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All the above example suggests that remotely accessing an object required proprietary technologies which were tightly coupled to the remote code.
Web Services is basically a platform to built a distributed architecture where there are numerous computers connected to each other in a network. The various computers in the network will be running applications developed using different tools, different technologies from different vendors. Each of these applications can be exposed as a Web Service using SOAP, UDDI and WSDL wherein a service running on one computer can access a service running on other irrespective of difference in technologies. So if there is a .Net application running on one computer it can be accessed using a Java application running on other, only condition is both should be exposed as a web service.
Web Service clients can be console based as well as browser based.

Why Web Services?

There are several reason why Web Services has become a need

1. One of the biggest reason why we need web services is interoperability wherein different Vendor specific applications can interact with each other. For Example a .Net application accessing a Java web service.
2. Using Web Services you can expose your application and its functionality globally.
3. Using Web Services an enterprise need not depend on one particular vendor for all the solutions. It can move to different vendors for different functionality and can optimally choose out of several options.
4. Web Services used standardized protocols SOAP, UDDI, WSDL and HTTP for implementation.
5. Web Services has support for most of the communication protocol and it can be implemented using FTP as well as HTTP.
6. Web Services follow a loosely coupled architecture and a Web Service can be accessed by applications in any technology.