Applications need content to operate. So why can’t we all be friends, asks Mike Hogan
21 November 2001
Talking about B2B I sometimes
use the car analogy.
The idea being that eProcurement and eMarketplace applications are like automobiles that need fuel (content) to operate. Without rich structured content, these applications are useless.
These B2B applications are not the only applications that feed on structured content.
The entire semantic web effort, which is driven by
business services, web services, P2P and the like, also require rich structured content.
So, explain to me why these applications cannot standardize
on the content formats? Don't these companies understand that by standardizing they will all win?
Imagine if different car manufacturers required different fuel. The market would never have achieved its current market penetration.
The whole infrastructure
would be segmented and hugely expensive. We would need special refineries and gas stations/tanks for each auto manufacturer.
It would be sheer lunacy. And yet this is exactly what we have in the B2B space.
This might have made sense when there were just a few of serious B2B applications and they were kicking butt and taking names in the market.
But those days are behind us. The leading vendors need to put their differences behind them and standardize their efforts for the good of the whole industry.
As the saying goes, when the water level rises all the boats go up.
The leading application vendors need to combine efforts to help raise the water level.
As Rodney King said, "Can't we all just get along."
The other thing is that everyone admits that XML provides significant
advantages over flat files. One key advantage of XML is its support for much richer and more extensible data.
Using the fuel metaphor,
XML would be analogous to jet fuel. The problem is that with the format wars, everyone is stuck using flat files, analogous
to smelly diesel.
If the vendors all got together and standardized on a single
XML (e.g. ebXML elements and UBL libraries) then there would
be enough power behind
it to build critical mass and move the supplier base forward.
Let the application vendors compete at the application level, not at the data infrastructure level.
Mike Hogan is Vice President, eSS US Field Operations
POET Software

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