Web Services Studie

Up to the present time, IT has always had various focal points. Business and technology models have gone through a range of being data-centric, computercentric, application-centric, customer-centric, network-centric, and just about any other centricity that could be imagined.

Butler Group's view is that the creation of such strong focal points removed the possibility of comprehending and managing the larger picture. While the detail is important, it should never be seen as the primary driver. Rather, each detail should be taken as being one element within the whole that needs to be rationalised and catered for.

Web Services are, in Butler Group's view, nothing-centric; they take the large picture and start a top-down technology implementation from that point. Within the three previous definitions, there is a key phrase that really sums up not just Web Services, but also the future of business computing. That phrase is '...expose their core competencies to the outside world.'

Nothing sums up Web Services better than that. It describes the business rationale for implementing this model, and the other definitions support the methods used in this model. There has been much talk in the past about turning IT into a profit centre; about making business drive IT; and about the need to integrate applications and processes. Web Services is unproven in all these areas at the moment, yet there is something so inherently persuasive in the model that one can almost taste the future.