Posted on ZDNet today.
Monday February 26 12:15 PM EST
Why 90 percent of XML standards will fail
By John R. Rymer, president and founder of Upstream Consulting, Special to ZDNet
XML standards are the latest in a series of great hopes in IT. Too bad it's all
marketing and not the reality.
Those who are making XML standards are reliving the mistakes of past standards bodies.
I can see what's coming and it is a whole lot less than any of us would like or need.
I think 90 percent of the current activities will not produce meaningful technology.
In my view, that's failure.
Pardon my skepticism, but I've lived through too many can't-miss,
can't-live-without-it standards efforts. There was the gargantuan effort to create an
alternative to TCP/IP by the International Standards Organization (ISO), the tortured
efforts to standardize the Unix operating system, the Open Software Foundation's DCE
debacle, and the gun-to-the-head tactics of the Object Management Group (OMG). Of
these, only the OMG's CORBA can be called a commercial success.
Each of these efforts suffered from one or two mistakes that doomed it to failure.
Mistake #1: Nonalignment
A key benefit of standards is vendor-neutrality. Standards organizations will tell you
that vendors are responsible for implementing neutral standards in products that are
fast, reliable, and scalable. Experience says you can't assume vendors that matter
will get the job done unless the standard is aligned with their competitive needs. A
standards organization has to align with the real strategic imperatives of major
companies if it hopes to see useful implementations of its work. I see very little of
this in the XML efforts underway.
Mistake #2: Over-promise
XML standards are the latest in a series of great hopes in IT. XML standards will
provide users with vendor independence. XML standards will strip all of the latency
out of intercompany operations at a low cost. XML standards will create a single
global electronic market enabling all parties irrespective of size to engage in
Internet-based electronic business. XML standards will provide for plug-and-play
software.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? It should because we've heard promises just
like these for standards in Unix, objects, and various network protocols. These
promises are the marketing, not the reality, of XML standards. Early experience with
RosettaNet and Microsoft's SOAP indicates that XML standards provide some leverage for
some problems in small-scale systems. The backlash is inevitable, and can be fatal
even to well-considered standards efforts.
Mistake #3: Overdo it
XML standards-making is at a fever pitch, with continual announcements by a range of
standards groups of intentions, specs, proposed specs, selections of specs, and so on.
There are now dozens of XML standards efforts underway--far too many to be practical
for user organizations to consider, much less adopt. A winnowing process will ensue,
eliminating most of the wanna-be standards announced during last year. Even big
organizations, such as the United Nations' Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
(UN/CEFACT), the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
(OASIS), RosettaNet, and the Open Applications Group (OAG) face a struggle for
relevance and survival.
There are only two abiding sources of XML standards. The first is the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), which is responsible for defining the base technology of XML. The
second source is credible vendor that creates publicly available XML formats and
protocols as part of meaningful products. Ariba and Microsoft are in this category at
the moment.
Mistake #4: Overreach
Many XML standards efforts aim to standardize business processes. RosettaNet is the
leading example. I can't think of too many efforts to standardize business processes
that have worked. Business processes are too specific to individual companies to
standardize them. The most successful IT standards address protocols and formats. Some
of the XML standards groups are following RosettaNet down this path. They may as well
not. RosettaNet is operating in a unique industry context (electronics/high tech
supply chain), which does not resemble other industry categories.
Pardon me for being cranky about this, but the net effect of XML standards has been to
slow adoption of XML products and technology. There's too much noise, too much hype,
too many promises--too much risk. Shouldn't we know better by now? Let me know what
you think about XML standards in the TalkBack below.
John R. Rymer is principal consultant and founder of Upstream Consulting, a
strategy-consulting group in Emeryville, Calif. Upstream has developing business
strategies for several XML technology companies.
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