As Web services begin their fall from the top of Gartner's Hype Cycle, the hype remains deafening and skeptics' voices are rising in volume. Because of this, and the combination of the industry's continued search for "the next big thing" with the over-expectations, fears, and confusion surrounding Web services terminology, the industry faces a challenge understanding the pitfalls and benefits of Web services. Here, we explore six things that Web services will fail to deliver, and six corresponding areas where Web services will succeed (see table, below).

What Web services will and won't do

Won't:	Will:
Link businesses indiscriminately	Ease partner-to-partner interaction
Cure all integration issues	Make application integration easier
Transform businesses on their own	Create new business opportunities
Eliminate the need for decision makers	Give business more and better choices
Give software vendors long-term competitive advantages	Give enterprises competitive advantages over rivals through year-end 2004
Be stopped by the lack of native security features--but will require secure thinking	Improve efficiency in trusted environments

Source: Gartner Research P2 / Partner selection and interaction

Won't: Web services won't foster ad hoc (indiscriminate and anonymous) partner selection over the Internet. Successful businesses need reliable partners, and will continue to negotiate partner agreements prior to selecting which products and services will be used. Web services have the potential to increase dynamism so that enterprises can utilize pre-negotiated arrangements and select which service or supplier to use as quickly as possible. However, enterprises must apply careful scrutiny when selecting their more-critical partners.

Will: Web services will make it easier to work with existing partners. Because Web services allow more dynamic interaction to occur, they provide a way for existing business partners to trade services and to rapidly update a service or to select from a wide range of available services. This will enhance the natural process of partner interaction by making it easier to integrate systems.

Won't: Web services won't eliminate the need for application integration. Web services provide immediate benefits in improving the way systems communicate over the Internet; however, they do not remove the need for adapters, connecters, translators and flow control--four things that are key to application integration. Integration remains a key challenge for just about every enterprise. Any enterprise that believes its investments in Web services will serve as the only thing needed for (or obviate its need for) application integration solutions will waste time and money.

Will: Web services will make integration easier and will force an emphasis on the subject of interoperability (which is a loose form of integration). Integration and interoperability are two sides of the same coin.

• Integration directly connects two systems together so that they communicate directly with one another.
• Interoperability bridges two systems together using a common set of standards through which they communicate.

Web services are that set of standards, and, as such, can help completely different systems work together without the need to connect them directly to one another (e.g., bridging the .Net and Java systems).

Won't: Web services won't (in and of themselves) transform business. Business transforms business. After many claims that the latest and greatest technology will transform business, rest assured that Web services are no different. Zealots make this claim for Web services as well, but fail to realize that it is business that transforms business, not technologies. Technologies only provide new opportunities; if enterprises are unwilling or unable to change their cultures and approaches to business, then very little transformation will occur.

Fears surrounding losing control of corporate catalogs, not being able to achieve good-enough quality of service from Web services, or of doing business over the Internet are all reasons why some businesses will fail to transform themselves once again--even with Web services. Web services (like other technologies) will, however, help aggressive enterprises ease these types of transformations and can potentially catalyze "virtual enterprise" types of environments in which enterprises make their core competencies available primarily through Web services interfaces.

Will: Web services will create new business opportunities and models. The emergence of "service bureaus" (for example, the Bureau for Government Taxation Statistics) and the introduction of software-as-a-service will present an opportunity for businesses to use new models for delivering value. For example, delivery of software through a subscription-based hosting model will eventually eliminate the need for most software to be licensed and sold in physical packaging. Some enterprises are already employing this model of downloading software from the Internet; Web services will advance this concept even further. In addition, vendors will increasingly take on roles as service providers, which will present new challenges for service-level agreements, quality and trust.

Won't: Web services will not eliminate decision makers or the decisions they need to make. The idea that Web services will foster a revolution in self-aware software that makes all decisions without human intervention is mostly a pipe dream. In the foreseeable future, human assistance will still be needed to decide:

• which agreements are valid
• how a selection of products or partners must be made
• when to share or not to share information
• what to do about other uncertainties

These types of decisions are based on more information (often subjective) than computers are prepared to handle. Likewise, Web services will not significantly reduce bilateral negotiation issues because Web services will enable more sourcing possibilities (more choices), and the amount of time spent on negotiation issues may actually increase.

Will: Web services will improve the number of choices, and the quality and timeliness of those choices. As mentioned earlier, Web services will allow the expansion of the number of options a person has when deciding on which computer processes should be used. Since many services will be easier to access, trading partners will offer more value (in the form of more services) to one another.

In addition, the prospect of having to provide a service-level agreement for, say, all billing services will force a focus on quality which will ultimately improve quality. Finally, since Web services can be searched like any Web page, location of new services (among existing trusted partners) makes finding the right service (e.g., shipping service) much more timely and appropriate.

Won't: Web services won't provide a long-term differentiator to a software vendor strategy. The days of Web services as a differentiator are rapidly coming to a close. All major, and most minor, IT vendors have made a commitment to introducing Web service technology into their products. One of the key benefits of Web services is that they are simple and that they all use the same set of core standards. This means that by year-end 2003, more than 95 percent of the top 2,000 software vendors selling applications or infrastructure will have either announced or added support for the core Web services standards (0.8 probability).

Will: Web services will provide user enterprises with a competitive advantage through 2004. Unlike software vendor strategies, Web services has not yet become a "me too" approach to adopting the technology. While the competitive value of Web services for a user enterprise has not yet fully been identified, it's at least starting to take shape. Companies such as Continental Airlines and Dollar Rent-a-Car provide an efficiency advantage that allows them to differentiate themselves through their ability to streamline operations and to gain more flexibility of operations internally, as well as with partners.

Won't: Web services won't be stopped by unresolved security or trust issues. Web services will make it even more important to establish a trust framework and to improve security. While this will be a concern that reduces the speed of adoption of Web services, it will ultimately be handled in "good enough" fashion, just as has been accomplished with the Web. However, since trust is a key component of doing business, Web services must be viewed skeptically until effective security and trust mechanisms are established as core elements of the Web services standards.

Will: Web services will be used to increase internal efficiency in a trusted environment. Because most enterprises are cautious about using their critical business processes in the open environment of the Internet, they will first derive value from Web services behind their firewalls.

Bottom line

As with any overhyped phenomenon, Web services must be put in perspective. While Web services certainly come with their share of overstated claims, they also can provide some very real benefits--given appropriate use. The winners in Web services will be service providers in financial services, manufacturing, and travel that define the value that Web services brings to them (in providing efficiency, agility, and a richer set of choices for doing business). These providers will avoid the pitfalls inherent in just adopting the technology because the industry says it is "cool."

What Web Services will and won't do
By Daryl Plummer, David Smith, and Whit Andrews
First published by Gartner Group on Feb. 19, 2002