How XML Enables Internet Trading Communities and Marketplaces
Robert J. Glushko · 1999
This paper explains why XML is rapidly becoming the enabling technology for Internet markets and trading communities. It revisits EDI's basic premise that it is easier to interconnect business systems using document-based coupling than in terms of application interfaces and shows how XML can breathe new life into this philosophy. It recognizes the value of preserving EDI's years of experience in designing messages that meet business process requirements and analyzes the technical limitations in both EDI and XML that make the transformation from EDI to XML challenging. But the ease with which anyone can invent new XML models for particular industries or subject areas is both a primary attraction and a significant threat to the interoperability of messages within and between trading communities. This paper reviews efforts to create standards for XML applications, emphasizing those that consciously strive for a balanced perspective that recognizes the need for EDI and XML to interoperate. Finally, the paper introduces the challenges posed by the need for documents to be customized for a particular trading while still being understood and interoperable with documents in other communities. The paper briefly explains how a Common Business Library encoded in an XML schema language is used in the Marketsite TM Marketplace Platform to meet these challenges. Bob Glushko is responsible for XML strategy, standards, and community applications at Commerce One, which he joined in January 1999 when it acquired Veo Systems, which he'd helped found in 1997. Prior to Veo Systems, Glushko was the Chief Scientist and Vice President of Passage Systems, a consulting and systems integration firm specializing in SGML-based publishing (which he co-founded in 1992). He has an undergraduate degree from Stanford, a MS (Software Engineering) from the Wang Institute, and a PhD (cognitive psychology) from UC San Diego.