William
You asked some interesting questions. Sorry I did not answer the first time
you asked them.
1. We have a number of different customers doing different things with XML.
(how is that for a non-answer, must be an election year) We, of course,
still have a lot more customers using "traditional EDI". In fact, we
continue to add new customers every day that utilize our traditional EDI VAN
services. You can look at our web site to see news releases
(www.kleinschmidt.com) related to what we are doing with two of our XML
customers. For other XML customers, we have not yet released any
information. You can also read about what we are doing with some of our
"traditional" EDI customers if you have the desire.
2. Not sure exactly what you mean by XML messages. However, I can say that
some have created their own messages. One is using XSL. We translate
between X12 and XML as well as between different versions of XML for
customers, so it really doesn't make any difference to either trading
partner which "messages" are being used by the other trading partner. This
is part of the value equation that we provide.
3. Of the two customers that we have released information on, one is in the
logistics business and the other is a demand-aggregation e-marketplace
within the industrial manufacturing industry.
4. The business reasons that these companies decided that XML was a better
solution than traditional EDI is something that I would not share if I knew
the answer. However, I will say that we here at Kleinschmidt are using XML
internally, so I guess our technical folks see value. In addition, we will
be announcing additional XML related functionality soon.
5. Well, I wouldn't touch that question with a ten-foot pole.
Otherwise, your comments are right on target as usual, even if you do reside
in Dublin.
Doug
Doug Anderson
Assistant Vice President Sales Support
Kleinschmidt Inc.
450 Lake Cook Road
Deerfield, IL 60015
847-405-7457
847-458-5234 (home office)
847-945-4619 (fax)
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kleinschmidt.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William J. Kammerer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2000 12:40 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: Test vs. Production
>
>
> Doug Anderson, of Kleinschmidt Inc., brought up the case of
> his customer
> using XML and wanting some means to differentiate test from
> production.
> After giving him an overview of what's available out there in some of
> the existing XML B2B frameworks, I asked Doug: "Out of curiosity, just
> what is your customer doing in XML? What XML 'messages' are
> being used?
> Which industry? Couldn't the customer have just used EDI?
> Why all this
> rush to use XML?"
>
> However, David Irvine, of Emco Limited, takes "exception" to these
> questions. Unfortunately, David almost allows a non sequitur
> to get in
> the way of the point he is trying to make. Apparently, since my
> signature includes "Dublin" - "Dublin, Ohio, eh? Riding Sterling's
> coatstrings?" - I must have some nefarious connection to Sterling
> Commerce; else I would never question the lemming-like rush
> to use XML
> for B2B messaging without any interoperable standards yet in place.
> Indeed, David closes by urging me to "Keep on Sterling's payroll,
> buddy," forever consigned to the trashheap of EDI.
>
> Dear David:
>
> Dublin, formerly a small rural village, is now a suburb of Columbus,
> Ohio. Surely one who knows what a "Luddite" is would know
> that Columbus
> is not only the capital of Ohio, but a large populous city,
> the nexus of
> a great metropolis nestled in the great American Heartland, boasting
> vast industrial, agricultural, educational, financial and scientific
> wherewithal. Why, we even have butter cows at the State Fair and an
> airport!
>
> It is not inconceivable that two companies, even those with
> similar ZIP
> codes, would have nothing much to do with each other, except that
> Sterling - like many other world-class companies - is a FORESIGHT
> customer and uses the EDISIM suite of EDI productivity tools.
> I am not
> on Sterling's payroll. Actually, Sterling Commerce is not even in
> Dublin; rather, it is located within the city of Columbus.
>
> Now that we have that out of the way, let's examine the gist of your
> letter:
>
> Why go away from traditional EDI? You haven't been paying
> attention, have you. First, traditional EDI is the domain
> of the VANs, who charge by the kilocharacter. The web is
> free - for companies doing real EDI, this is a significant
> savings. Further, isn't the point of this forum to
> recommend, refine, and encourage the use of XML. If we
> want to make a paradigm shift in B-2-B communication, and
> I, for one, do, then we have to support, help standardize,
> and use, new key technologies.
>
> The web, or more correctly - the Internet, is not free. But access to
> the ubiquitous Internet does appear to be free simply because
> the costs
> are amortized among other business functions like e-mail and
> the company
> Web site, and porn and Yahoo Sports access for the employees. The
> marginal costs of *transporting* volumes of EDI or XML B2B business
> messages may indeed be very low, leading to the impression of "free."
>
> One may use FTP, EDIINT AS1 S/MIME or AS2 HTTP to move EDI
> messages over
> the Internet. But the effort to setup each of your trading partners
> within Internet EDI needs to be considered and factored in: exchanging
> public keys, e-mail IDs, FTP directories and addresses, URLs,
> negotiating security methods and protocols etc. etc. for each trading
> partner will be expensive maintenance. Some people will prefer to buy
> an Internet EDI package like FORESIGHT's TradeSite/SDX or Cyclone
> Interchange for handling their largest trading partners,
> where they may
> quickly recoup half or more of their VAN charges, and let the
> traditional VAN handle the remainder of the traffic. Remember: with a
> VAN, you don't have to worry about the details of getting an
> interchange
> addressed by a particular DUNS number to the appropriate party safely
> and securely.
>
> Often people assume that EDI (X12 or EDIFACT) requires a VAN,
> which has
> obviously never been true; it's just that until the advent of the
> ubiquitous Internet, the VAN provided protocol and time
> synchronization
> (e.g., I'm using ZModem on a dial-up and my TP uses 3780
> bisync, or I'm
> a late riser and my TP is an early-bird). Now that, for all practical
> purposes, everyone has 24 X 7 TCP/IP connectivity, the VAN's transport
> function is relatively less valuable; but their directory services
> (again, I don't have to fuss with URLs, e-Mail address, key exchange,
> etc.) are still a compelling "value-add."
>
> Is your argument rather for replacing EDI by XML, because EDI requires
> VANs but XML is free over the Internet? If so, we've already
> dealt with
> the erroneous notion that EDI can't be transported over the Internet.
> And even XML messages would require the same services
> provided by either
> a VAN or one of the Internet EDI packages, because of the security and
> signature requirements and routing considerations. If you demur, and
> say XML doesn't require all this baggage and insist that it's *REALLY*
> free over the Internet, the same would necessarily be true of EDI:
> just wrap the EDI interchange up in BASE64 encoding and slap
> the result
> in-between an XML begin and end tag.
>
> William J. Kammerer
> FORESIGHT Corp.
> 4950 Blazer Memorial Pkwy.
> Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
> +1 614 791-1600
>
> Visit FORESIGHT Corp. at http://www.foresightcorp.com/
> "Commerce for a New World"
>
>
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