Microsoft and a group of partners were set last week to release a new Web services specification, which will help provide Web services interoperability and support for occasionally connected devices and systems, sources said.
The specification, called WS-Discovery, is supported by Microsoft, Canon, BEA Systems and Intel. The companies were set to announce the specification at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, sources said.
The WS-Discovery specification acts somewhat like the UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) standard, except it will focus on devices and systems that are not always connected to the network. WS-Discovery is complementary to UDDI and will work with other protocols, such as WS-Eventing, WS-Addressing, WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging.