2003 was definitely a positive year for the economy and the world of i-technology - and the year's success also raised the bar for what needs to happen in 2004, if we really want to see recovery. Although this statement focuses on financial aspects, it provides an indication of what we need in the world of information technology - a focus on delivering value out of the whole standardization story.

We've continuously said that using open standards such as XML and Web services is a good thing - we need to start proving it through implementations whose success can be attributed to these standards. As the economy improves, spending should also increase and more investment dollars will be available. However, instead of spending these dollars on long-term research projects, the business side of the world wants to see projects that bring immediate ROI.

Standards
The success of XML has been attributed to the development of standards. Whereas the W3C has taken on the responsibility of the core set of standards around XML and Web services, OASIS has been instrumental in developing standards that are high up in the technology stack. In addition to W3C and OASIS, WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization), which was launched in 2003, has been specifically targeted to focus on interoperability across platforms and applications.

W3C
As you're probably aware, the standardization work at W3C follows a known path. W3C Working Groups take the development of a standard through a series of stages: Working Draft, Last Call Working Draft, Candidate Recommendation, Proposed Recommendation, and W3C Recommendation. Related to XML activities, 2003 marked the release of SOAP 1.2, XForms, XML Events, SVG 1.1, XPointer, and PNG as W3C Recommendations. Key standards to watch in 2004, which are in later stages of maturity, include VoiceXML 2.0 and OWL. Although XForms was released as a W3C Recommendation, we haven't really seen a large number of implementations nor the ubiquity I believe the standard deserves. Hopefully, in 2004 we'll take this standard to the next level.

OASIS
Key standards earning the "OASIS Standard" stamp include XACML (Extensible Access Control Markup Language), UDDI v2, WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portals), XCBF (XML Common Biometric Format), SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) 1.1, and SPML (Service Provisioning Markup Language). A number of additional OASIS Technical Committees (TCs) were formed, particularly Business Process Execution Language, Composite Application Framework for Web Services, and Web Services Management.

WS-I
The WS-I Organization delivered WS-I Basic Profile and even Sample Applications for Basic Profile. This led to core interoperability between Web services developed using Microsoft .NET and J2EE platforms. J2EE 1.4 included support for WS-I as a highlight of the release. Key plans for 2004 are centered on interoperability of Web services security.

Other Key Highlights
We shouldn't forget that the standardization committees and working groups are powered by member technology and end-user companies, and provide key insight around the development of technology.

In addition to standardization, 2003 also saw success in various other areas. The rubber really met the road for Web services, with initial success from Amazon and Google Web services. A number of Web sites and application models emerged based on those two Web services application areas. This really proved the whole Web services theory and also provided direction for getting value from open standards.

The release of Office 2003 was also a landmark in the history of technology - interoperable office documents are a good thing. Even though there is contention on a broader XML format for Office, with OASIS leading an initiative around it, there's still a lot of value in having some standard - whether it's a recognized standard or a de facto standard. In addition to XML for Word and PowerPoint documents, the Office 2003 release contains a revolutionary killer app that I believe will really change the way we have come to use electronic forms and applications (more next month).