ABOUT THE SPEAKER Chris Ferris is chair of the WS-I Basic Profile Working Group and a senior technical staff member with IBM’s Emerging Technology Group. He has been actively engaged in open standards development for XML and Web services since 1999 and is an elected member of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board. Chris is also a coauthor and editor of the WS-Reliable Messaging specification. SESSION DESCRIPTION Despite the open industry standards that underlie Web services, interoperability has been a key challenge for vendors and customers implementing Web services. One reason for this is that the relevant industry standards often permit multiple acceptable implementation alternatives. This presentation will discuss in detail the challenge of Web services interoperability and the role played by the premier industry organization formed to address it, the Web Services Interoperability Organization. In particular, the presentation will cover the critical importance of WS-I profiles to an organization's Web services initiatives, including the manner in which companies can put WS-I profiles immediately to work.