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Page Two: XML has the potential to revolutionise data exchange but the myriad standards and specifications surrounding the meta-language could seriously discourage users in the short-term Some standards have been developed by groups of global companies such as electronic business XML -- ebXML -- which is backed by the Organisation for the advancement of Structured Information standards (Oasis) and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)-- but there are no rules or regulations laid down to enforce this approach. But despite these efforts at coordination, Abrams claimed it is impossible for one organisation to take overall responsibility. The W3C is only concerned with core standards such as the meta-language itself, while Oasis is focused on a few key niches. "There will never be a master international organisation handling every single XML effort under development. Some will be standards under W3C; some will be standards under the business umbrella of Oasis. Others will be vendor specifications," said Abrams. Although the sheer number of standards seems shocking at the moment, they will reconcile over time as companies become more experienced at applying XML to their business processes, he added. Abrams said that it is up to users and customers carrying out XML implementations to make the whole system workable in the long run. "It's not just a matter of agreeing on specifications, it's getting experience of what you do with it. Just because you have letters, grammar and an alphabet does not mean you are going to press a button and end up with the literature overnight," he said. Given these standard issues, some experts are claiming that getting involved in a serious XML-based implementation could be more trouble than it is worth and companies should stick with tried and tested technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) where possible. Recent research from US management consultants McKinsey & Company suggests that there is little to gain from replacing EDI with XML in the short term. EDI has been the de facto technology for electronic commerce for more than 20 years, allowing companies to exchange purchase orders, invoices and other commercial documents over dedicated links. In 2001 more than $2tn in business transactions passed through EDI networks, according to McKinsey. At the moment XML costs as much if not more than its EDI equivalent, XML isn't widely deployed, vendors are relatively inexperienced, and technical standards are in flux, the report claimed. McKinsey also questioned whether trading partners really want to exchange the kind of business-critical information that XML now allows for.
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Talkback
Nothing new here. When was this article written? This article could easily be a reprint from a couple of years ago.
I agree...the concept of XML started of with the idea that it is visually easier to read and expandable from a programmatic manner. Along with the schemas, it was supposed to be easier for everyone to interpret and present the data systematically.
However, reality is that the standards for some XMLs specify so many fields that ultimately the end users have to chose which fields work for them and again define how they are going to interpret each field regardless of what the standards specify. This is just like transferring data the old way - binary or even CSV.
Does anyone actually listen to the Gartner Group or it's analysts?
The analyst in this case says that anyone can develop an XML standard and that in his view
this can be a real problem.
That's the whole point.
Anyone can define how they want their data to be organized and define a schema to clarify what rules the data must follow. The most important thing though is that these various rulesets can be easily identified by the use of namespaces.
Namepsaces combined with schemas make any concern about different standards mostly irrelevant.
If every company in an industry defines their own schema/namespace then it may take some time for them all to come to some agreement.
Fortunately, what is more likely to happen is that the first few to bring a solution into play will allow the remaining players to compare the merits and perhaps agree on one that best meets their needs.
Ultimately, this will weed out the less useful schemas and allow the most valued one to dominate.
XML is neither complex or new -- perhaps to someone that doesn't work with data on a regular basis, but such people should not be the standard by which technology is judged. SGML has been around for 25+ years, and XML is little different. We have finally moved to a point where there are platforms available to structure data in a way that can be filtered and interpreted by interchange modules and passed to business partners--all I see in this article are complaints that it doesn't happen instantaneously and effortlessly. Listen, if that's what you're looking for, then there should only be one software company and the government (perhaps the United Nations) should set data structure in stone with their own standards...if the complete nonsense of such a suggestion isn't obvious, you are in big trouble my friend.
The landscape is changing making it easier for the average person to do XML.
The answer is in templates and patterns that
fit common re-usable models.
The new VisualScript product from Smartdraw fits this bill, as does technologies like the CAM templating approach from the OASIS CAM team, and of course Microsoft is pinning its hopes on InfoDocs
Crossing the gap between the technical world of the XML saavy to the real world of end users is the key. HTML did this - now XML needs to find its way.