Web Services, which are increasingly manifest in the corporate world through Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives, address a number of the challenges and requirements facing the corporate world. These new paradigms are dramatically altering how applications are defined, developed, and used to support the needs of the enterprise.

In this article we examine the impact Web Services as a technology have had on enterprise IT. We'll specifically focus on the connectivity Web Services provide; the evolution of software development from silos of functionality to SOA; and some of the benefits reaped from adopting the Web Service paradigm.