The next generation application interaction after the message queue is an open standard protocol called web services. It allows applications to communicate based on XML/SOAP/HTTP methodologies for information exchange. A simple individual application can be converted into a web application interacting with other applications using web services.

A web service can be defined as a collection of open protocols and standards for exchanging information among systems or applications. Enterprise applications developed in diverse technologies and languages and executed on different platforms can make web services a common technology to exchange information across system networks (internet/intranet), a kind of interprocess communication within a single computer. This interoperability (for example, between .Net and Java or Linux and Windows) is possible by following open standards...