Brett Parker

A computing revolution is pitching industry heavyweights against each other in a fight for the future of computing. Missed it? Don't worry. You will be hearing about it soon.

It's all about how we connect with each other, how machines connect with other machines and how we use data. Microsoft is planning to provide co mpanies with the platform and tools to be part of this new and challenging environment.

And it has committed substantial resources to strengthening its offering in the enterprise solutions space. "With our partners we are able to deliver solutions that solve problems now but keep a strategic eye on what is happening in the future," says Microsoft SA deputy MD Gordon Frazer.

Facing unprecedented competitive pressures, firms need the Internet, but not as an adjunct to existing operations. They need it as the primary support for business - to connect with customers, squeeze efficiencies out of the supply chain and provide employees with the tools to perform effectively.

Unlike dot-com-style hype, this has substance and Microsoft is betting on it.

"In many respects, today's Internet still mirrors the old mainframe world. It's a server-centric computing model, with the browser playing the role of dumb terminal," says Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates.

He is referring to a computing model whereby information is stored on a server housed on a network, in this case the biggest of them all, the Internet. This information can be retrieved to a user device, usually a PC.

Gordon Frazer

The information is typically locked in centralised databases, served up a page at a time to individual users. Worse, Web pages are simply a "picture" of the data, not the data itself, forcing many developers back to "screen scraping" to acquire information.

Think about what it takes today to retrieve spreadsheet data - sales figures, for instance - from the Internet. You can view it, but rarely actually work with it. Integrating this data with your business's existing systems - never mind those of your partners - is costly and frustrating.

"Compounding this frustration is the fact that today's standalone applications and Websites create islands of functionality and data. You have to navigate manually between Websites, devices and applications, logging on each time and rarely being able to carry data with you. You have to keep track of which application, device or Website gives you which level of access to which data. Tasks that ought to be simple - such as arranging a meeting with colleagues from partner companies and automatically updating every attendee's calendar - are a nightmare. Productivity is one of the main casualties," says Gates.

Solving such problems is the main challenge to addressing the concerns of sceptical business decision makers, to ensure that the Internet is relevant. At the heart of the solution is Extensible Mark-up Language (XML). An open industry standard - meaning no one company "owns" it - managed by the World Wide Web Consortium, XML enables developers to describe data being exchanged between PCs, smart devices, applications and Websites. The crux of this is that the raw data, not constrained to the format or style in which it first appears, can be shared.

Since XML separates the underlying data from how that data is displayed, the data itself is "unlocked", so that it can be easily organised, programmed, edited and exchanged between Websites, applications and devices. "XML is [the] lingua franca for the Internet age. Just as the Web revolutionised how users talk to applications, XML transforms how applications talk to each other," says Frazer.

As developers become more familiar with XML, they are moving beyond using it only for data. With the help of XML-based technologies such as SOAP (which enables applications to interoperate through standard Internet protocols) and UDDI (which gives businesses a standard way to describe their services and connect automatically), they are creating a new type of software that uses XML to provide Web-based services.

Pause and reflect. This is potentially one of the hottest and most significant developments that will define the Internet and business.

XML Web services let applications share data, and - more powerfully - invoke capabilities from other applications without regard to how those applications were built, what operating system or platform they run on and what devices are used to access them. While XML Web services remain independent of each other, they can loosely link themselves into a collaborating group that performs a particular task.

Say you have an inventory system. If you don't connect it to anything else, it's not very valuable - you can track inventory, but it's a lot of work, and what that one system can do by itself is limited. For instance, every item you sell must be entered into your inventory system and separately into your accounting system and customer account records. However, if you connect your inventory system to your accounting system with XML, whenever you buy or sell something, the implications for your inventory and cash flow can be tracked in one step. Connect your warehouse management system, customer ordering system, supplier ordering systems and shipping company with XML and that inventory management system is worth a lot more. You can do end-to-end management of your business and deal with each transaction only once, instead of once for every system it affects.

These connections can be made easily using XML Web services that allow the applications to share information through the Internet, regardless of the operating system or back-end software that the application is using.

