Organizations across many industries are implementing or exploring Web services technology. According to recent industry surveys, however, many organizations are still hesitating to adopt Web services on a larger scale. This article explores the challenges organizations are facing and identifies factors that can lead to differences in the adoption of Web services between industries. While Web services at their core are a horizontal or cross-industry technology, the findings of this exploratory study suggest that there are important vertical or industry specific factors that can either promote or inhibit the adoption of Web services in a particular industry.