Web co-dependency - application integration - Internet/Web/Online Service Information - Column

Communications News, Nov, 1999 by Lenny Liebman

The next phase in the evolution of the Web is inter-enterprise application integration. Are you prepared? Are your vendors?

Analysts and journalists love the Web. No sooner do we complete an article or a research study than The Next Big Thing pops its head up. 4Q99 is no exception. The niftiest thing I'm seeing happen right now is the growing interest in Web applications that cross organizational boundaries. These applications have already demonstrated an ability to create value, accelerate business growth, and support on-line branding--all key e-business objectives. Anyone involved in e-business should, therefore, be asking themselves three questions:

1. Does my team have the business vision and creativity to discern where our company can benefit from such applications?

2. Do we have the technical skills to execute that vision?

3. Can our vendors help us get there fast?

If the answer to any of those questions is "no," then it's time to make some changes. Otherwise, the competition is going to look a lot smarter than you. Chances are that that will affect their market valuation. And, with that higher valuation, they'll have the capital to outperform you in several other dimensions besides the Web.

WEBBED WEB APPS

What does an inter-enterprise Web app look like? Well, the financial services sites are prime examples. They take data from the stock exchanges and combine it with their own customers' account information to create highly dynamic, revenue-generating content. Many of them also use third-party Web services, such as BigCharts.com, to provide additional content.

Trip.com does something similar with the Federal Aviation Agency. It gets real-time flight data and presents it on its site in the form of an airplane silhouette on a map. That way, visitors can see the current status of any domestic flight. So, if you're going to pick up Aunt Rose at the airport, you can see if she has been delayed with a few clicks of your mouse. The application doesn't directly create revenue, but it generates a lot of traffic and strong differentiation for Trip.com in a very crowded market segment.

What's even more interesting is what's going on in the Web retailing space. A new breed of content aggregators are actually capturing e-commerce applications from partner sites, repackaging them to fit in with the look and feel of their own on-line brand, and presenting it to customers as their own. It is a classic win-win situation. The aggregator gets to make a 15% margin on goods it doesn't have to stock or deliver. The supplier site gains a new distribution channel that requires almost no maintenance.

There are many other examples. But the main idea is that the Web now allows partners to transparently present each other's business and IT resources as their own. By tapping into these virtual resources, companies like yours can gain competitive advantages more rapidly than if you had to develop such resources yourself from scratch.

MAKING IT HAPPEN

How are early adopters making these integrations happen? For one thing, they tend to maintain a strong object-oriented focus in their application development. This gives them the flexibility to repurpose data models and business logic to meet the requirements of their external Web business partners. Most of these dot.com innovators are Java shops as well--which enables them to overcome some of the technical obstacles associated with delivering applications over the Net to any number of possible platforms. In particular, they typically use Sun's Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) technology, which allows objects to be distributed across multiple tiers (i.e., client, business logic server, and back-end database). EJB also lets them maintain "state." That is, if a user loses his connection momentarily, EJB enables that user to pick up where he left off. This is particularly important for rich Web applications. The last thing you want a user to have to do is start some multistep operation all over again.

But the most compelling technology for companies sharing data and apps over the Web is XML (eXtensible Markup Language). XML provides a de facto standard protocol that lets business partners define how Web "clicks" and data entries map to other Web or legacy applications. It's very flexible, relatively efficient, and already established as the tool-of-choice for the frontrunners in the field.

Does your technical team know XML? Does your Web server vendor support it? Does your networking team have the VPN tools and expertise to create secure Net links to potential Web business partners? Are your marketing and business development managers even thinking about this stuff?

"Brochureware" sites don't cut it anymore. To create a strong Web presence and generate e-business activity, you need compelling content. More and more, that content includes applications drawn from strategic business partners. But to achieve this business-to-business integration, you have to step up to a new generation of XML/Java/object technologies. My advice is to do it now!