[link|http://news.com.com/2100-1001-957586.html?tag=fd_lede|Jim Allchin feels his pain]

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Just a year ago, industry experts and technology makers had envisioned wide-ranging services that would share access to a pool of customer data to enhance services such as shopping and banking. An e-commerce site, for example, could be given access to a person's credit card data, shipping information and calendar to automatically set up a delivery time.

Allchin said part of the reason for the holdup could be complexity. "Today you still have to write more code than you would if all the plumbing was done for you. That could be one (reason)," he said. Additional Web services standards, which Microsoft and other technology makers are devising, should help ease that problem, he said.

Other experts said trust is more likely a larger roadblock to acceptance of the Web services concept. A continuing spate of security holes in products from Microsoft and other makers, coupled with a reluctance to hand over personal information to online services providers, helped to stall Microsoft's initial plan, analysts said. Microsoft is attempting to bolster the security of its products and services. In a January e-mail to Microsoft employees, Gates termed security the company's top priority.