wsengineer 1161775970|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
There are many definitions (or beliefs) of what a "web service" is which, as with other definitions and semantics, change with context and time. For example, didnt we have web services when the browser and HTML was born?
Ok, from the systems integration view of web services, my preference is to take the W3C Web Services Requirements definition (being the World Wide WEB consortium) which is:
“A web service is a software application identified by a URI, whose interfaces and binding are capable of being defined, described and discovered by XML artefacts and supports direct interactions with other software applications using XML based messages via Internet-based protocols.”
Infact, even the W3C give differing definitions (W3C Web Services Architecture Group)… but I believe the above definition is flexible enough to cater for different technologies and transport protocols.