Development tools specialist Borland is to offer Web services support for the Linux operating system -- a move it argued will build support for Linux for e-business. Web services will be added to its Kylix Linux-based rapid application development (RAD) software. At its conference in London this week, Borland said Web service features will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001.
Gary Barnett of analyst firm Ovum said, "This is very welcome. Borland is in a large and growing group that has got on the Web services bandwagon, but it has more credibility than some others."
Jason Vokes, Borland's European product line manager for RAD products, said, "Kylix is the equivalent of [Borland's] Delphi 6 RAD product that runs on Windows. Delphi has recently been updated to include Web services and Kylix is now to be extended in the same way."
He explained that this meant adding support for Simple Object Access Protocol (Soap), XML transfer capability and Web Services Description Language (WSDL).
Analyst firm Gartner Group estimates that 80 percent of mission-critical systems that could benefit by being on the Web are still isolated from it. But if applications are Web-enabled in a non-standard way, it may be difficult to achieve compatibility with the systems of business partners. In theory, Web services can provide a standard way of using the Web to connect and integrate business partners and employees worldwide.
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