Results from the first Web Services Roundtable hosted at Ascential Software last week show 57% of attendees plan to implement some degree of Web services in the next six months, with 38% planning implementations in the next three months, another 19% within four to six months and 2% in nine months.
The most popular category of applications being planned for Web services was e-business (37%), followed by customer relationship management (27%), financial services (18%) and other (18%).
Results were tabulated from 84 questionnaire responses from the more than 100 attendees of the meeting which attracted a cross-section of corporate IT managers and consultants from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York.
The roundtable was an open discussion on the current state and future of Web services among nine vendors, including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Ascential, and the standing-room only audience.
Other participating panellists were from Back Bay Technologies, Bowstreet Software, Clear Methods, IONA, Silverstream Software and Systinet.
Asked to choose between Sun Microsystems` and Microsoft`s platform for Web Services, 44% said they would implement both .NET from Microsoft and J2EE from Sun; another 32% indicated only J2EE, 7% gave only .Net the nod and 13% listed no platform. 42% said they were currently performing integration on Sun`s Java platform.
Intended uses for Web services were split among simple integration (29%), exposing application logic to other systems (24%), experimentation (17%) and other (30%).
"Forrester Research believes Web services will dramatically change the technology landscape, by enabling companies and people to use Internet middleware to unlock vast stores of data and to link and relate unconnected applications, services, devices and even actuators," said moderator Ted Schadler of Forrester Research.
"Web services will therefore lead firms and people to create new software networks that raise employee productivity, streamline trading relationships, empower consumers, and control the physical world. The strong participation in the Web services roundtable provides a clear indication that the technology is gaining traction among business and IT professionals."
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