There's a lot going on in the world of Web services these days, so much so that it's almost hard to keep track of it. And there is definitely enough to make it difficult to make sense of competing initiatives. But it certainly makes for interesting watching.

Case in point is the Web Services Interoperability organization (WS-I). Chartered as an open standards group whose purpose is to increase the interoperability of Web services across platforms, languages, and systems, the group counts IBM, BEA, and Microsoft amongst its members. So where, you ask, is Java founder and J2EE specification definer Sun Microsystems? I ask the same question. It's ironic that a group whose stated purpose is to increase interoperability cannot actually come to agreement on its membership. How can Sun, which spearheads the Java Community Process on J2EE (and on Web services) be excluded? I get the usual fingerpointing when I ask representatives of various organizations this question. To be honest, I don't care about the answer, or who's to blame. Sun should be part of the group, and that's all there is to it. The rest is just corporate posturing that serves no one. WS-I isn't complete until Sun plays.

That's not to say that the gang of three and their cohorts aren't doing good work, both in the WS-I and outside. One great point from the unlikely collaboration of these titans is the release of three specifications - BPEL4WS, WS-Coordination, and WS-Transaction. I can't take credit for the creation of these spefications myself, but WSJ has been calling for them almost since our first issue.

WS-Coordination provides a framework and protocols for the coordination of distributed applications. Whether the coordination is between groups within a single company or between companies across the Internet, this coordination of services provides a necessary component of federation of Web services, and acknowledges the fact that they may be deployed on multiple platforms and will require coordination.

The WS-Transaction specification is one of the protocols within the WS-Coordination framework that enables the creation of atomic transactions spanning multiple Web services.

And in a rare burst of cooperation not seen between two rivals since before the OS/2 days, the release of Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) unites and supercedes the efforts of Microsoft's BizTalk and IBM's Web Services Flow Language. Too bad the acronym is so darn hard to say. What this does mean is that a majority of the major players in the industry have agreed to use a single set of APIs for coordination, transaction and business process description and management. I've been on my soapbox for a year now extolling the need for these components. Fortunately, the proponents of these specifications represent a significant segment of the industry, so it's likely that adoption will occur.

But some may accuse these merry philanthropists of creating these specifications strictly for their own gain. And I might be one of those, because this space is also occupied by EAI, and no pure-play EAI vendor is represented in this specification process, although some companies, such as SeeBeyond and webMethods, are members of WS-I. Despite their presence, they weren't invited to play in the big Web services game. That's because IBM, BEA, and Microsoft have decided to divide up the Web services pie for themselves. In the words of George Orwell, "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others." It's time to create an independent organization for Web services, or at least empower OASIS or W3C to run the show, and make sure that other voices are heard. Not that these specifications are bad, by any means. But a monopoly of three is no different from a monopoly of one, and any monopoly is a bad thing.