INETA User Group Leaders Summit (Tech Ed 6/5/2005): Ari Bixhorn the Microsoft Directory of Webservices Strategy gave us a presentation this morning on Indigo. Indigo is the communications backbone of
Windows Longhorn. It is Ari's vision that webservices will be as exciting as TCP a few years from now, meaning that we use TCP for everything, but we don't have to give much thought to sockets and network stacks when we write software. Webservices (and more specifically, Indigo) will make writing SOA and peer-to-peer systems much easier and promisses to make the adotpion of webservices that we have seen so far look like but a drop of water in the ocean. Indeed, I believe that he is correct in his assertion. Indigo promisses to bring web services, queueing and transactional support together into one unified programming model. While we wait for Indigo to ship (with Windows Longhorn in 2006), we will have to settle for Web Services Enhancements WSE 3.0 which will ship shortly. Yes, yes... I know... you and I just finished installing WSE 2.0! All the same, WSE still remains the best way to secure your webservices today and to keep our software up to date with WS-* standards.