Since the king discovered that the coffers were bare, or at least shrinking, in 2001, IT spending for big ticket items has been in lockdown mode, while all the king's men work to put everything bought in '99 and 2000 together.

At a time when newer-generation architectures, such as .NET and J2EE, are either being rolled out or gaining deeper enterprise acceptance, the push is on to make better use of existing computing assets - hammer down and be sure that every last ounce of computing power is squeezed out of those mainframe applications, those hordes of custom-built applications, the expansive packaged applications. Above all, cut the operational cost of every e-business activity we're involved in. Return on investment is a must.

Enter the king's alchemist with vials of new, strange-looking Web services technology. Or perhaps it's not so strange-looking - Hurwitz Group's research in early 2002 showed that Web services adoption was moving along quicker than pundits expected, given the lockdown on budgets. The adopters are tackling enterprise integration as a primary problem. Developers are very willing to experiment with the new stuff, and C-level decision makers are green-lighting Web services. But this new alchemy shouldn't be surprising. In fact, it demonstrates a return to basics in IT departments - not yet the dynamic world of Web services flying all about the network, being presented, consumed, and joined for new revenue generation.

We took our eyes off the ball in '99 and 2000 in terms of the types of projects we took on and how we declared success on those projects. We brought in slick and visionary technology to extend our enterprise services to the many market opportunities just at browser's reach. But just because new technology walked in the door, what was already present didn't suddenly disappear. We spent too long pulling apart our core, existing business processes to grab Internet success at the expense of having efficient back-office fulfillment. We walked away from setting up business success parameters (ROI) for new technology acquisitions. But isn't this the original sin of technology - a promise for totally new value that comes at any price and demolishes how we previously did business? It's real work to make new technology work with the multiplicity of incumbent technology. It's even more work to roll out reliable and efficient business processes that adequately reflect the value of the technology in the first place. Finally, it requires fiscal due diligence to ensure that the "return" is in the bag.

We need better strategies and technologies to deal with this issue. Web services is one of the technologies around it, and Hurwitz Group is seeing executives starting to form an actual long-term strategy. With the smallest additive, we can trigger an otherwise static mixture - this is the function of the catalyst. How then can Web services be a catalyst?

First, look at our static mixture. One of the components is frozen budget expenditures. The other components are legacy applications and data, large packaged applications, portal technology, homegrown modern applications, all kinds of things. This mixture has put us into some degree of stasis: What does what? What is it connected to? How does this work together? How can I get this information from point A to point B for the lowest cost and least amount of pain? How much have I spent on all this?

The issue for Web services is not whether it's the greatest technology since yesterday's greatest thing. The issue centers around the use and value of Web services. Web services is precisely the catalyst we need to spark intelligent spending on making our IT assets work better together. Let's not forget that computing heterogeneity is a reality, and we're in a time when market pressures are dictating that our heterogeneous applications work more cohesively together. How can we accomplish this? By having a business strategy that reflects the reality of how we use our IT. This means looking at the ROI and the return on assets that any software gives us. Web-services technology is a low-cost investment that helps solve a key problem: integration of various computing assets. Web services isn't the only thing, but it gives us a cost-managed means to look closely at how effectively our applications work together. Web services can give us the confidence to truly address our IT integration challenges in a pragmatic fashion - one that delivers business results.

The catalyst sparks the mixture so we're not afraid to spend our budgets on things that truly need to be fixed in our IT laboratory. Use of Web services technology for integration gets us back on track toward spending our IT dollars on solving today's problem as opposed to building tomorrow's problem, which we were guilty of not so long ago. As these implementations mature, Hurwitz Group sees BPM (business process management) taking an even greater role in the enterprise, but that's another subject. For now, Web services can ignite a return to business value spending for IT by keeping us focused on projects that unify application fabrics and business processes.