What's more, XML Web services are programmable and reusable, much like component software, except that they are accessible anywhere through the Internet.

Programs using this model will run across many Websites, drawing on information and services from each of them and combining and delivering them in a customised form to any device.

How will businesses and their customers benefit from this?

"XML Web services break down the distinctions between the Internet, standalone applications and computing devices of every kind, [so] they enable businesses to collaborate to offer an unprecedented range of integrated and customised solutions - solutions that enable their customers to act on information any time, any place and on any device," says Frazer.

The possibilities are endless.

An airline can link its online reservation system to its car-rental partner's system, so travellers can book a car at the same time as they book a flight. An online auction company can notify bidders when they are outbid or have won an auction.

"With XML Web services gaining momentum among developers as the next generation of Internet-based computing, it's time to deliver a platform that makes it simple to build these solutions and provides a reliable framework for integration and interoperability.

"Such a platform must be based on open standards, so THAT it can work across all programming languages, operating systems and applications. And it must combine the power of PCs and smart devices with the richness of the Internet," says Frazer. Microsoft's platform for building, deploying, operating and integrating XML Web services is .NET (pronounced dot-net).

With the marketing muscle of Microsoft, .NET is something you will be hearing more about in the future.

To create the .NET platform, Microsoft is targeting four areas of focus. These are founded on three principal pillars of the future of Internet-based computing:

• First, everything will be - or needs to be - a Web service;

• Second, once you have the Web services, you need to be able to aggregate and integrate data into these Web services in very simple ways; and

• Third, you need to have a simple and compelling end-user experience.

To achieve this, Microsoft is building the .NET platform in four parts:

• First, Microsoft has created the .NET Framework and Visual Studio toolset to make writing Web services easy and cost- effective.

• Second, to facilitate the aggregation and integration of Web services, Microsoft is developing a family of .NET servers, built on reliability and cost effectiveness.

Web services will, however, run on non-Microsoft server platforms as well.

• Third, Microsoft is developing software for end-user devices to take full advantage of Web services.

• Fourth, to ensure the end-user experience, be it for a company or individual, is simple yet compelling, Microsoft is developing a set of building block services, such as identity and notification services for users wanting to log into multiple Websites. These foundation services are designed to create user experiences that pull together Web services.

This revolution will take a few years - as long as five says Microsoft. How can Microsoft help customers now?

Business is as much about agility today as it will be in the future. "Agility is such a core focus of our strategy for customers. It's about leveraging existing technology investments into new market opportunities and driving return on investment," says Brett Parker, enterprise sales and partner group director at Microsoft SA.

"Microsoft has a comprehensive range of solution offerings, which we focus on delivering to the market through predictable recommended partners," says Parker.

But why is Microsoft an enterprise solutions provider?

"It fits with the broader Microsoft ecosystem. Within our own company, we have the resources to drive successes and opportunities for our customers. Outside we have an exceptional network of partners - the best IT companies in SA," says Parker.

Microsoft has addressed criticisms that it cannot match other industry players in terms of reliability, scalability and security. Independent testing now puts Microsoft in the top tier of vendors.

It has done this and kept costs in check. A differentiating feature of Microsoft solution proposals is cost effectiveness. "We believe in taking advantage of existing technology," says Frazer. "We focus on integrating existing infrastructure into our solution. It's a key part of our business strategy.

There are many IT providers and very few customers who have a single homogeneous environment.

Microsoft does this and focuses on getting solutions to market rapidly. "With competitive solutions, companies have often spent 18 months trying to become agile'," says Parker.

It has taken time. "We've focused on the Microsoft culture, and on our ability to architect, deploy and support mission-critical enterprise solutions," says Parker. "Many people used to think of Microsoft as inward looking, focused on R&D. We are now more customer-centric."

It's a view endorsed by clients such as Telkom and other enterprise customers that have successfully implemented Microsoft technology.

Microsoft may be a relative youngster in the enterprise solutions space but if - or, more likely, when - it secures the lead in the race to control the next generation of the Internet, there will be few companies that can afford to ignore it.