The W3C defines a "Web Service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format (specifically Web Services Description Language, known by the acronym WSDL). Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed by its description using SOAP messages, typically conveyed using HTTP with an XML serialization in conjunction with other Web-related standards."
A Web Service may be developed in any language and deployed over any platform, but most importantly it may be accessed by any other application regardless of the language used to develop it. SOAP serves as the entity which uses XML to collect the specific message, the service, the interface or port type, and the service binding (the binding contains information about the service such as its hosting redirector and access point).
Web services in action:
The idea of the internet as we know it is quickly surpassing the simple need to obtain information with ease through web applications, and is now evolving into a multitude of systems which perform tasks, calculations, accurate searches, and many other complex operations. Web Services are the perfect example of a solution to the need for a simplistic system which allows many different technologies to collaborate and communicate with each other. Several years ago web services didn't really exist (or not in the form it does today). But now you see it as a standard, an essential piece of a company's IT infrastructure.
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