Microsoft SOAP on the ROPEs

2000-05-25

Hmm… very interesting. Microsoft seem to be keeping its SOAPy hands firmly to its chest. SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, is a technology standard announced by the company as part of its DNA initiative. Essentially it involves using XML as a communications language to enable object and component services to be accessed remotely, for example over the Internet – a kind of long-distance remote procedure call. Great idea, but now Microsoft seems to be balking at the principle of opening up a dialogue (as it were) about this new “standard”.

There are several reasons why Microsoft does not want to reveal its hand at this stage. For a start, SOAP is not ready for use, indeed it is little more than a twinkle in the company’s eye at this stage. If Microsoft was to reveal all it would be opening itself up to both ridicule and idea stealing. Let’s face it, there are plenty of people that would not be able to resist having a pop at the software giant, it’s a way of getting a bit of payback for the extortionate costs of the software over the years. As for stealing of ideas, imagine what would have happened if SUN had released details of Java to the IT population before it was fully fleshed out? There would have been no shortage of companies prepared to copy and even patent the fledgling ideas. Okay, there are the positives. Of Java, more later.

On The Register yesterday a second suggestion was raised. SOAP is to be an instrumental part of Microsoft’s Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS), also known as MegaServices. Detail about these is sparse but the oft-quoted example is of Microsoft Passport, which can be used as an authentication mechanism for any internet-enabled application. Other MegaServices could include transaction management, payment/billing, inventory and so on. Clearly some mechanism is required to access these services. SOAP is the ideal candidate, coupled with a communications handling mechanism such as the Remote Object Proxy Engine or ROPE. Now, suggested The Register, SOAP is being kept quiet not for its own sake but for the sake of NGWS, upon which Microsoft’s whole future may depend. Having seen Microsoft’s fears that the ongoing court case may kill NGWS, this may well be true.

There is one more reason why Microsoft are being reticent about the detail of SOAP. As we’ve already mentioned, SOAP is following the same path as Java and with good reason – like Sun, Microsoft do not want to lose control of the “standard” once it appears. Why? Because, to Microsoft, SOAP is a Java killer and more – the company has set it sights on the whole EJB/CORBA caboodle. With an XML-based standard for application intercommunication, why bother with the layers of complex interfaces that have evolved around the Java spec? That’s the marketing theory anyway – the reality is that, with ROPE, Microsoft are re-inventing the request broker in their own image and hoping that its adopters will squeeze those nasty competitors out of the picture.

We’ll just have to see how it gets on.

(First published 25 May 2000)