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In the early 2000s, defining and locating Web services was very difficult. There was no industry-wide, accepted approach for businesses to reach their customers and partners with information about their products and Web services. Nor was there a method of how to integrate into each other's systems and processes. Existing options were proprietary and difficult to configure.
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Intel believes in the importance of industry standards for Web services (sometimes called application services). These are services (usually including some combination of programming and data) that are offered from a business's Web server for Web users or other Web-connected programs. Web services range from such major services as storage management and customer relationship management (CRM) down to much more limited services such as the furnishing of a stock quote and the checking of bids for an auction item. The accelerating creation and availability of these services is a major Web trend.
