James, I'll take the liberty of adding a bit to Doug's answer. I think you're confusing a number of different issues. You seem to be arguing for adoption of a single EDI standard. That is not the same as alignment, and it is up to the users, not the SDOs.
In terms of what is within the purview of SDOs, alignment is again not the same as having a single standard. When people say "alignment" what I think most of them really mean is a single standard. There are a number of reasons why the X12 EDI standard and ASC X12 have persisted. One is that some industries, notably insurance, mostly health care, wanted to continue developing in the X12 syntax. The "sunset" motion to cease development in X12 syntax failed in a series of votes over a few years. Another factor is that about the same time as these sunset votes were taking place in ASC X12, WP.4 reorganized into UN/CEFACT and ASC X12's formal role in the EDIFACT process was eliminated, along with all of the other regional EDIFACT boards. Until and unless that is role re-established, organizations will not be able to come to ASC X12 to develop UN/EDIFACT standards in any formal way. Clearly there are a few who would rather come to ASC X12 meetings domestically rather than travel all over the world, but they still would like their work to be internationally recognized. A similar situaion exists with XML development (though in both organizations it's more data modeling than XML). I wouldn't necessarily call it "legacy" issues on the part of health care, just more wanting to protect an investment that they had just made in the mid 90s. Pride, ego, and other human frailties doubtless played a part (and still do) for some individuals. Mike -- ----------------------------------------- Michael C. Rawlins, Senior Software Engineer, Inovis (a GXS Company) Sent from personal account On 10/15/2010 1:46 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Doug, > > I remember there were initiatives to bring X.12 into closer alignment > with EDIFACT, is that still occuring? If not could you comment on why? > > Food for thought for the rest of us: > It is slightly ironic to note that since it is UN EDIFACT and the USA is > one of the largest contributors to the UN our tax dollars are supporting > the "free" standard used by the vast majority of the world outside North > America. (Even Japan is moving toward EDIFACT away from their local > legacy standards) > > 1) Why can't we get alignment with the global community? Legacy issues, > pride or ? > 2) As supply chains are now truly global wouldn't one standard > facilitate global supplier adoption, cut cost and improve efficiencies? > > > > Regards, > > James Hatcher > > ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
