[author's note: This is a bit of long one, adn not really about developments in SVG, but where SVG fits into the big picture of business and economics and why XML is better (than what?)]
The argument for XML is not really a technological one, but a business and economic one. Which technologies to use is not a discussion that business strategists are having right now, and it is certainly not one that economists are having either. And you should beleive that IT strategists are NOT in the driving seat (that was a temporaray blip through dot.com madness), they are not even the navigators any longer. The have be backlined to technicans seat (again). The full investment cycle for business/government is a long time (7- 11 years) and ask any economist they will tell you that the new technology driver is a) expanding the cycle not shortening it and b) reinvestment is globally directed at margin extratction not at IT investment. Info Technology has been (rightly IMHO) demoted back to toolkit. But there is an intersting shift here that is important to this discussion about XML, as shareholders would like to see the ROI they were promised at the the begining of this cycle stabilised to yeild (ie coverting their investment into regualar stable dividends). Shareholders are saying you have invested our money in all this kit that can talk to one and other, so let it talk... XML is better because because it makes for interoperability, and in the new business world metricification neccesitates interoperability. And because XML has validation, it scores highly for interoperability. All capitalised Business has two meta-rules: externalise costs; internalise revenue. (Any one who operates outside of this rule-set is having a laugh a the expense of someone elses' capital reserve.) >From an economic point of view the metrification of this rule-set is the key consolidated reason d'etre of IT. And in a changing global economy (rapid expansion of the business footprint globally, to the structural tranformation of the business population) requires that business units can talk to one and other easily, cost-effectivily and transparently. Administrators in both Business and government need to share metrics. The so-called 'economic miracle' of the dot.com era was that we saw a rapidaly expanding number of business transactions, yet the amortised cost of the transactions hardly changed - partcualy when the cost of IT was discounted against the necessary re-invetment and capitalisation. This is what made dot.com so sexy. While the spotlight for dot.com was on business-to-consumer tranasctions, and the partially exposed business-to-busines model, what economic analysts began to see was that the real long term benefits of this technology was instrinsic metrification of the whole business cycle and producting business descision frameworks that were both shorter in timescale and wider in coverage making it possible to make more cost-benefical decisisons. This even tirumphs over the content-specific industries (new and old) because it is the same semantic. And this understanding is now being widely adopted at the root of the investment cycle: with corporate investors. An emerging consensus has appeared that says the ROI for IT is in greater metrification. This is the discussion that business strategist and economists are having: How we our existing IT investment help use externalise costs and internalise revenue? Economic gain from IT in the last 25 years (stretching over 4/5 years economic cycles) has seem more yield from back-end integration than front-office fulfillment. Inverstors would like to see more of this. And more of this is delivered through interoperability. The business community (and governments) have already started turning this super-tanker in the direction of interoprability and XML is due North. The investor community now has a healthy cyncisim towards IT- hype, and the lag in economic understanding about the what IT does for business is closing. We have moved to a paradigm where IT investment must now be consolidated by increasing interoperability. This is what XML offers. Consolidation of invetment and increased operability across business-functions (internally and externally). SVG is part of this paradigm. It is a cliche that "one picture can speak a thousand words" and thats why you, dear reader, are on this list. You know that there is a requirement to present consolidated metrics in graphical format - what ever it is you are metrifying. My engagement with SVG has been relatively recent - and I'm a weird species of econmist/developer/researcher/analyst/strategist - but in this period I have seen a very common element to all the workings of this community and what you/we are trying to do with XML/SVG: make better decisions that cost less yet have more impact. Having a common, underlying language/framework that enables to do this is why SVG being in XML better. Business likes standards - do not let the anti-regulation talk fool you - but they are happy to have competeting standards and XML will be one of them --- In [email protected], "Francis Hemsher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Latine loqui coactus sum... > Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora > > --- In [email protected], "domenico_strazzullo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], Chris Lilley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > wrote: > > > > > censeo DTDem esse delendam > > > > Quod censueris faciam. > > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Most low income households are not online. Help bridge the digital divide today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/I258zB/QnQLAA/TtwFAA/1U_rlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ----- To unsubscribe send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit my membership" ---- Yahoo! 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