Article on standards and Microsoft on NYT

The article below is related to the issue being discussed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/technology/03cloud.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I am baffled by the last few paragraphs of the article, those beginning with the words "While the industry...", "A set of Web services standards...", and "Microsoft's standards efforts...".

Does anybody know what the three paragraphs above are talking about?

Specifically, what are those new Web services standards that **have emerged** from the W3C and that might give Microsoft a performance advantage over their competitors?  What are those new compression standards developed by Microsoft that will make their Web services perform better than those of their competitors?

Alessandro Triglia