Vignette Joins WS-I, Adds Web Services To Content, Commerce Mix

By Richard Karpinski

Vignette said Monday it has joined the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), hoping to lend its expertise in content management and e-commerce to the effort to standardize an approach to emerging XML-based applications.

The WS-I organization is large and growing; the group counts more than 125 companies among its members. WS-I is aiming to develop implementation tools, guidelines, best practices, and online resources to help enterprises deploy Web services in the real world.

Still missing from the group is Sun Microsystems, though Sun is reportedly working with WS-I co-founders IBM and Microsoft to find a board-level role within WS-I.

Vignette is increasingly baking Web services support into its V6 content management and commerce platform. The product currently includes support for the XML Schema, Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) standards. V6 also spans both J2EE and .Net platforms.

Vignette said it plans to join the WSBasic Profile working group, which is defining how to use standards like SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI as a foundation for Web services.