group has released itsyear-end prediction recap for 2001. According to META, Web services dominatedheadlines in 2001 and will continue to do so in the coming year.
META believesthe application server market will grow with increased support for Web servicesstandards and protocols as vendors look to provide customers with solutionsthat can connect complex heterogeneous environments. By 2004, META sees theapplication server market consolidating down to just a handful of vendors,including BEA, IBM and Sun. Furthermore, META sees application server-basedinfrastructure models becoming more of a focus for enterprise customers, whiledemand falls for traditional client/server and Web-specific development tools.
The Webservices concept, says META, will move from the experimentation phase to a lowlevel implementation phase in 2002, with enterprises actually using standardsand protocols such as SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL to simplify the creation of businesscomponents and integration of systems.
In 2001, METAtouted Web services and the next evolution of Web architecture. Now, it says,“Web services IS the next evolution in Web architecture.”
Fore-business, META says integration vendors are now a major force, and describesthe centralization and standardization of systems as essential. META believesthe importance of these three ingridients is in the process of extending beyonde-business to touch on all areas of an enterprises technology infrastructure. –Matt Migliore