John Hagel has some very interesting comments on Web Services, in an interview with HBS.

A large portion of the operating inefficiencies in our enterprises today is a result of difficulties in connecting existing applications and information. These inefficiencies are increasingly concentrated at the edge of the enterprise, in functions like procurement and sales channel management that have to frequently interact with a large number of business partners. As difficult as it is to connect the diverse applications within the enterprise, the complexity escalates when the connections have to extend to multiple business partners.