This article is more than 1 year old

WS-I consortium: candidates revealed

Nokia throws hat in ring

After several weeks of leaks and rumours, the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) consortium has officially released the final list of candidates for the two coveted empty seats on its board. SeeBeyond Technology and Nokia are the latest companies to be revealed as contenders, joining Verisign, Cape Clear Software, webMethods and Sun in the attempt to gain a seat.

The current board consists of the major software, systems and services providers: Accenture, BEA Systems, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. The election will be held mid-March, and the industry finds out which two companies were successful on March 28.

The current nine-member board was extended to 11 after pressure from Sun Microsystems, which was excluded from the founding board allegedly at the behest of rival Microsoft. Sun, an obvious contender from the outset, has put forward its chief web services strategist Mark Hapner as its candidate.

Cape Clear Software is selling its candidate, chief scientist Jorgen Thelin, as a representative of the 98% of WS-I members that fit into the small-to-medium-sized business category, currently underrepresented on the board. webMethods Inc is touting its focus on application integration is its selling point.

Fellow EAI vendor SeeBeyond is emphasizing its experience on the two working groups that created the Basic Profile and are currently working on the Basic Security profile. The company is focused on the convergence of EAI and web services markets.

Sun is taking the Java angle, and is thought to be a favorite for a seat, but most of the other candidates also have selling points unique to their positions. As well as those already mentioned, Nokia would be the first strong wireless player on the board, and VeriSign would be the only major security player.

© datamonitor logo

Datamonitor is offering Reg readers some of its technology research FOC. Check it out here.

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like