Piloting Web Services

Some solution providers are aligning with ASPs such as Portera, Campbell, Calif., to get a jump start on what they say will one day be a Web services windfall.

The Taylor Group, a systems integrator in Bedford, N.H., created a Web service for one customer by integrating Portera's professional services automation applications with Great Plains accounting applications. The custom service sends information back and forth between the applications over the Web. Better yet, the VAR can now offer that service to other customers.

"We are finally getting past our goal of not having to create an application from scratch and spend a lot of money to distribute it," said Nick Manha, president of The Taylor Group. "The applications don't have to be installed over and over again,customers just tap into the Web."

The Taylor Group is also developing a portfolio of .Net applications that will allow on-site applications to interact with Web-based applications, said Manha.

Ed Kwan, CEO of Infogenics, Redwood City, Calif., said the historical role of the channel shows that solution providers are in a prime position to be at the forefront of creating Web services.

"Fifteen years ago, businesses developed applications in-house. Today, they outsource that application development. And for the same reasons,the cost of maintaining the applications,these businesses will begin to outsource infrastructure," he said.

Infogenics, like The Taylor Group, is creating a bridge between Portera and Great Plains applications, said Kwan. ManagedOps.com, an MSP that actually was spun off from The Taylor Group, acts as the infrastructure hosting provider for both VARs' services.

David Knight, co-founder and vice president of application services for Portera, based here, said the creation of standard development tools for Web services is turning the software-as-a-service concept into an opportunity, as opposed to a threat, for solution providers.

"With technology like XML and SOAP and Microsoft's .Net and Sun's SunOne, resellers can much more easily extend a hosted solution and integrate them together," said Knight. "This is what is going to lead to the proliferation of Web services, and resellers will play their traditional role as the integrator and face to the customer."