This document provides an overview and introduction to distributed applications, web services, and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). It begins with introducing the presenter and their background working on Microsoft's web services team. The document then discusses key concepts around web services such as contracts, loose coupling, and message exchange patterns. It presents an example of a car dealership and how web services could be used. It outlines the standards, layers, and technologies involved in building web services. Finally, it discusses how WCF simplifies and improves upon previous Microsoft technologies for building distributed applications and web services.