In their haste to assume a leadership role in Web services standards, IBM and Microsoft are said to be stepping on toes by fostering proposals that compete with those of other groups. The moves have raised the possibility of such standards becoming fragmented, as well as questions about intellectual property rights, both of which critics fear could ultimately hurt adoption.

The issue was highlighted last week when IBM and Microsoft, along with BEA Systems and Tibco, unveiled two specifications for reliable messaging standards. The announcement came just two weeks after all four companies refused invitations to join the newly chartered Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-RM) technical committee at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), which is developing a nearly identical specification to the IBM/Microsoft group.

It's the second major area in which IBM and Microsoft have joined to introduce a protocol to compete with existing proposals before established standards bodies. The other area is business process workflow, for which the two have proposed the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS), which competes with efforts under way at the World Wide Web Consortium, OASIS and BPMI.org.

Over the past year, the IBM/Microsoft tandem has become the leading force in developing standards protocols that fill major holes in Web services technology, including reliability, security and business process workflow. The two also created the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), which offers guidance for developing interoperable Web services. WS-I gained notoriety because IBM/Microsoft initially denied rival Sun a board seat in what was deemed an obvious power play. This week, WS-I will vote on Sun's bid to join the group's board.

"Most vendors see Web services as a land-grab opportunity and are seeking to stake claims on territory," says Ron Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink. "Customers are far from implementing many of these immature specifications so we have to interpret this land-grab standards mentality as a way for vendors to position their companies and their products as the platforms of choice for implementing this new breed of application."