INDUSTRY

Microsoft Corp announced that the company is positioned in the Leader Quadrant in Gartner Inc's 2004 Web Services Magic Quadrant. The report, published by Gartner, a premier research and advisory firm, evaluated 12 vendors as part of its research. According to Gartner, vendors listed in the Leader Quadrant are performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the industry. "From the early days of SOAP and XML, Microsoft has been a strong supporter and contributor to the adoption of Web services," said David Mendlen, director of Web Services Technical Marketing at Microsoft. "We feel the recognition by Gartner in the Leader Quadrant in Web services reflects our commitment to working with the industry to move the technology forward, and our ability to deliver a platform to our customers that intrinsically supports Web services at the deepest level." The updated Web Services Magic Quadrant also looks at the progress of Web services over the past year, and notes that Web services have become more mainstream, and the effects of the technology are influencing software overall. In particular, Web services are catalyzing many current software innovations and, more important, the standardization of those innovations. The annual Web Services Magic Quadrant is developed to assist enterprises with the vendor selection process for Web services direction and influence. It evaluates vendors based on their vision and ability to execute in five key categories: Web services vision and its importance to overall business strategy; overall breadth of incorporation of Web services into product and service offerings; support of emerging business models for Web services, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and service-oriented business applications (SOBA); Web service standards influence; and Web services developer influence. Gartner uses questionnaires, analyst briefings and in-depth customer interviews to determine a company's position in the quadrant.