Weekly Review: Oracle's Modest Proposal

Back in the days when lighting up a cigarette was thought to be a sign of vigor and earnestness rather than the flagrant disregard for health and public decency that it is today, important political and industrial deals were often brokered in what became known as "smoke-filled rooms." The phrase succinctly captured the highly charged atmosphere of backroom discussions where powerful individuals negotiated for high stakes long into the night.

Read and React

"Oracle's proposal sent ripples throughout the industry. It was an astute move by a vendor that has had little new to say or announce in relation to Web services in recent months. Seizing the initiative in the midst of multiple technology announcements from rivals of the stature of IBM, Microsoft and Sun is an effective way to signal that Oracle means to remain a leader in the Web services space." Give us your feedback in the ASPnews Discussion Forum

No nicotine stains are allowed to sully the minimalist decor of the breakout rooms and conference chambers where present-day deals in politics and business are struck. The discussions are just as earnest and impassioned, the stakes just as high. But the atmosphere is as crystal clear as the chilled mineral water set out around the room.

It was in such a room last week that Oracle made its proposal to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to harmonize emerging standards for co-ordinating multiple Web services. The high-tech industry has many such bodies that, mixing a heady cocktail of politics and commerce, have the power to either grant or refuse legitimacy to budding technology standards.

Oracle Plays Innocent
On the face of it, Oracle's proposal was innocent enough. Pointing out the potential confusion caused by a proliferation of overlapping specifications in the emerging field of what is known as Web service choreography, the database software vendor proposed the formation of a new industry working group whose charter would be to settle on a single, unified standard.

But there was much more at stake than the harmonization of a handful of experimental technical specifications. One of them, announced just two weeks before, is a joint initiative by IBM and Microsoft — Oracle's largest rivals in the database market — known by the ungainly acronym of BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services). Another, known as WSCI (Web Services Choreography Interface), is backed by server vendor Sun, the creator of Java. There's also BPML (Business Process Modeling Language), which has its own standards-setting body, BPMI.org. And there's BPSS (Business Process Specification Schema), developed as part of the United Nations-backed ebXML initiative, whose work is co-ordinated by OASIS, which, alongside W3C, is another of the industry's most influential standards bodies.

So Oracle's proposal, made in that smoke-free room in Washington last week, sent ripples throughout the industry. It was an astute move by a vendor that has had little new to say or announce in relation to Web services in recent months. Seizing the initiative in the midst of multiple technology announcements from rivals of the stature of IBM, Microsoft and Sun is an effective way to signal that Oracle means to remain a leader in the Web services space. At a stroke, it claimed center stage in a debate where previously it had been been a mute bystander.

The Aura and Illusion of Standards
For a technology vendor, being seen to lead standards confers the aura of a commanding market stature. By definition, a standard is what everyone buys. The corollary in high-tech is that no-one buys anything that does not conform to a recognized standard. Thus it follows that to be a leader in standards is to be a leader in the market.

Never mind that this is a circular argument, that in reality standards are whatever the market converges on, irrespective of what the industry's self-appointed standards bodies decide amongst themselves. These days, the market is so eager to bypass the unpredictable and disruptive process of electing a standard by open market competition that it is often happy to abdicate its own role in favor of the decisions bartered in those smoke-free rooms.

It is one of the ironies of modern marketing that Oracle's new-found claim to standards leadership in the all-important arena of Web services orchestration will doubtless increase its market penetration in this sector — even though it offers no products today that conform to any of the proposed specifications. Merely associating itself in a high-profile way with the standards effort will confer a positive aura of standards compliance.

The smoke may have been banished from the cool, clear confines of those highly charged meeting rooms, but the power their occupants wield ensures their proceedings remain as complex and murky as ever.

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