At 19:39 20/06/01, Eck, Jeffery (GXS) wrote:
>1. How many EDI users are interested to use the EDI messages in an
>XML format ?
It has been my experience that, in the rush towards XML, EDI users tend to
be slower than other communities (there are exceptions, of course). This is
most likely because they have a solution in place and can afford to wait.
I don't have industry statistics but in every EDI-like projects where we
worked, we found that EDI users adopted XML to answer new needs or needs
that were not addressed properly by EDI.
For example, they might want one of the following: a more interactive
solution, interact with more partners, access cheap application servers,
improved viewing or printing capabilities or... something else.
>2. What is the business benefit of using the EDI messages in an XML
>format ?
Standards are useful to work within a community. What matters is the
community, not the standard. I assume you are part of one or more EDI
communities and you have adopted the standards of your community: most
likely EDIFACT or X.12.
XML is simply the standard of another set of communities, built around the
Internet. For various some reasons, some companies have found it worthwhile
to participate in that community, to the exclusion or in addition to their
EDI community. In so doing, they adopt the standards of their new community
and that includes TCP/IP, SMTP/HTTP and XML.
Let me just take one example. A customer needed to access data from its
business partners in real-time. There's something called Interactive-EDI
but it has not been implemented often and, to the best of my knowledge,
virtually no tools support it. So they turned to Internet tools (the
application server). In effect, they joined the Internet community and that
required adopting the standards of their new community, including XML.
Your experience may differ. The EDI community you are a part of may serve
your needs perfectly. Don't change anything then! But if you have new needs
or needs that are not well addressed, then you might decide to give
Internet a chance and, sooner or later, it means adopting XML.
I guess my answer to you is that there's nothing religious about standards.
Standards are only as valuable as the communities that use them. Should you
decide to migrate to the Internet and adopt their tools, they you will find
that sooner or later, you'll have to adopt Internet standards and that
include XML.
I lack space for a more thorough answer but if you are interested in this
idea of standard supporting communities, you might want to check my new XML
Executive Brief: XML and the Enterprise. Sorry for the shameless plug, it's
available from www.marchal.com.
--ben
Beno�t Marchal, www.marchal.com
I always tell people that as a consultant and author, if computers ever
really become easy to use, I'm out of two jobs. I'm not worried.
James E. Gaskin
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