The big question is which is the proper way for organizations to provide services over the web? Today, some services are offered with an HTML interface. They are using documents to provide services, but what lies behind the service's interfaces? Web browsers are not alone in the race to conquer the web, cell phones, palmtops, handhelds, devices such as microwave ovens, sewing machines and applications from other companies want to access the web, query databases, convert data, pull information, etc. There should be a layer below the presentation level enabling the real web of services.

XML is perhaps the strongest standard of the decade. XML vocabularies are the building stones that organizations will use to construct a universe of services. XML_RPC is a standard that will have to be studied to construct the web of services because it is useful to put services available on the web and because it is a solid standard that might easily get adopted. The importance of a standard to provide services is enormous for b2b services, companies sharing a common standard can grow very fast by using services provided by other companies and so on. I can't imagine a true web of services based on different propietary formats. They must find a standard to adopt.