What Do Web Services Enable Your Organization to Do?

Web services are expected to affect the way in which IT systems are designed, deployed, and purchased.

Business enterprises, instead of having to develop applications internally and house them within direct control of the IT department, will obtain run-the-business applications as service from outside third-party service providers. Your organization, then, will "purchase" software differently (as a service). It will be able to greatly expand its application portfolio without having to build comprehensive applications in the traditional monolithic and centralized manner. This, in turn, will enable your organization to save development time, provide faster time-to-market with new application services for its customers, and respond more quickly to new competitive pressures.

With the additional help of business process management software, your organization can streamline the flow of business internally or with business partners improving organizational efficiency and lowering the cost of running a business.

Web services can also give your organization a way to remarket existing intellectual content.

These same concepts hold true for ISVs, VARs, and OEMs and systems software makers (as illustrated in Figure 0-1).

Figure 0-1. Web Services: The Changing Business Model.

In short, Web services will create new efficiencies for all kinds of businesses that rely on information technologies. Web services have the potential to change the very foundation (the business model) upon which many businesses are currently based.