B.1. Objectives

This summary identifies major Web Services vendors and their products and discusses what market space they penetrate into. It is not intended to be exhaustive, as there are many niche companies locally and globally. The product architecture, if available, is depicted along with the products. Company background and product information can be found on their official URLs. Some of the information here may be outdated by the time this book is published.

Apart from the following vendors, there are many niche Web Services products not listed here. Examples are Web Services Quality of Services products (such as Flamenco Networks http://www.flamenconetworks.com/solutions/solutions.html and Talking Blocks http://www.talkingblocks.com/), Web Services edge devices, such as XML Firewall products (for example, http://daxfi.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.quadrasis.com/solutions/products/easi_product_packages/easi_soap.htm), and SOAP Cache (for example, http://www.exln.com/products/XIS, http://www2002.org/ CDROM/poster/126/, and http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-2002/jw-0308- soap_p.html). As these products are still maturing, it may be useful to start keeping them on the technology watch list.