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Microsoft and IBM have excluded Sun Microsystems from the board of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), an industry consortium that will shape the evolution of Web services standards. Sun managers must decide whether to join WS-I as a contributing member - a less influential role that lacks the veto and agenda-setting powers of a board position. Sun has recruited leading IT vendors - including several WS-I board members - to create technologies that compete with proposed standards jointly developed by Microsoft and IBM. Consequently, Sun could leverage fears of a protracted standards battle among IT users and vendors, who might pressure Microsoft and IBM to reverse their position regarding a WS-I board position for Sun. The stakes were high; Web services - software modules that exchange information over the Internet, within and between firms, interoperating across a range of hardware, operating system, and programming language platforms - were expected to become the dominant technology for enterprise computing.