Greetings Economists,
Web Services means web based usually mobile telephony java code
(platform independent software tools) development of the internet.
Microsoft expects to move toward licensing agreements tying machines to
users, so that software can't be freely used on different machines. Their
new tool competes with current J2EE standards in important ways.
Whoever wins the next round of monopoly consolidation in the U.S. both
Asia, and Europe seem already settled upon standards for major parts of the
projected web services that the U.S. seems likely to continue to fight
over. Microsoft's campaign for web development tools suggests some aspects
of how the industry expects to go in the U.S., but lacking the advantages
that appear to be consolidating in Japan and other parts of Asia around 3G
(third generation) cell phone email and web based business services.
Microsoft appears headed toward 'net' definition of their company. That
would be a significant move away from their focus upon desk top software on
static machines. This suggests a great deal more mobility by carrying the
computing devices and ultimately if one carries the tools with one, a merger
of identification of the person with the information they generate. One
must use the machines to be a part of the system. That nexus of electronic
tools is where identity moves as face to face communications become
supplanted by interfaces with more information producing power over unaided
speech. Personal interaction without a machine interface would come to be
where the persons meaning as an identity lacks certainty and substance
compared to the meaning encompassed in the database.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
February 13, 2002
Microsoft Putting Its Muscle Behind Web Programming Tools
By STEVE LOHR, New York Times
After spending three and a half years, five million hours of labor and $2
billion, Microsoft (news/quote) begins a huge campaign today to woo millions
of computer programmers to use its new generation of Internet software
tools.
Programming tools may be an arcane niche of the computer industry. But,
underscoring how crucial the new campaign is to Microsoft's strategy for
growth, Bill Gates, the chairman, is scheduled to speak to thousands of
software developers in San Francisco, and Steven A. Ballmer, the chief
executive, will speak to thousands more in Chicago.
The outcome of this campaign will partly determine the shape of competition
in the software industry in the next several years. The competition's focus
will be shifting to so-called Web services - clever software that opens the
door to offering a new level of computerized automation and convenience to
companies and consumers.
Microsoft and its rivals, like I.B.M. (news/quote) and Sun Microsystems
(news/quote), are scrambling to supply businesses with these services, which
will allow computers to share data across the Internet and, when so
programmed, handle all kinds of tasks without human intervention.
A Web service application, for example, might link a company's inventory
database with that of its suppliers, so parts would be automatically
reordered when supplies ran low. A car's navigation computer - an
increasingly common feature in new automobiles - could be linked to a
region's traffic-tracking database with a Web services application. That
would make constantly updated traffic reports available for helping the
driver find the least- congested route home.
To corporations, the promise of Web services is both in automation to cut
costs and in new offerings for consumers. Web services appear to be an
exception to the trend of an overall slump in technology spending.
This is the year that a lot of investments are being made, said David M.
Smith, an analyst at Gartner Inc. (news/quote), which estimates that sales
of Web services software will increase fivefold, to $21 billion, by 2005.
Web services are at the center of Microsoft's plans, said Eric Rudder, a
senior vice president, and the tools effort is the key to success or
failure.
The new programming platform cost $2 billion to develop, Mr. Rudder
observed, but that cost is nothing compared to the opportunity.
Much of Microsoft's success over the years can be traced to its
understanding of and catering to rank-and- file developers. They are the
architects, designers and bricklayers of the information age, building the
software that animates everything from the world's financial markets to fuel
injectors in trucks.
Microsoft started out in the software tools business with Microsoft Basic,
its version of the programming language created by John Kemeny and Thomas
Kurtz at Dartmouth College. To this day, Mr. Gates speaks with pride of his
achievement in squeezing Microsoft Basic into the tiny memory space
available in microcomputers in the mid-1970's.
Microsoft's juggernaut product, the Windows operating system, did not really
take off until 1991, six years after its introduction, when the company
delivered
