A Web service service requires three enabling layers. The supporting infrastructure layer of a Web service is relatively well served by standards. Internet protocols are in place. XML is also in place, but it comes in different flavours, and each one is at a different stage of development. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), the protocol for applications to talk to each other over the Internet, was submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in late 2001. But it will be at least another year, and perhaps in another version, before it is fully accepted.

Within the integration ability layer, standards are emerging, but they are still in a very formative stage. It will be at least three years before they become fully available, so much of this will have to be developed in-house.

Finally, in the business relationship layer, no significant standards have yet emerged that are specific to Web services.

Lay the groundwork now for Web services. Don't expect Web services to appear overnight. The reality is that it will take years for even a mildly incomplete vision of Web services to be realised. But if you start defining a Web service architecture now, even for part of your enterprise, you can take advantage of Web services offerings and standards as they become available, rather than play catch-up with leading-edge business units or, worse yet, your competitors.

Integrating internal applications is a first step in building an IT architecture based on the Web services philosophy. Rather than implement the approach wholesale, be opportunistic and use Web services either where systems need integrating or where a new business process needs the business functionality of an existing system used elsewhere. Expose the functionality of your existing applications using Web service development tools.

Treat your IT portfolio as a set of business services that can be quickly reconfigured or reused rather than a set of applications. Integrate two applications together by loosely coupling Web services modules created from each. When the need changes add or subtract coupled Web service modules as required.

With an internal architecture to support Web services, and some experience in integrating internal applications, you can move ahead to the second step of linking with external parties via Web services.

Begin by encouraging those with whom you have good working relationships to collaborate on exposing the business functionality in their systems as Web services that your own systems can tap. Such inter-enterprise linking of business processes in a value chain is a major promise of Web services. Likewise, encourage a trusted ESP to offer a Web service you need.

Now it's time to take off the training wheels. The third step of Web services implementation is to use the open market by offering and accessing Web services. Once mature, the belief is that your in-house applications, for example, will be able to identify and connect to Web services via the Internet without any human intervention. That promise could be years off, but the standards in the integration ability layer aim to make this form of application-to-application on the Internet a reality. In fact, the goal is discovery of a needed service on the fly using these standards.

The Web enters its second generation. To enthusiasts, Web services are the second-generation use of the Web. In its first generation, the Web linked people to applications. In the next generation, the Web will link applications to applications. Some see the second-generation Web as a revolutionary new age in computing and business management. Others - the more sceptical - see Web services merely as an interesting development, beset with problems that will prove difficult to overcome.

Web services have a future, certainly. In a few years they are likely to become a natural way of offering new business services and acquiring new systems. A revolution? Probably not; but an evolution, with the Internet and new standards providing the basis.

So proceed cautiously, but lay the groundwork for the next generation of business services. My German companions were well satisfied by this risk-managed approach.

Dr Marianne Broadbent is group vice president and global head of research for Gartner's Executive Programs (EXP)