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.

Approach

This book is structured to provide 10 answers that business executives are likely to seek as they investigate Web services. Each chapter considers a basic question, such as "What are Web services?" Key topics to be discussed—highlights—are listed at the beginning of each chapter. The chapter then provides information and analysis on these topics, concluding with a summary of what the reader should have learned.

The 10 questions this book closely considers are:

1. What are Web services?
2. What are program-to-program communications?
3. How do specific Web services technologies actually work?
4. Where are the limitations, shortcomings, and "gotchas" of this architecture?
5. What can these technologies enable my organization to do?
6. Who is using Web services now (and in what ways)?
7. When should my organization adopt Web services?
8. What vendor selection criteria should be used?
9. Which approach should my organization use—.NET or J2EE?
10. How should my organization compare, contrast, and differentiate the product and service offerings of various Web services vendors?

An appendix section presents profiles of various randomly chosen vendors. These provide an overview of offerings by prospective vendor partners that provide Web services solutions.

Focus

Dozens upon dozens of new books are available on the topic of "Web services." Here are some reasons for choosing to read this one:

• Nontechnical approach: This book is thoroughly nontechnical. It provides the necessary basic familiarization with certain technical concepts such as program-to-program communications, registries (directories), and "protocols," but its main focus is on the strategic business benefits that can be derived from Web services.
• Learning by example: This book uses theoretical as well as real-world scenarios to illustrate what is strategically possible as well as what is being accomplished using Web services. It shows how Web services can be and are being used to create competitive advantage, to modify product packaging, to reduce development costs, and the like. The theoretical examples show business executives how they can potentially exploit Web services; the real-world examples show them what is being done using Web services today.
• Determining vendor selection criteria: This book also helps business executives determine the right selection/buying criteria for their respective organizations to use in accessing Web services products and services. It describes three approaches that can be used to create or obtain Web services applications, and it gives examples of vendor offerings using each approach. This analysis should help business executives more quickly determine the approach they will use and the vendor(s) they may choose in order to rapidly implement Web services application solutions within their enterprises.

These foci make this book:

• a primer on Web services;
• an idea/strategic planning guide; and
• a buyer's guide.

If you are seeking to find out what Web services are, how to use them, and which type of vendor to partner with or to buy Web services products from, then this book is for you!

Getting the Most Out of This Book

This is not one of those entertaining quick-read business books. It provides a tremendous amount of research material as well as analysis, saving you hundreds of hours of doing your own fundamental Web services research and analysis. It crosses several disciplines (technology, business strategy, vendor criteria and selection, and more)—it's a challenging read.

To meet this challenge you'll need to "get psyched" about Web services! You'll need to remind yourself, "I have to know this material to ensure the long-range success of my company." You'll need to look for the gleam of excitement in "application development environments" and "program-to-program" communications.

Further, for maximum learning benefit, do not try to read this book "all in one sitting." Treat each chapter as a mini-white paper. Read it, then put the book down and walk away from it. Come back when you've had a chance to consider what you've learned. This approach will help you maximize your learning experience while keeping your interest high.

Also, take the opportunity to access the Internet source sites referred to in each chapter. More in-depth information on each topic can be gleaned by visiting these sources.

The Importance of Perseverance

If the preceding section has piqued your interest in Web services-read on. But be forewarned: Web services are a new, Web standards-based way to develop distributed, shared applications across disparate computer systems environments over the Internet. Accordingly, Web services discussions are really about "application development environments"—a challenging topic that calls upon your perseverance in assimilating it.

For those who persevere and learn the basics of the "Web services" approach/business model, the potential rewards of using it are substantial. You can expect a direct and positive effect in terms of lowering business/transaction costs and application development costs, improving your company's time-to-market in delivering software solutions to your customers and business partners, sharpening your response to competitive pressure, and improving overall business efficiency. Understanding the Web services model can also help your business to take competitive advantage as well as open new sources of revenue by remarketing existing applications.

Understanding the answers to the 10 questions considered in this book will enable business executives to (a) define Web services, (b) extrapolate where Web services fit within their respective organizations, (c) determine how and when to exploit Web services for their organization's strategic and competitive advantage, and (d) understand the criteria for selecting which vendors' products and services should be used to move their enterprises into the Web services world.

So, in other words, please stick with it—the time you invest will be rewarded, you will save hundreds of hours of research and analysis, and you will pick up very valuable strategic and competitive information while learning about the evolving world of Web services.