draft of press reease

[Bob Glushko <Bob.glushko@commerceone.com>]

I have a few comments on this draft release.  I know I've been too busy
lately to do anything more than lurk in this group but I hope I still have
standing to return to a couple of points I made in Orlando when Rachel
presented some of this to the steering committee.
 

The ebXML Initiative(tm) to "Create a Single Global Electronic Market(tm)," 

It is simply inaccurate to say that the goal of ebXML is to create a single
global electronic market.  That's not why I helped to initiate it and have
three people working hard in it.  Creating the market is the business model
of lots of companies like mine, Commerce One, whose web site and branding
screams "Many Markets, One Source" (TM) and related slogans. 

It is accurate to say that ebXML is creating the FOUNDATIONS for a single
global electronic market -- specifications that can be used by anyone to
ensure that their marketplaces interconnect.  The difference may be lost on
the masses but it won't be lost on the marketing people in companies like
mine, which will have to find a way to smash ebXML as a competitor rather
than embrace it as an enabler.   So at the very least I suggest that CREATE
be changed to ENABLE, although that is still likely to raise the ire of some
people.

Let's revisit the ebXML charter:  The goal is to provide an open technical
specification to enable XML to be utilized in a consistent and uniform
manner for the exchange of electronic business data in
application-to-application, application-to-person and person-to-application
environments.   Utilized by others, not by ebXML per se.

 <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/>"This may very well prove to be a major event of the new millennium,
revolutionizing how business transactions are tracked, effecting worldwide
impacts, removing paper from the process, and by empowering people to create
whole new work models," said David RR Webber, North American Chair of the
XML/edi Group.  

Nice quote. It is also essential to balance a quote by Webber, who has a
high name recognition in the EDI world, with a high name recognition quote
from someone who is unambiguously viewed as an XML person.  We don't have
enough XML architects in ebXML i.e., people who authored (or led) efforts to
create influential XML specifications.  I think this quote needs to come
from somewhere other than the OASIS ringleaders of Sun and IBM as well
because we are having some perception problems that OASIS is anti-Microsoft.
So I'd suggest a quote from Pat O'Sullivan of Intel (who is well known from
the SGML specs from the semiconductor industry and who heads the RosettaNet
architecture project) or David Burdett of Commerce One, who wrote IOTP
(payment) and who heads the IETF XML Messaging team.  O'Sullivan and Burdett
are very well respected technically and their companies aren't perceived as
anti-anyone.

 

bob

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