Standards body OASIS will incorporate Microsoft’s messaging standard SOAP into its ebXML language.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), an XML standards body consisting of IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, has announced it will incorporate a competing Microsoft protocol into its new ebXML standard. OASIS will integrate the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) into its emerging ebXML messaging specification.

The ebXML standard aims to provide a single cross-platform XML-based messaging standard that is desired by the industry. It incorporates a set of services and protocols that allow an electronic business client to request services from eBusiness servers over any application-level transport protocol, whether by email (SMTP) or by the web’s HTTP protocol.

ebXML defines a general-purpose message, with a header and footer that supports multiple payloads. It also allows digital signatures, within and among related messages, to be recognized, thus improving security. Although the header is in XML, the body of the message may be in a variety of formats such as XML, multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME) or anything else digital.

The convergence of these two standards should mark a significant step to achieving interoperability; SOAP is committed to delivering its standard by May 2001. The move also marks a significant victory for Microsoft, as OASIS had previously dismissed SOAP as being a lightweight product. By adopting SOAP in its messaging layer, ebXML puts to rest any worries about interoperability between SOAP and ebXML and takes advantage of SOAP’s role as a key component of XML-based messaging. Furthermore, a radical shakeout of XML-based specifications is expected which will render 80% of those specifications in existence today redundant by 2002.

Microsoft has already begun to push SOAP by embedding it into its BizTalk Sever 2000, its new desktop operating system Windows XP and its planned future operating system, codenamed Backcombe. SOAP is unlikely to die given its potential as the lingua franca of Microsoft’s .NET strategy – and it is also gaining acceptance in a growing number of products