“The truth is that there is no reason why these folks could not have worked with Microsoft/IBM in the context of BPEL and the WS-Transaction set of specifications to come up with a particular implementation of these specs,” Ron Schmelzer, analyst for web services specialist ZapThink LLC, said. “In essence, this is a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy.”

By taking a particular problem, in this case coordinating transactions across multiple web services, and developing specs addressing minute problem areas, Sun et al. are “hoping to sway users intoparticular implementations that use their specs, which of course, IBM and Microsoft will simply not support,” Schmelzer said.

Read more at: TechWeb