RE: Dynamic invocation vs. late/dynamic binding

> 
> For example, IMAP, and whatever it's architectural style is 
> called. 8-) It defines a network interface to mail servers.  
> It's the only abstraction that an IMAP client needs to deal 
> with in order to interact with a variety of third party mail 
> servers who have exposed their server's functionality and 
> data via the IMAP protocol.
> 

Mark,

Can't we imagine, Web Services being an architecture allowing people to
build protocols such as IMAP, LDAP, etc..at lower costs?

Cost being:
- cost of "deploying" support for the protocol across the nodes
  of the network.
- cost for modelling and advertising data exchanged back and forth
- cost for the developer to learn how to integrate that protocol
  into its application/environment.

Is there something fundamentally bad with allowing *some* services such
as a credit card processor to have their own protocol?

Edwin