The Future of Web Services

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In May 2000, SOAP was submitted to the W3C for standardization. (That group included Microsoft, UserLand, DeveloperMentor, and IBM. The submission can be found at http://www.w3.org/Submission/2000/05/.) In time, SOAP will become part of a brand-new protocol that the W3C is calling XML Protocol. (It's called XP for short, but don't confuse it with the Microsoft operating system of the same name .) XP will serve exactly the same purpose as SOAP but will be the first standardized XML-based RPC protocol. The drafting of XP is under way, with the W3C XP working group releasing a draft of the SOAP 1.2 specification. Further details on XP can be found at http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/.

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