[CAnet - news] The Internet is entering Lego era with web services - NY Times

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[Good article in NY Times about web services and mashups. Thanks to Dave
Macneil for this pointer. Some excerpts -- BSA]


By JOHN MARKOFF

THE Internet is entering its Lego era.

Indeed, blocks of interchangeable software components are proliferating on
the Web and developers are joining them together to create a potentially
infinite array of useful new programs. This new software represents a marked
departure from the inflexible, at times unwieldy, programs of the past,
which were designed to run on individual computers.

As a result, computer industry innovation is rapidly becoming decentralized.
In the place of large, intricate and self-contained programs like Microsoft
Word, written and maintained by armies of programmers, smaller companies,
with just a handful of developers, are now producing pioneering software and
Web-based services. These new services can be delivered directly to PC's or
even to cellphones. Bigger companies are taking note.

For example, Google last month bought Writely, a Web-based word-processing
program created by three Silicon Valley programmers. Eric Schmidt, the
Google chief executive, said that Google did not buy the program to compete
against Microsoft Word. Rather, he said, it viewed Writely as a key
component in hundreds of products it is now developing.

These days, there are inexpensive or free software components speeding the
process. Amazon recently introduced an online storage service called S3,
which offers data storage for a monthly fee of 15 cents a gigabyte. That
frees a programmer building a new application or service on the Internet
from having to create a potentially costly data storage system.

Google now offers eight programmable components - elements that other
programmers can turn into new Web services - including Web search, maps,
chat and advertising. 

The shift toward sharing, which in its grandest conception has been termed
Web 2.0, has touched off a frenzy of software design and start-up activity
not seen since the demise of the dot-com era six years ago.

"These tools are changing the basic core economics of software development,"
said Tim Bray, director of Web technologies at Sun Microsystems.

For some, the new era of lightweight, lightning-fast software design is akin
to a guerrilla movement rattling the walls of stodgy corporate development
organizations.

Moreover, the balance of power is shifting, Mr. Ozzie said. "For years,
vendors like Microsoft have put huge resources into tools to build composite
applications," he said. "With mash-ups, the real power becomes the people
who can weave the applications together."



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