Converged Services: A Hidden Challenge for the Web Services Paradigm

The web has brought a revolution in sharing information and in human-computer interaction. The web services paradigm (based initially on standards such as SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, BPEL) will bring the next revolution, enabling flexible, intricate, and largely automated interactions between web-resident services and applications. But the telecommunications world is also changing, from isolated, monolithic legacy stove-pipes, to a much more modular, internet-style framework that will enable rich flexibility in creating communication and collaboration services. This will be enabled by the existing Parlay/OSA standard and emerging standards for all-IP networks, (e.g., 3GPP IMS). We are evolving towards a world of “converged” services, not two parallel worlds of web services vs. telecom services.