This umbrella term refers to nothing less than an architectural shift in enterprise applications, encompassing a raft of new technologies that will foster the development of composite applications across multiple companies. Here's why the shift toward this enabling technology for inter-enterprise applications is so significant. While the last two decades of automation have largely focused on automating business process within the four walls of a single enterprise, companies have periodically struggled to get that done. Many of these applications have since aged, leading organizations to search elsewhere for the next wave of productivity enhancement. Companies in the know are looking to inter-company business process and applications.
Pieces coming together Given the build-out of the Internet, the timing is right.
The missing ingredient to build this new genre of applications was software infrastructure, something that's no longer in short supply. As usual, the promise of Web services is deceiving. Vendors will make it sound simple, but in practice this requires more than simply snapping together a few components. That doesn't mean it's not a great idea. It is a great idea, but it will take some time to mature.