The Next Chapter of the Net:

E-services Everywhere

"A printing e-service can notify other e-services about which types of printing tasks it can perform. A travel-reservation e-service can describe what kinds of transactions it can complete. A translation e-service can advertise what languages it can translate, and at what cost." An e-service may easily determine which other specialized e-services can be called upon to help solve a particular problem or to fulfill a user's request. And then the e-services work together. The possibilities and continuing reconfigurations of eservices working together are endless ".

§

Many believe, and, among them, deep-pocketed giant Hewlett Packard, that the next chapter of the Net is on the brink of arrival and at its center will be some pretty amazing e-services. Combine that with the fact that Hewlett Packard has the muscle to make it happen and you catch a glimpse of the the new Net evolution and what it can mean for you.

'Until recently," Hewlett Packard points out," the Internet was about the creation of e-business and e-commerce systems, and it was dominated by web sites and store fronts. We have now entered the next internet evolution: the proliferation of e-services." And what exactly are e-services, for those not totally fluent in Net-speak? "E-services are modular, nimble, electronic services that perform work, achieve tasks, or complete transactions."

"Well, gee," you might say," there already are some e-services on the Net: Fedex package tracking service; Mapquest's driving directions; my stock trading program. And, although I find them very convenient, even cool, I wouldn't call them either particularly revolutionary or evolutionary."

Let's just call those familiar tools a brief stop-over in the evolutionary chain of e-service nirvana. E-services, as they will come to be known on the Net, will be nimble and modular, not monolithic as services are today. This means e-services will be able to function as building blocks and may be combined in endless combinations, like DNA, to perform highly customized tasks. A hospital, for instance, might call on an e-service to locate a rare and hard to find serum.

Although that may be impressive, the real kicker is that they can talk to each other. Yes. It's true. "A printing e-service can notify other e-services about which types of printing tasks it can perform. A travel-reservation e-service can describe what kinds of transactions it can complete. A translation e-service can advertise what languages it can translate, and at what cost." An e-service may easily determine which other specialized e-services can be called upon to help solve a particular problem or to fulfill a user's request, even where the user specifies a set of criteria that the services must fulfill. And then the e-services work together. The possibilities and continuing reconfigurations of eservices working together are endless. E-services will certainly enable a whole new level of specialization as the software itself solves the problem of matching the consumer's specifications and of filling each company's specific needs.

This spontaneous composition of services, working quietly, behind the scenes, will not only allow you to offer your customers a whole new dimension of specialized services, it will allow you to fill your own back- end requirements such as accounting, payroll, purchasing and inventory control. The spontaneous aspect will allow companies to team up "on the fly" to offer more valuable service to the end user. A global positioning service, for example, might team with a traffic routing service to give the user the best available information on navigating his route. It could also make any necessary stocking, provision, re-fueling or maintenance arrangements necessaray en route.

The proliferation and new constellation of services available will create " entirely new kinds of electronic brokers and mediators who will serve as anchors for the location, aggregation, and mediation of transactions of all types", from travel to billing, to services creating and distributing personalized publications based on reader's interests.

You won't have to go to your PC to get an e-service working for you. If you're driving, you need to reach no further than your dashboard to find street directions in a strange city, or where to find a gift or flowers for your host, if you need a little last minute help.

Caught in a snow storm? Your PDA will call upon a constellation of e-services to re-book an airline flight, change your car and hotel reservations and page your wife's beeper to alert her to your new arrival time.

You'll be able to check the status of your inventory on your computerized wristwatch and rest secure in the knowledge that, even as you sleep, there will be e-services working for you, behind the scenes, on whatever tasks you've assigned them.

The end result of moving on to Chapter 2 is that the Net will move from a do-it- yourself model to a do-it-for-me model. Forget that genie in a bottle...........the new, new thing sounds like the best thing so far: the genie in the silicon chip.

We can hardly wait.