WS-*: Perception and real life
Not that I believe everything (or anything?) Gartner is saying, but their magic quadrants are famous to say the least. Last week they published their recent report on the current state of Web Services, "Magic Quadrant for Web Services Platforms, 2005".
Now it makes me a bit confused when comparing the quadrant with what I hear, see, and experience out there in the wild. IBM is very close to Microsoft, would you have guessed? And BEA seems way off and nearly out of the game... hm ...
I can understand that Microsoft is still leading the 'Ability to Execute/Completeness of Vision' chart.
They have had WSE for some time now and they start to make real noise around Indigo which will augment the development experience of WS-* tremendously.
But what about IBM? I have not seen a lot from them besides the AlphaWorks stuff. And I am not sure that they are promoting v.Next of WebSphere is pushed as proactively as Microsoft does with Indigo & Co.
On the other side I can see some movement in the BEA space, namely WebLogic 9.0.
But at the end of the day it is all about my personal perception - and Gartner surely has researched well enough to justify their report ;)