A generic Extensible Markup Language architecture for Web services advocated by the Web Services Interoperability Organization will "significantly reduce the cost and complexity of connecting disparate systems," according to a message from Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates. The e-mail message circulated yesterday.
Gates said the WS-* architecture, pronounced "WS star," is the result of Microsoft’s collaboration with BEA Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., IBM Corp., Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
All the companies are represented on the WS-I board of directors, in addition to Fujitsu Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., SAP AG and WebMethods Inc. of Fairfax, Va.
WS-I of San Francisco, which was founded in 2002, produces profiles, sample applications and test tools. It claims 130 member organizations in 14 nations, but so far the federal government’s XML working groups are not active in it.
