The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has announced the availability of the WS-I Basic Profile Working Draft, which features specifications and guidelines for developing interoperable Web services.
The Basic Profile consists of implementation guidelines recommending how a set of core Web services specifications, including SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0, and XML Schema, are to be used for developing interoperable Web services. The WS-I Basic Profile Working Group is seeking public feedback on the draft, with plans to release a final version in early 2003. In addition to the Basic Profile, WS-I plans to release early versions of testing tools, use cases and usage scenarios, and sample applications pertaining to Web services and the Basic Profile by the end of the year. The Basic Profile can be found at the WS-I Web site at www.ws-i.org.
Microsoft unveils .Net speech platform
Microsoft Corp. has released the first technical preview of its .Net Speech Platform and also announced availability of the second beta release of its .Net Speech Software Developer Kit (SDK). The speech platform contains the Microsoft speech recognition engine, the middleware to connect into a telephony system, the SALT (Speech Application Language Tags) interpreter, a SALT voice browser, and the SpeechWorks text-to-speech engine.
The .Net Speech Platform will give developers and customers a foundation to design a single application that can run a speech-enabled application in a variety of venues, including telephony, desktops, and in a multimodal format on mobile devices. The platform is expected to enter beta testing next summer and ship by the end of 2003.
.Net Framework to fit in small devices
Microsoft Corp. has released long-awaited software that will allow applications designed around its .Net platform to run on portable computing devices. It also made available a test version of its suite of software development tools that can be used to build mobile applications.
The .Net Compact Framework was released at the Comdex trade show, where Microsoft was also trying to make a splash with new business applications and consumer hardware products powered by its Windows operating system. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and chief software architect, made a brief mention of .Net software during his keynote presentation at the Las Vegas show. The .Net Compact Framework is a subset of the .Net Framework, which is already available for Microsoft’s desktop and server operating systems. The software is required to run Web-based applications developed using .Net tools, and is comparable to a Java Virtual Machine, the software required to run Java applications on PCs, servers and mobile devices.