Rating: 
Summary: Poor for working schmucks, great for students
Review: This book can be summed up in one word: bloated. It is too heavy and based on theory rather than real-world examples and summarized concepts. I am a product developer in the working world, and I simply don't have time to churn through this huge book. The only chapter that was slightly relevant was the one on Apache Axis. If you want to learn the ins and outs of web services from a theoretical and architectural standpoint, this might be your book. Otherwise I would go with another book if you want working examples and concise writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Outdated
Review: This book is outdated. Buy either Developing Java Web Services (Wiley) or Java Web Services Architecture (Morgan Kaufman)
Rating: 
Summary: Outdated material
Review: This book is very much outdated. The content needs a revision ! Why not the authors update the book content and dump it in serverside.com to satisfy the late buyers like me ? It would be a great help.
Rating: 
Summary: The best
Review: This book is well written, consise, and complete. I'm usually pretty skeptical of SAMS and WROX, and usually stick to O'Reilly books, but this one blows away O'Reilly's SOAP. One thing to keep in mind though (some may find this a good point, some a bad point) is that it uses AXIS, the Apache SOAP 3 implementation, which is just in alpha release. I personally like that it's using axis. Much better than soap 2.
Rating:
Summary: Truly excellent treatment of Web services
Review: This is by far the best book on Web services I have read! There are so many good things going for it. Let's start with the authoring team. I did some research on the Web: three members of the W3C Working Group on XML Protocol (next-generation SOAP), two co-authors of the UDDI specifications, two architects of the next-generation Apache Web services engine (Axis). These people know what they are talking about from both a theoretical and practical standpoint. The book addresses all levels of the Web services technology stack with amazing focus and depth. This book does not just regurgitate the specifications--it goes well beyond them to cover adjacent domains that are relevant. With the knowledge that I have gained from reading this book I feel I am in a much better position to analyze my web services needs, design a service architecture and implement the services necessary to bring it to life. Most importantly, I feel like I have learned how to evaluate the inevitable trade-offs I'll have to make doing real-world development. There are so many examples of this... Chapter 3 does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting RPC-oriented Web services with document (messaging) oriented Web services. This is the kind of out-of-the-ordinary material that imparts truly valuable knowledge on the reader, stuff you will not find while reading the bare specs or one of the quickly hacked together books on Web services. Chapter 5 talks a lot about security, an otherwise missing topic in the Web services space, and about enterprise-quality Web services. I learned some things about configuring application server security that I had missed after two years of J2EE development. In short, this book is a must-read for both beginning and experienced Web services developers and anyone interested in better understanding the space. If you're a pro, you will learn a lot from the realistic examples and the authors' real-world experience. If you're a beginner, do not despair. Chapter 1 makes the drive towards Web services easy to understand by exposing the technology and market forces behind the rapid change the industry is going through. Chapter 2 is the best, simplest, most focused introduction to data-oriented uses of XML I have ever seen. After these two, you'll be all set for tackling the rest of the book. As for me, I'll go study the example code now...
Rating: 
Summary: Good coverage
Review: This title covers most of what I needed to know and what this didn't cover I found in Java, The Complete Reference. Both titles I found complement each others and together they'll cover all you need to know to implement a web services system using Java.
Rating:
Summary: Good but Dated
Review: This was the best book on Web Services when it was released in 2001. More recent books by Wiley and MKP will serve you better.
Rating:
Summary: Wide coverage but bloated
Review: Updated coverage of core web services componenets, as well as some new stuff around the corner. While it seems up-to-date and has wide coverage of topics, it is written in a bloated style and painful to wade thru the chatty naratives to get at the factual information. Would have been good if the fluffy bit were reduced and the volume halved. A quicker route may be to go with the W3C specs - some of these include tutorials as well.
Rating:
Summary: Business and Technical Insight
Review: Very useful book for a technology and business consultant. Look forward to the next edition!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent work. Compact and up to date.
Review: Well structured. Excellent coverage of all aspects of Web Sevices Architecture and broad coverage of current related technologies.
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