Microsoft is considering whether to participate in a Web services standards effort called the Web Services Test Forum, which is backed by IBM, Oracle and others, but the software giant has indicated it may be redundant.

In a blog post entitled "Higher Standards for Web Standards," Steven Martin, Microsoft's senior director of developer platform product management, discussed Microsoft's criteria for supporting various standards. He also called into question whether Microsoft should back WSTF.

Martin said Microsoft tries to put itself "in the shoes of actual developers and IT pros" and ask, "'What are the barriers I'm facing today, and what do I need to solve them?'" He wrote:

In many cases, the right answer isn't necessarily to define something new, but to instead carefully consider whether technology or initiatives already exist to solve the problem. In the end, we should judge the strength of standards on industry and customer adoption alone. As an example, IBM recently announced a consortium called "WSTF": Web Services Test Forum which leaves us a tad puzzled.

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