Web Services

Web services is a new software model that doesn't simply extend existing models but reinvents everything from scratch. It addresses software applications architecture within the context of the Internet. Web services allow Web sites to programatically expose their functions to other Web sites or applications (on the desktop, palmtop, or whatever).

Web services use the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to connect to each other. This is akin to HTTP that connects browsers and Web applications. The fact that SOAP is XML at the core, and that it is an open W3C standard adopted by all platforms, means it should be possible to easily build bridges across Web services, irrespective of whether they were created on .NET or Sun ONE.