Appendix E. Exploring Web Services

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

”Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent , but the one responsive to change.

”Charles Darwin

The Internet and World Wide Web are the most important and significant creations of the 20th century. These technologies have significantly changed the software world, making one wonder whether Darwin's comment refers to the human race or the Internet race. Such is the impact of the Internet that there has been a total paradigmatic shift in technology. A similar shift in perception is presently happening, this time with application programs using Web services. As the next revolutionary advancement of the Internet, Web services will become the elemental structure that links together all computing devices.

Microsoft explains Web services in the ASP.NET Quick Starts: "The Internet is quickly evolving from today's Web sites that just deliver user interface pages to browsers to a next generation of programmable Web sites that directly link organizations, applications, services, and devices with one another."