IBM, Intel, Microsoft, SAP and more than 20 other leading technology companies are forming a non-profit think tank to work out ways for vying e-business software to communicate. The Business Internet Consortium, whose Web site will debut Wednesday, will work with companies such as Capital One and ImageX.com to ensure that their back-end software works with those of the companies' vendors and their customers. The consortium already has a steering committee and will form working groups next month to address specific issues. In the next five to ten years, some 20 percent to 30 percent of the gross national product of the United States could be affected by business-to-business e-commerce, consortium organisers say. But if the various versions of e-business software don't work together, the growth of e-business will slow considerably, they add. "Our customers have technology from all of the different vendors that are participating" in the consortium, said Marie Wieck, vice president of software strategy at IBM. "To fulfill their promise, all [the software] needs to work well together." The consortium is the latest attempt to standardise e-business transactions. Last month, 37 technology companies announced they had signed on to the RosettaNet XML (Extensible Markup Language) e-business standard. Other standardisation efforts are being led by the World Wide Web Consortium, Microsoft-backed BizTalk and the Oasis consortium. But organisers of the Business Internet Consortium say that the new group will go beyond the standards bodies, because it will involve and address the needs of customers who use the technology. Instead of proposing standards that may compete with those of other groups, the new consortium will offer and publish solutions to common problems and encourage competing companies to work together, organisers say. "The key participants will also be the key users will also be the key technology direction providers," said Will Swope, vice president of the solutions enabling group at Intel. But despite the promise of the consortium and the high-profile participants, the consortium is just as notable for the companies that are sitting on the sidelines. Despite being invited to participate, Sun Microsystems and Oracle, among others, have not yet joined. Their absence from the consortium is not a problem, organisers say. "If we get this running, all people will want to drink from the same pond," Swope said. Take me to ZDNet Enterprise Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Click on the TalkBack button and go to the ZDNet News forum. Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom. And read what others have said.