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2003 Survivor's Guide to Business Applications: Page 5 of 15

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This change means that access to business functions within applications is platform- and language-agnostic. SDKs are specific to languages and platforms, but Web services offer truly ubiquitous access. The technology is the more open, streamlined resurrection of CORBA. While Web services are being marketed as the panacea to the problem of lengthy development cycles, it's unlikely that Web services will encourage the reuse of code any more than the move to an object-oriented paradigm did because of two factors: trust and communication. Coders only trust their own code and are unwilling to use existing code--if they're even aware that it's available. Communication among development teams is a larger problem because teams rarely discuss with other teams the impact of a single component. The resulting component, or Web service, is unlikely to satisfy the needs of every team, likely necessitating a complete rewrite.

Web services provide much more in terms of packaged applications, as these open interfaces offer a mechanism for integration and support out of the box rather than requiring customization through coding or purchasing additional adapters.