SUMMARY

Web services are on the rise for many reasons. Some of these reasons are good for businesses, some are good for consumers, some are opportunities for entrepreneurs to create new business paradigms. It is not our intent to over-hype Web services with reckless exuberance. Nor is it our intent to underplay just how this rapidly emerging set of business ideas and technologies might impact our daily lives. We seek the middle ground while striking a compelling tone.

The value chain of information technology promises to shift radically with the emergence of Web services. The emergence of Web services has already created many new companies hoping to tap into this new paradigm, and there will be many more. By the time readers have digested Chapter 8 of this book, “The Web Services Vendor Landscape,” which is a brief vendor survey, some of those companies will either have been acquired or will have gone out of business. Welcome to the Darwinian world of emerging technology.

Web services will impact the business world in new, unexpected ways. But before you, as a business executive or IT professional, make up your mind about Web services too quickly, remember one thing: Business benefit will carry the day for Web services, not technology alone. Read on, and think business value!