Web Model vs. Vendor Model

There are two models of business computing: vendor model and web model. Vendor model is presently the entrenched model, the one that everyone is locked in.

Web model is brand new. Ask any software developer about the web model of business computing, and they wouldn't know what that model is nor how does it work.

But that doesn't mean that the web model is irrelevant. Quite the reverse, it is the most significant thing to ever happen in the world of business computing.

How is the Web Model Different?

Perhaps the best way to understand the web model of business computing is to discuss how is it different from the vendor model.

Before we delve in, let's just quickly recapitulate what are the characteristics of business computing. You may recall that any business computing model must be based on three fundamental characteristics:

1. Identity
2. State
3. Behavior

In the business computing parlance, and for the purposes of our discussion, we can say that the state is equivalent to data, and the behavior is equivalent to the program logic.

Getting back to the difference between the vendor model and the web model of business computing, we will see that the two models fundamentally differ in the way they treat data and programming logic.

Vendor model insists on exposing the data and hiding the programming logic.

Web model, you guessed it, is the exact opposite -- it is based on the architecture that hides the data and exposes the programming logic.

Both models have their use, and in our ongoing series on the Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA, which is the underpinning of the web model), we will be discussing the advantages of the model that hides the data.

Stay tuned (and don't feel shy to ask any questions).