(San Francisco, January 28, 2002) WSJ-IN traveled to the West coast, to cover the Next Generation Web Services Conference sponsored by InfoWorld Media, which was held in San Francisco. Web services was the topic on everyone’s mind at this well-attended show, and the two-day event was packed with information and opinions from some of the leaders in this space.

Keynotes from several industry figures, such as James Gosling, Adam Bosworth, Barry Morris, and Eric Rudder, set the pace for Web services, one which could best be described as “It’s already here, but there’s a lot more coming.” Each of the speakers highlighted some of the unique perspectives of their respective companies, and reinforced the reality of Web services as the next paradigm for computing.

During the course of the event, a development contest sponsored by WebGain Corporation took place, as three teams of developers competed to develop a completed Web service in 48 hours.

Lest this seem a trivial exercise, Nordstrom presented a case study in which they described going from nothing to a Web service that supported their Christmas rush for 2001 in a space of five weeks.

And of course, there was the jockeying for position between .NET supporters and the J2EE camp. Both sides did agree that security needs to be addressed, which was reassuring.

One point that was not stressed, but was underscored by the vendors in attendance is that Web services is not just a choice between J2EE and .NET – neither is technically required. A number of vendors such as Sonic and Tibco demonstrated technologies that provide Web services without the need for a J2EE application server or a Windows .NET Server.

Several companies remaking their businesses using Web services were also highlighted. Lorenzo Martinelli of E2OPEN, an exchange in the electronics industry with over 60,000 trading companies, discussed building the exchange with Web services. “[E2OPEN could not have done it without Web services. They helped us reduce the cost of infrastructure by 25%, gave us a 70% savings on the technologies we used to enable our business partners and a 90% reduction in our cost of maintenance, while cutting our time to market in half. If we hadn’t had Web services our costs would have been astronomical.”

And in these tough economic times, Web services resonates well with cost containment. “It’s hard to find the profit in Web services, but easy to identify the savings,” said David Winer, CEO of Userland Software. Speaking of the way in which Web services will become endemic, Mr. Winer said, “At some point it [Web services] will be the familiar way that we do things.”

Overall the conference was well received and informative.