Yes, there are compelling reasons to implement Web services--from standardizing basic content integration to supporting complex service-oriented architectures. But before you dive into any Web services deployment, it's essential to understand precisely what the technology can--and can't--do. That will help determine how likely your investment is to advance the goals of your IT organization and the business overall. Web services offer tremendous opportunity for company growth and flexibility, but the technology does have limitations.
The simplest and lowest-risk approach to a Web services implementation is to use their original Web context as mechanized interfaces-- application-to-application--to content on a Web server. It's effective, though it provides minimal business benefits because it applies these technologies only at the edge of the application space, mainly for business-to-business or business-to-consumer integration.
