Throughout mankinds history, people have collected and shared information. Storytelling was a form of passing knowledge from one person to another. Cave paintings recorded events for people to view thousands of years later. However, todays society is one which values the storage, retrieval and sharing of information in a much more efficient manner. Today, thanks to the Internet, organizations and individuals can access information in the blink of an eye from tens of thousands of miles away. This technology is highly depended on a segment of Information Technology termed middleware, and an emerging area of study web services. By examining the history of middleware, the current technologies being utilized for web services, and the comparison of these technologies, one can understand where this segment is heading and in what areas future growth lies.
