How the web would be won…

The new services and business models springing from web-based technologies will prove to be the wellspring of future growth in the IT industry.

Google is already offering web-based word processor and spreadsheet applications. Small-scale developers such as YouOs and G.ho.st are also in the vanguard. Attention turns to Microsoft, which wants a piece of the action.

Microsoft’s enemies believe that the company is plotting to take over the internet with closed standards featuring on its new operating system Windows Vista, on Microsoft Office 2007 and on upcoming server software. Microsoft’s dominance, they say, will be secured through a new web programming language called XAML (pronounced ‘zamil’) and the Open XML file format for documents.

The main point about both formats, say rivals, is that they are designed from the ground up to be Windows-dependent. Although Microsoft is currently encouraging rivals to work with XAML and Open XML, at some point the door will slam shut. Microsoft, they warn, will foreclose the market for web applications by extending the formats that little bit further and then wielding its patent rights.

Industry grouping ECIS (the European Committee for Interoperable Systems) complained to the Commission last year that Microsoft was repeating the same abuses addressed in the 2004 ruling on interoperability - part and parcel, they say, of the company’s ‘embrace, extend and extinguish’ strategy.

Microsoft accuses its rivals of ludicrous conspiracy theories, claiming that its ambition is to create standards that are open to all.

The new services and business models springing from web-based technologies will prove to be the wellspring of future growth in the IT industry.