Despite the unprecedented success of the Internet, until only recently there was no standard means for integration among the millions of sites around the world.
The requirement was for a standard way to query a web site and retrieve the information it stores. The solution is Web services.
Put quite simply, a Web service is an application that listens and responds to requests over the internet or intranet.
The tools and standards to exploit the paradigm of Distributed Computing exist now and those businesses which exploit the revolution will reap major competitive advantages.
In decades past, mainframe computers offered a centralised approach to systems, later networks of personal computers allowed more businesses to spread information and processes around the organisation.
The dramatic adoption of the internet has for the first time connected everybody to one communications platform, significantly at both a business and personal level.
This has led to a need for new standards, in order to allow interoperability across platforms and organisations.
Complimenting Web Services, is XML as the universal language for representing and transmitting structured data that is independent of programming language, software platform, and hardware.