What are Web Services?

What are Web Services?  If you ask different people you will get different answers! We can give you three answers deriving from different views.

The answer for theorethicians

Web Services are services with an intergration. Standard technologies work together to make the collaboration between heterogeneous systems possible.  

The answer for IT-Experts

Applications can be used in the Web by means of Web Services. This way they can communicate dynamically with other applications which themselves have been made capable for the Web by Web Service standards.  By definition Web Services work with the same standards as  SOAP and XML for the functionality, the publication, the localization and the exchange of data.  

The answer for economists

The performance and the ressources of computers can be spread via Web Services independently of  applications and platforms on geographically wide spread systems. The benefit is a gain in efficiency, flexibility and cost. A remarkable increase in productivity can be reached for existing IT-solutions due to the easy and fast integration. The same ist true for  Inter-, Intra- or Extranets as well as for their vertival integration.