Microsoft Web services plan targets Java

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Microsoft's newly planned software, that is said to be able to simplify the creation of Web service applications is said to be a direct attempt to turn the heat up on the companies Java rivals.

The software, code-named Indigo, will be the next generation of Microsoft's .NET Web services product. More details are planning to be announched later in the year.

While Microsoft executives have offered scant information on Indigo, people familiar with the company's plans said the software takes direct aim at IBM, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Oracle and other rivals that sell products based on the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard.

Microsoft has made inroads into large corporations with its back-end server software. However, J2EE-based systems are still generally favored by such customers for more complex computing jobs such as running stock exchanges or high-volume Web sites.

Indigo is tightly linked to Microsoft's Windows operating system and should update the company's .Net Framework tool for building applications. The tool is the "plumbing" for software that's needed to run Web services applications--which allow disparate systems to share data--on Windows operating systems.

Indigo could accelerate the development of Windows-based Web services, according to people familiar with Microsoft's plans. It would do this by allowing the operating system to handle much of the heavy lifting that's related to ensuring the security and management of applications in use, they said. Indigo is expected to incorporate the latest advances in Web services standards in security, reliability and transactions.

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