(February 11, 2003) - As systems integrators plan to build Web services delivery capabilities in the next year, Microsoft .NET, IBM WebSphere, and Oracle are the three leading Web services products they plan to support, according to a recent survey by Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner, Inc.

"There is a proliferation of Web services products being used in the systems integration channel. However, there is an emerging distinction between the top three or four products that systems integrators will target for skills investment, and those Web services products they will use on an opportunistic basis at a client's request," said Michele Cantara, principal analyst for Gartner Dataquest's IT Services group.

In September 2002, Gartner Dataquest completed an Internet survey of 44 consulting and systems integration vendors in North America. "Microsoft .NET was targeted by 58 percent of system integrators as one of the top three Web services products to ramp up delivery capability," Cantara said. "Forty percent selected IBM WebSphere, and 31 percent cited Oracle as one of their top three Web services products for capability investment."

In August of 2002, Gartner Dataquest completed an Internet survey among 138 enterprises that were using or planning to use a systems integrator within the next 12 months to design or implement a Web services solution. The survey showed 33 percent of end users that are working with systems integrators are planning to use Microsoft.NET, while 39 percent plan to use Java/J2EE. The survey shows that smaller companies tended to favor Microsoft.NET and large companies tended to favor J2EE architectures and products.

A comparison of end-user and systems integrator survey results shows that while systems integrators are predominantly implementing Web services solutions within the four walls of the enterprise, end users are planning to use Web services in multi-enterprise solutions.

"While larger companies tended to have established a Web services platform of choice, smaller companies were still undecided. This shows that the systems integrator does not always dictate the choice of Web services platforms, and that Web services software vendors that are not among the chosen few should look at the smaller, undecided companies where they are more likely to find opportunity for their product," said Joanne Correia, vice president for Gartner Dataquest's Software Industry Research group.

Additional information is available in the Gartner Dataquest Market Trends report "Systems Integrators and Users Advance Web Services Use in 2002".

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Published Jan. 1, 2000— Reads 8,014
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