The Waking Giant

In an article on Line56:

"If there is a dark horse coming up on the outer rail, it's Web services and their associated uptake. Twenty-one percent of companies are currently in enterprise-wide or multi-enterprise integrations of one kind or another; 8 percent are in business unit-wide implementations; and another 41 percent are in incremental rollouts or pilots. Though 20 percent of companies are still thinking about Web services, just 10 percent show no interest.

While many had predicted that Web services would remain mostly within the four walls initially, the fastest adoption will take place with business customers, followed in order by internal operations; suppliers and trading partners; and consumer customers.

A clear majority of companies say Web services will be used to complement current infrastructure, while 6 percent say it will be used separately, and 12 percent will use services to replace previous integrations. Companies have a variety of plans for Web services, but most (69 percent) say "existing Web-based applications" have the highest appeal.