Royal Caribbean's Murphy also warns that such simple solutions may notscale to serve the entire enterprise. A password reset package such asP-Synch may work great for 4,000 users, he notes, but not necessarilyfor 20,000 users as a long-term, enterprisewide solution.

Integrated Cost-Cutting

Integration can be a money pit - that's not news. EAI frameworks andEDI implementations can cost millions of dollars. The potential forcheaper connections both inside and outside the firewall exists withWeb services, even this early in its existence.

Sheri Anderson, CIO of Xilinx, found that by using Web servicescompany Grand Central Communications she was able to establish aconnection with an important external business partner quickly and fora fraction of the cost she'd expected. The key is to avoid one-offcustom integration projects with high, ongoing maintenancecosts.

Xilinx, with $1 billion in revenue and 2,600 employees worldwide, is asemiconductor company that outsources most of its manufacturing andother functions. "We have lots of needs for partner interfaces,"explains Anderson. "They're not optional." When one partner suddenlyneeded to exchange large amounts of unstructured data with Xilinx,Anderson brought in Grand Central to quickly deploy a secure Webservices-based data exchange and format translationcapability.