Language, Operating System, and Implementation independence Loose coupling between components/applications Abstract way of exposing what each service offers When we have components that are loosely coupled, can be composed easily, and are independent, we have a system designed using a "Services Oriented Architecture" (SOA). In the past, SOAs were built from CORBA/IDL components, JINI/RMI, or other similar approaches, none of which combined the characteristics provided by Web Services. *But*, at the present time, Web Services do support some of the more interesting parts of SOAs: orchestration and dynamic composition of services, reliable aysnchronous communication, etc. Although there are specs in the works for all of these aspects.