Preface

If you are a nontechnical business executive and you rely on computer-based information systems for doing your job, you must learn about Web services. Web services are a newly evolving set of distributed application development standards that enable applications to easily cooperate and share information and data with other applications. These evolving standards are expected to radically alter the ways in which applications are built and deployed, information is presented and shared, and software is bought and sold.

Enterprises that adopt Web services will be able to react more quickly and nimbly to changing market conditions. They will be able to take advantage of new efficiencies in business process flow that will serve to lower their sales, general, and administrative costs. They will be able to broaden the application services that they offer to their customers and business partners. And they will be able to use Web services to help them penetrate new markets.

Web services will fundamentally change the business models that underlie many successful businesses today. Failure to prepare for this change will leave many organizations at a competitive disadvantage in the long term. To ensure your organization's longevity, you need to learn what Web services are, what they can do for your organization, how they work, how they can be used, and how your organization can go about building a Web services information infrastructure.