Web services versus ebXML
For those that go back a little ways in the software networking annals, ebXML is meant to be an extension of EDI or Electronic Data Interchange. ebXML has also been around for a couple of years - the messaging aspect of the seven-parts of the ebXML standard was ratified in 2000.

The end purpose in all of this is for the computer and corresponding network to fill items such as purchase orders, and to fill them intelligently. For instance, if a computer has two copies of the same purchase order, with the functionalities provided by ebXML, the computer will know that it should only process one of them. This can be crucial in businesses whose systems process POs numbering in the millions