Hi,
This message is directed to all involved in OBI and e-commerce
standards in general.
THE #1 COMPETITOR: STATUS QUO
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I have been closely following several [largely unsuccessful], efforts to
standardize new and unproved technology. A thing that few of the
involved parties understood, was that developing code for technically
complex and marketwise unproved systems involves huge risks and is
therefore not as attractive as one could think. And if they already have
something running the motivation to change is likely to be limited even
if the new thing offers very compelling advantages. Then there is the
problem that there usually is more than one competing standard.
THE #2 COMPETITOR: IT'S NOT THAT EASY TO BUILD IT EITHER
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When things get as complex as for OBI, there is also the problem that
there may not be too many that are up to the task at all. OBI 3.0
requires understanding of what most young developers would call
"yucky" EDI which definitely is a limiting factor, while OBI 4.0 relies
on standard but still hard-to-use cryptographic functions that few
e-commerce developers so far have had any reason to bother with.
XML schema parsers which also is a corner-stone of OBI 4.0 are still
non-standard, in spite of being a hot topic for several years. I.e. we
are in a transitional period where the OS manufacturers still have
some major homework to do in supporting e-commerce.
FERTILIZERS MAY BE CALLED FOR
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Due to the previous roadblocks to success, one should seriously
consider making key-components available for free, to not stall
market acceptance. How could you make any money on that
someone probably rightfully wonders?
- The free components could have soft [test/verification license] or
hard [cripple-ware] usage restrictions. The latter is not a good
idea in my opinion when a market is still in a "cautious" state
- The major sources of revenues are probably not in components,
but in packaged products, system integration services, and in
running ASPs [which OBI 4.0 offers vastly improved support for].
DEPLOYMENT IS KING
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Last by not least. If adoption becomes marginal, *all* parties that
invested money, time, and energy will lose most of their investment.
I.e. deployment is the really critical factor, regardless if you are a
SW vendor, consultant, or actually just want to perform e-business.
KIDS, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! [only]
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Still I think that without public testing/debugging-, compliance-,
and proof-of-concept- (tryout) sites you get essentially nowhere.
This is in my opinion valid for all non-proprietary application-
oriented e-commerce standards, aspiring for market acceptance.
Regards
Anders Rundgren
CEO X-OBI
+ 46 70 - 627 74 37
