The authors provide students with the information they need to plan, analyze and execute these new service platforms, giving them a better grasp of the changing nature of enterprise applications and infrastructure. As future managers, they must understand that unless their firms create an effective services strategy, they are likely to be left behind. Kalakota and Robinson present a balanced perspective of what students need to know to make effective technology decisions. They write both to challenge the dominance of current piecemeal strategies and to address three critical issues: How to plan in an economy where differentiation is achieved not through products but through technology-enabled services; How to translate business imperatives into better technology execution; and How to organize the changes Web Services have wrought on the business landscape.