XML in the Marketplace (was Regulating)

[Bryan Cooper]

One thing is that EDI has been around for quite a while, has vendors
who make money from it, have apps including many legacy apps that
support it, etc. etc.  Alot of the commercial space can use EDI over
the internet for example, but often EDI is run through private networks
such as manufacturer ordering parts for inventory.   To get them
to use XML or EDI inside XML won't make much sense unless
theres' additional functionality.  Or, over next say 5 years XML will
start to replace EDI in some of these shops, but they'll still need
to support EDI since alot of smaller shops won't/can't replace their
inventory software due to cost issues.

To get vendors or app people in a specific technology sector, like EDI, to start
using XML faster or more extensively is not an easy thing.  
What often happens is they'll say "we support XML" in the sense that 
they have a EDI/XML conversion utility.  That's a good first step, but 
it MAY become the only step for XML.

Killer apps have the ability to solve an existing problem or demonstrate
some advanced approach AND have the additional psychological
ability to get vendors (like EDI vendors) to review their level of committment 
to that technology.  XML is clearly in need of three things:

1)  Products that use existing XML standard
2)  Products that promote their use of XML to solve problems.
3)  People who promote #1 and #2

One thing that can be done easily is for the XML web site to
easily allow vendors using embedded XML in their products to
be found there.  a page setup with a group of subpages based on 
product category could start showing the universe at large just
how many products are using XML at some level.    a simple form would allow
people to insert their web sites into that  list...there may be alot
more XML apps there than people realize.



At 12:02 PM 1/8/99 -0500, JEROME.YUROW at hq.doe.gov wrote:
>     All this talk about finding a "killer ap" or even a "clever ap" for 
>     XML has me puzzled.  The most obvious "killer ap" for XML is as a 
>     medium for business-to-business electronic data interchange (EDI) and 
>     systems integration for the rest of us, i.e. the small to medium size 
>     businesses of the world.  Sure the AT&T's and other large corporations 
>     have their proprietary networks and software for doing EDI, but XML 
>     enables the vast, rest of the world to use both a publicly available, 
>     i.e. inexpensive, network and to acquire, if not create its own, 
>     software at a price much lower than anything the established EDI 
>     software vendors are asking.  This is clearly revolutionary and 
>     threatening to the "EDI establishment."  For evidence, just root 
>     around the web site, for example, of the Data Interchange Standards 
>     Association (DISA), www.disa.org.  Check out their membership list and 
>     see what kind of attention they're giving to this newfangled "XML 
>     technology".  
>     
>     There are two companies that I have found that appear to be in the 
>     forefront of the XML-EDI revolution (and perhaps others can find 
>     more): WebMethods (www.webmethods.com) and Datachannel 
>     (www.datachannel.com).
>

...bryan

F. Bryan Cooper	 		707 823 7324 
VERITAS Software      		707 321 3301 mobile
Bryan.Cooper at veritas.com   

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