SOA and Distributed Applications

So I am investigating SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and distributed Applications involving Web Services. I am so excited to get into this government project to start designing it. Just need to get through 2 more weeks of analysis. What excites me is that the people here at the Office of Surface Mining (part of the Dept of the Interior) want us to build it so it can be as flexible as possible. We get 2 months for design which is unheard of in the private sector. But this system will have to operate for 10+ years so we need to have time to make sure it can adapt and substances for a long period of time. I have to say that the government does do the preparation aspect of building technology correctly. But they don't have quarterly profits and Wall St. Hammering them to make revenue so that may be why. So back to SOA. The more I read about it the more I agree with the general thinking. We are going to wrap all business objects as web service projects in VS.NET and then not worry about who or what calls them. OSM (Office of Surface Mining) would like within a few years to use the system from wireless devices in the field when an investigator is at a coal mine. The system I envision could have that ready quickly using SOA. I am more excited about technology today than I have been in 10 years when I discovered Delphi 1. I see .NET as the new productivity engine for making great software. That is the bottom line.