A vision for the future: instant web services for faster real estate transactions.

"Web Services" is fast becoming the technology buzz word. This generic term refers to a group of standards that will enable software products to make automated, meaningful connections between trading partners. The vision of software applications independently navigating the electronic marketplace to evaluate options and complete transactions would sureline streamline operational efficiencies in the real estate industry. Yet the concept sounds like science fiction. Is it?

In 2000, we were promised a world in which the Internet would transform the way we do business. This included ubiquitous bandwidth and smart machines. Ubiquitous bandwidth would provide everyone with high-speed access to the Internet. This has come true to some extent, although many companies still operate with slow connections. Furthermore, what is thought of as high-speed access today will be dwarfed by future advancement.

The second promise was that our technology would be intelligent, containing software to seek out and find appropriate trading partners, determine languages and methods of connectivity, initiate meaningful conversations, obtain bids, and complete transactions. This would all occur without specific programs for the various potential trading partners. In other words, a software system could start the day not knowing what a widget is, but by the end of the day successfully place an order for one. This concept still sounds unreachable. However, the industry has a vision and a blueprint for how to make this happen.

A large number of industry players, most notably Sun Microsystems, are getting involved in web services as a new method of connection and exchange. Within the web services arena, extensible markup language has emerged as the building block for defining data. UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) and SOAP (simple object access protocol) are two standards built on top of XML that serve as the grammar for the exchange. HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) or HTTPS, the secure version of HTTP, serves as the method of transport. At some point in the future, these building blocks will be used routinely in solutions that do deliver on the second promise.

Today, purchases from distributors can be made online by connecting to their order entry systems. This has become accepted as standard practice, but it still requires human involvement. So while it is convenient to be able to order goods and services 24 hours a day, it is not the end point. The ultimate goal of systems automatically discovering one another is still in the distant future.

Yet in-between these extremes, lies a first generation of web services exchange that is happening here and now. Vendors are coming together to define standards for inter-company web services calls. For example, IBS has established a relationship with Workspeed Inc., a major provider of tenant work order services, that allows users to streamline all of the data exchange points between the two systems. This includes adding new tenants and spaces, obtaining billing information, updating work order status and invoice numbers, and other tasks. From the end user's point of view, the two software products operate seamlessly in a real-time sense. To achieve this, IBS and Workspeed have established agreed-upon SOAP protocols for the various transactions. Now, when an IBS client enters a new tenant on their system, the IBS system automatically makes a SOAP call to the Workspeed services site. Workspeed receives the message via HTTPS, adds the tenant, and sends an acknowledgement back to the IBS system that the transaction has been completed. This real-time exchange has replaced the conventional interface in which the user had specific, discrete interface points, both involving operator intervention.

In addition, this interchange allows Workspeed to send a SOAP package to the IBS system with work ticket information that enables our application to generate bills. After generating the bills, IBS makes another SOAP call to provide Workspeed with the invoice numbers. This enables tenants to use Workspeed to inquire about the stares of their work orders and even view billing dates and invoice numbers. All of these web services calls take place within seconds of transactions occurring on either system.

Ultimately, systems across the board will exchange information and make real-time transactions, based on pre-determined directives. These truly would be the smart machines we have been promised. Today, we are already making progress using the same technologies that will help us achieve that end goal. In 2003, we are beginning to see signs of "science fiction" becoming reality.

Within the next few years, we expect that a significant number of web services connections will be streamlining the business of real estate. By 2010, web services will have been an accepted and expected part of our world.

Robert Entin

President

Integrated Business Systems