Over the last couple of weeks Microsoft have been showing a lot new Web Service specifications which are intended to extend the functionality of Web Services, such as the latest one below.

WS-Addressing

While I always think it's a good idea for issue such as this to be tackled and the ideas published for the general community to comment on I have a nagging concern that they are implementing all of this already in their systems.

I've done a lot of work with WebDAV over the last 18 months and have found Microsoft's extensions and freehanded nature with the core WebDAV specification to be quite a problem. Also their lack of follow through, once they'd got things working how they needed there has been little to no work done since.

Obviously there are signs already that Microsoft is treating the Web Services world differently, and better. This type of early publication hasn't happened with such regularity before, however I would still like to know more about their future intentions with these specifications.