So, what does Web Services and .NET do to the enterprise integration business? It commoditizes it. Microsoft's vision is that if all the applications offer Web Service access then they are easy to plug together, and the obvious vendor to supply the plumbing is Microsoft. With enterprise integration reduced to a commodity Microsoft's chances of getting into the Enterprise space improve, with no TIBCO or webMethods to buy there's now more money available for Microsoft. If they can position themselves as the integration leader, with good support built into the OS they control and the tools they provide then it's much more likely they'll be chosen instead of IBM, SUN or HP to provide the OS, and possibly also the consulting work that goes along with the implementation.
I know I am a week late, but I want to comment on the lastSchneier newsletter:
Most interesting of the two articles above is the second eWeek article, where Microsoft's Allchin mentions "at least one protocol and two APIs that it plans to withhold from public disclosure under the security carve-out." The protocol is Message Queuing. Apparently, Microsoft has discovered a security flaw in the Message Queuing protocol so bad that can't be fixed without breaking existing applications. So, until such time as they can field a backwards-compatible fix, they're going to hope no one else discovers it. (This is not a wholly unreasonable decision; security researchers have made the same decision in the past.) Of course, Allchin has undermined this decision by publicly naming the protocol. That's more than enough for someone sufficiently motivated to find the flaw. In the classified world, you can get your clearance pulled for blabbing like that. Jim Allchin's testimony: <http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/mswitness/2002/allchin.asp>
At the same time, Microsoft tries to convince the Pentagon that open source software threatens security, and using proprietary Microsoft software is much safer (and better for the economy, to boot). This article is hilarious in light of the above. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60050-2002May22.html>
