What Web Services Really Are

from the backend-integration dept

I've been talking a lot about web services lately, and even the web services fanatics haven't been able to offer a really clear definition for me. I've already said that I'm a little wary of anything described as a web service. I'd much rather know what it does, what problem it solves, and who it's actually helping. It seems that I'm not alone in searching for such answers. Someone at Business 2.0 called up Microsoft to find some examples of web services. All they got was Dollar Rent-A-Car. That's right. According to Microsoft PR people, Dollar Rent-A-Car is the world's best example of web services, because they let people who buy a plane ticket on Southwest Airlines to easily rent a car from them. Not that exciting. However, maybe that's the point - web services aren't that exciting. The article then says (aha!) that "web services" is just a fancy name for simplifying backend integration. Backend integration sounds really boring, so to spice it up a little it's been renamed "web services".