Re: What do people really expect from ebXML? Answer: Saving theEarth??

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

David Lyon tells us that "...at least 500 acres of trees get knocked
down each day to make paper for receipts. Something totally needless in
an electronic world.... People *expect* that ebXML will do something
about providing solutions that will slow down the very real carnage that
is going on in the world. It's possible that people in America may have
disposed themselves of the Kioto treaties, but the rest of the world
hasn't."

Saving the environment is a heap o' responsibility to be placed on
ebXML.  But in any case, since the U.S. alone is covered with over 700
million acres of forest (almost a third of its land area), we'll have
lots of receipt printing at 500 acres a day before we make a dent in
that total - which had *increased* by over 50% since 1920 as America
became more industrial and urban, abandoning its farmland. Actually,
there's only a third less forest here now than when European settlement
began.  But, then again, something - besides Native American Indians -
had to be moved out of the way to accommodate over 280 million people.

Before we get too far off-topic, we should address David's concerns,
recapped as: "...ebXML should deliver something simple that small
businesses who cannot even afford PC's (now $600) can use."  This seems
to be a shared sentiment, as evidenced by my good friend Alan Kotok's
agreement with David that "...we have to think beyond the desktop system
to hand-held devices."

I have no objection to bringing everyone into the e-commerce fold,
certainly.  But there probably is a point of diminishing returns.  David
made the point that the cost of a PC is not the problem, but whether
"people in small business can [even] use a PC."  But please remember:
SME doesn't mean "moron."  Most of whom we refer to as SMEs are probably
automated to some degree and do have Internet access - they just don't
want to jack around with translators and EDI.  They, as Todd Boyle has
pointed out so often, do have Quick Books, Peachtree, or suchlike.

By applying the 80-20 rule, we just might bring most of the SMEs on
board.  That would be an unqualified success.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
4950 Blazer Pkwy.
Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

Visit FORESIGHT Corp. at http://www.foresightcorp.com/
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