Web services for enterprise collaboration: a framework and a prototype

Internet technologies are widely recognized for their promise as enablers of collaborative computing both within and among organizations. The presence of heterogeneous systems in different organizational units makes the implementation of network collaboration very complex. Web services offer some solutions to this issue with its Internet based, open standards technology. We conceptualize organizational service chains in terms of workflows and articulate a framework for orchestrating such services. A decision oriented implementation of the framework using Web services technologies demonstrates specific ways by which organizational collaboration may be facilitated.