Web Services are a new technology that promises to dramatically decrease B2B and B2C integration time. Here is how it works:

ABC Inc. has licensed access to its data wharehouse to XYZ Corp. ABC Inc. has a SUN iForce infrastructure, while XYZ Corp. has an all Microsoft Windows Server Network. ABC Inc. uses Oracle as their data store, while XYZ Corp uses Microsoft SQL Server. How do these disparate systems communicate? The answer is web services.

ABC Inc. builds a web service enabled interface to access the data. XYZ Corp. is granted access to the data wharehouse. In Applications developed by XYZ Corp. that need access to the ABC Inc. data wharehouse, the developer invokes Microsoft's web service support, and interacts directly with the data!

Now, when PQR Ltd., who develops with python, purchases an ABC Inc. license, its applications invoke python's web service support. No new logic is needed for ABC Inc.