I have spent some time thinking about SOA and the possibility of an adaptive well defined enterprise. In my discussions with people I continually hear SOA and WS used interchangeably. While I understand why WS can be mistaken for SOA, SOA is not Web Services and Web Services are not SOA. SOA is a architectural style that encompasses more than just services. If consumers of technology are going to be successful the architectural style of SOA must converge in a way that allows business people to drive change across the enterprise. The implementations of SOA may include the use of Web Services but there is nothing requiring them.

Oh and one more thing WSDL was NEVER meant to be read by a human. Business people should be looking at contracts not WSDL.