For those of you who have been dubious about the hype around on-line
exchanges and marketplaces, it seems that even the mainstream business
press has finally started to gain some perspective on the topic.
Column 1, front page of the March 16 Wall Street Journal has a story
about a produce distributor that even went so far as to stress test an
on-line produce marketplace. They still found that their current system
based on a 20 year old program running on a midrange system, faxes, and
phone calls supports their business much better than even best of the
marketplaces. In a related story on the front page of the second
section, they pretty much say that the public on-line marketplaces that
folks were buzzing about last year are dead. Private marketplaces
hosted by a single (or a few) companies linking with their supply chain
are the next big thing. A quote from the CEO of Viacore - "the days of
thinking everyone will come together in these big marketplaces and sing
'Kum-ba-ya' are gone."
Seems that common sense, in the end, usually wins out. My own take on
the future is:
o Private web sites (private exchanges) to link with supply chain
partners who aren't able to integrate their systems with yours, or for
types of information sharing that are not practical to integrate.
o EDI for established relationships and higher volumes where partner
systems are integrated
o XML (perhaps) for new applications where appropriate EDI messages
don't exist. Perhaps eventual migration to XML for all integration as
XML matures.
Cheers,
--
Michael C. Rawlins, Rawlins EC Consulting
http://www.metronet.com/~rawlins/
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