Does anyone know of a great XML conference US based? Thank you. Dee
Thibodeau
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Bryan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 2:55 AM
To: Neja Zupan; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: SMEs and XML/EDI
Neja
>
> How can XML/EDI approach all of below aspects (SME characteristics, IT
> evaluation criteria and problems with current EDI) and solve problems
> B2B e-commerce for SMEs?
>
>
> The Nature of SME:
> - small management team,
> -lack of specialist staff,
> -multi-functional management,
> -informal and inadequate planning and control systems,
> -lack of promotable staff,
> -lack of control over businesses environment,
> -limited technology (process and product),
> -limited market,
> -heavy reliance on few customers,
> -low turnover,
> -reluctance to take risk,...
The nice thing about XML is that things like DTDs and stylesheets can be
interchanged as easily as the messages. The idea is that larger
companies will create the DTDs and stylesheets to display and capture
messages, and share this with the SMEs. Obviously input from
knowledgeable SMEs is welcome, but normally SMEs will use something
developed by another company and make use of this with minimal
additional work being required their end. Because XML is a standard part
of Internet-based systems there should be no additional software
maintenance requirements.
> SME IT evaluation criteria are:
> -cost,
> -benefits and
> -ease of use
XML software is normally free or very low cost. The whole philosophy of
the Internet is to allow people to share knowledge and development so
that they can spread the costs, and the benefits, as widely as possible.
Ease of use is another issue. Here what I would like to see is that we
do not see when XML is being used - only the end result. This is
beginning to happen with the development of WYSIWYG XML editors. The
next generation of word processors should generate XML without us being
aware of it. We will also need WYSIWYG XForms generators for business
applications before we get full ease of use, but these should only be a
year or so away.
>
> Problems encountered in the EDI approach:
> -Technical aspects of EDI are quite underestimated.
> -Resulting structures are too complex and consequently too hard to
read
The need to reduce the "overload" factor within current EDI message
structures is well recognized and hopefully will be addressed as part of
the ebXML initiative.
> and to navigate.
> -Multiple standards and different versions of each standard are in
use.
One of the basic design principles for XML is "backward compatible". If
we can make use of the current, lowest denominator, features as far as
possible we can help to ensure the long term development of XML/EDI.
>
> -Semantics are not part of the EDI standard.
> -Semantic interpretation of the standard is included in
implementation
> conventions, which are different for each industry sector and/or
> geographical region.
> -A detailed interchange agreement is necessary to establish an EDI
> relationship to a trading partner.
> -Overhead in network costs and reduced processing efficiency due to
> segment tags and delimiters marking unused data.
> -A change request to an EDI standard is too time-consuming due to the
> bureaucracy in the data maintenance process.
> -SMEs were mostly pushed into EDI use
XML DTDs and Schemas provide exchangeable, machine readable, interchange
agreements as to the syntax of a message. The semantics associated with
the DTD, and the details of the trading arrangements, are necessarily
outside its scope. The first are the responsibility of the industry
involved, the latter of the partners involved. The idea is to try to
make as much of these as possible reusable so that people do not need to
reinvent the wheel. Hence the ebXML work to use the UN/EDIFACT semantics
within XML environments.
XML DTDs and Schemas can be modified/extended by their user communities,
so that unwanted elements/attributes can be removed/defaulted. Formal
change requests are not normally needed for such modifications, though
we need to develop mechanisms whereby changes required by one group can
be recorded so that other groups needing the same set of features do not
need to reinvent them.
Martin Bryan
CEN/ISSS Defining and Maintaining Semantics and Datatypes working group
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