In-Depth

A tale of two surveys

• By Johanna Ambrosio
• July 1, 2004

In November 2003, Gartner conducted a survey at its Application Integration and Web Services Summit in Baltimore, asking attendees about their plans to implement Web services. Most attendees were IT professionals -- from worker bee up to senior management -- and they represented companies of all sizes, from revenue of less than $250 million up to revenue of more than $20 billion.

Interestingly, the economic slowdown did not seem to be having much of an effect. Where fewer than 5% of respondents said they have stopped all Web services spending for the time being, another 10% said they had postponed development for a more finite period. But a far larger number -- about 30% -- said that although they had cut back some Web services spending, they still continued some development in this area. And another 40% said there had been no economic impact at all.

Regarding their plans for implementation, about 35% of respondents said they were currently experimenting with Web services; approximately 45% said they planned to implement in the next 18 months, while around 25% said they were currently developing Web services for production. Fewer than 5% of respondents said they had no plans to use Web services at all.

A separate survey was conducted by Cutter Consortium, in which 240 companies responded. Some 13% said they were already running business-critical applications with Web services, while another 30% said they were in the process of developing Web services apps. Only 3% were not planning on implementing Web services in the foreseeable future.

From a management perspective, about half of the 40 respondents answering said they did not have dedicated tools for either Web services security or for management. The rest were using tools from a bevy of small vendors.

Please see the following related stories:

  “Is now the time to manage Web Services?” by Johanna Ambrosio

“Where management and security collide” by Johanna Ambrosio