Microsoft Architect Touts SOAs

Industry-wide momentum will improve current service-oriented tools and platforms, Box said. "We can do better than the current JVM [Java virtual machine] and Common Language Runtime," he said. "Simplicity and minimalism rule the day … and services orientation kind of forces you to look at that and take it seriously."

Box said time, distance, extensibility and standardization make abstraction expensive.

On the issue of standardization, Box said: "If I have to get two from every vendor to get onto my ark and sign up for things other than just exactly whats on the wire, Ive got a really hard problem. Its a much harder thing to sell someone on ideas and beliefs—and fictions, which is what abstractions are—versus actually talking about things that are measurable."

Speaking of the work Microsoft has done with IBM Corp. on Web services standards, he added: "I was astonished at how long it took us to agree on so little." Box joked that maybe the work "should have been done behind the scenes, and we shouldve gone into a smoke-filled room" to hammer out the specifications.

Box said he based his presentation on a new book he has in the works.