Customer-Focused Web Service Design: This free Intel article will discuss a real-world example of a web services design process. If you are serious about learning about Web Services, read this article now.

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by Michael Perry, president and consultant, Mallard Software Designs Inc. Intel Corp.

This article begins a six-month journey during which we will develop a customer relations Web services solution that can be offered as a service to business clients. Our plan is to host the application on the Web and charge clients a regular fee for its use. We will not position this service as a business-to-business solution, because it is to be used only within a company. The success of our service offering does not depend upon companies changing their business models. Instead, the service will support the existing business model of a client company. Let's take a look at the current business environment and how we got here.

How we got here
The World Wide Web is a set of technologies charming in their simplicity and inspiring in their potential. It was born of academic necessity, but piqued the interest of software moguls, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. It created a frenzy of activity, if not a great deal of value, during the last half of the 1990s. The invention of the browser made the Internet easy. Before HTTP, users of the Internet had to memorize a set of arcane keystrokes to access email, FTP, Gopher, and Telnet. The Web browser presented the casual user with a simple point-and-click interface to linked documents. Even though the browser was less powerful than the other Internet clients, it broke down the barriers between people and information. Because it was so easy to browse from one site to the next, users experienced no friction.