Chapter 11. A Review of Where This Book Has Taken Us

This book has addressed 10 questions that non-technical business executives would likely ask about Web services. The answers to these questions would help them understand the following:

• The definition of Web services.

• How Web services work.

• What the benefits of using Web services would be to their respective organizations.

• Who (what other accounts) are using Web services (and for what purpose).

• Where the "gotchas" are with this evolving new architecture.

• What the buying criteria and buying approaches are, should an organization wish to purchase the hardware, software, and/or services needed to build Web services solutions.

• Which vendors supply Web services solutions.

With this background business executives should now be prepared to make complex decisions like "when to deploy Web services" or "which applications are candidates to become Web services applications."