E-services are simply services that are made accessible over the Internet in a ubiquitous fashion. Examples of e-services today are abundant. Web sites are no longer self-contained entities. This trend will continue as Web sites continue to be made up of more and more services. This will require business models that leverage delivery of the service as the primary motivation for consumers to adopt devices and to associate with specific companies.
Discovery is the mechanism by which services make themselves known and are discovered.
Competing technologies include Universal Plug and Play from Microsoft and Jini from Sun. Description is the way in which specifications are made for information passed into and out of the service. XML-based technologies increasingly will be utilized and will provide a common format for files and for the messages between systems that deliver the services. Transport is the communication method between the user of the service and the service itself. Environment is the runtime in which the service executes.