Webservices : hype or not hype ?

Well this is going to inflame the debate on web services. I am not agree anyway with this post, but I let you judge it yourself.

Snellspace: Who can reasonably expect competing companies to actively cooperate with one another when there is so much bad blood between them? If left strictly to technology vendors, Web services will end up like every other over-hyped technology that came before — fractured, incomplete and ultimately inadequate.

Once upon a time I thought web services would actually crack the wall of proprietary lock-in and open up the opportunity to use technologies across many diverse platforms. I've watched companies like IBM, Microsoft, Sun and others play politics with the numerous web services standards. I've seen very little in return from any of the big boys. It's the same old, same old.

James is right. Why do we expect competing vendors who despise each other to come together to create standards they can all agree upon? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that as soon as a large corporation gets their fingers in the mix things tend to get a whole lot more complex and political. Companies like Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Apple, etc. seem to do their best work when fighting each other outside of the ring of standards committees. At least there they provide technology that users can touch and see, even if it tends to be rather proprietary.

Source: The Colonel Sanders conspiracy