3.12 Summary
This chapter provided a high-level overview and understanding of the structure and composition of a Web services platform. This overview was presented as a rendering of the fundamental concepts of service orientation that were introduced in Chapter 1, with a specific set of Web services specifications that IBM, Microsoft, and other significant industry partners developed. This platform represents the basic core of a new Web-based distributed computing platform that overcomes some of the problems of earlier distributed computing technologies. Although the platform is not complete, it certainly forms a viable foundation on which to build additional higher-level, value-added infrastructure and business services. It also seeks to address other aspects of a more complete distributed computing platform. Some additional potential future topics therefore may need to be addressed to provide this more complete platform, and these are covered in Chapters 17, "Conclusion," and 18, "Futures."