FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF: Developers must focus on linking Web services to boost Net collaboration.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Editorial)

Everywhere you look these days, vendors are talking about Web services. The immediate problem we face, however, is not the lack of Web services but rather the lack of an infrastructure to link Web services into something where the whole is greater than the parts. A Web service today is little more than a database-driven Web site where many users come together and use the same application in a collaborative fashion. This is a lot more than simply hosting an application; it's all about providing the infrastructure around an application to create an environment.

Today we have any number of Web services in the consumer space, the more well-known of which are Yahoo, eBay, …