XML: Here to Stay

"We would talk about XML to a client if it's an electronic commerce application. That's the first real practical use of it in business," says Doug Goddard, president of Toronto-based The Client Server Factory [http://www.tcsf.com]. "To allow information to be exchanged from catalog to catalog, catalog to payment system, payment system to payment system."

What XML is depends on who you ask. Many would just say it's a modified HTML that allows the user to clarify exactly the terms used in a document, and is shared over a network. But "XML developers will tell you that XML isn't a language but rather a system for defining other languages," says online commentator Trisha Gorman, such as "Microsoft's Channel Definition Format (CDF) for push, for example."

XML proponent Peter Flynn of University College Cork in Ireland, says XML is "a metalanguage to let you design your own markup language," according to PC Week Online's commentator Peter Coffee. Using XML this way, Coffee says, periodic financial reports can be consolidated automatically into a 10-K filing by defining and using a set of tags that identifies recurring data elements.

XML is also seen as an ideal partner with Open Buying on the Internet, a standard for international business-to-business purchasing of goods through the Internet. "OBI," says Gorman, "is based on current Internet standards such as HTML, SSL (for security), SET (for credit-card transactions), and X.509 (for digital certificates). Among OBI's supporters are Commerce One, Connect, Intelisys, InterWorld, Microsoft, Netscape, Open Market and Oracle."

It's not surprising that most Electronic Document Interchange vendors seem to be focusing on XML either, given its usefulness in computer-to-computer business transactions exchanging information across differing systems. While EDI has been by and large proprietary technology out of reach of programmers without deep pockets, with XML, the functions of EDI are opened up to everyone. Thus XML may very well become a way for databases from different vendors to exchange information across the Internet.

Coffee reports that DHL Airways, the U.S. arm of DHL Worldwide Express, "has disclosed plans to make extensive use of XML in its shipping operations." He says other uses would be in automated manufacture, and that "assembly and testing of printed circuit boards can be streamlined with an appropriate vocabulary of XML tags for communication between the different stages of production."

Om Malik reports in the online edition of Forbes [http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/98/apr/0413/side1.htm] about other top firms using XML as part of their business strategy:

• Cisco Systems. Relies on XML to distribute news within the company from multiple sources outside the company. In addition, Cisco is beta-testing a business-to-business system that links customers to the company's backend ordering system, thus making procurement easy.
• Hewlett-Packard's personal information products division is testing a business-to-business integration server by webMethods. The server lets users exchange data between applications, Web sites and proprietary systems.
• Citibank is working on a bill presentment and payment system in XML.
• CommerceNet, an industry consortium for boosting Internet commerce, has instituted a pilot project to make XML-powered catalogs for the U.S. government, which is notorious for the intricate detail of its ordering process.