Java platform to support Web services interoperability technologies

Computerworld - The next version of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition will fully support guidelines being promoted by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to ensure that applications will work with one another, Sun Microsystems Inc. announced yesterday.
But there will be consequences to the decision to support the WS-I Organization's "basic profile," a set of rules specifying how to implement key Web services specifications. Sun officials said the upcoming Version 1.4 of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) will be delayed from its planned first-quarter release until the summer.
"It's a big commitment on behalf of the J2EE community at this point to stand up and say that they will make the WS-I 1.0 basic profile an absolute requirement for all 1.4 products going out the door," said Mark Hapner, a distinguished engineer at Sun and the lead architect of J2EE. "It took a lot of background work to make sure the J2EE community could deliver on this promise."
WS-I first had to clarify ambiguities and fill in deficiencies in key Web services standards such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) to verify that interoperability could be achieved, Hapner said. Then, vendors building products must adhere tightly to the WS-I's basic profile in order to guarantee that applications will interoperate.
The expert group charged with evolving the J2EE specification was unanimous in its support for the WS-I profile, according to Hapner, who is co-leader of the J2EE specification. Expert groups comprising representatives from various vendors are responsible for overseeing aspects of Java under the Java Community Process (JCP) that Sun established in 1995 to develop and revise the technology it had created.
Several industry analysts praised Sun's move to support the WS-I's basic profile and said the resulting J2EE 1.4 delays shouldn't adversely affect corporate IT users.
"Right now, most organizations are not even using the [J2EE] features that exist already. Most of them are using Java Server Pages, but there's not a lot of Enterprise JavaBeans use going on," said Daryl Plummer, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. "I'm hard-pressed to believe that anybody but the most leading-edge Java users are going to be generally impacted by a significant delay."
Plummer said the delay will be worth it if it results in Java "more naturally supporting the building of good Web services."
The delay probably won't have a significant impact on product release schedules, said Mike Gilpin, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Giga Information Group Inc. He said