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

[David Lyon <djlyon@one.net.au>]

William,

You demonstrate that you're obviously an intelligent chap and I have no
issue with your comments on forestation in the U.S.  I'm sure you'd agree
though that it would be extremely advantagious if we could all receive our
bills electronically on our computer, rather than as paper shoved through
our letterboxes. It's just so unneccessary as a long term proposition.

I take it one step further, and would just like some sort of console (like
an ATM) on the wall in the hall. All the bills go there, and I can track and
pay them. I see ebXML as the key to this sort of technology becoming
widespread.

EDI possibly could have done this, but I think the software got hijacked by
software people who become fixated on the workings of translators. For
whatever reason(s), it is time to move on now and go into the future, which
is mainly going to be dominated by microdevices.

Microdevices, hopefully running ebXML, certainly could (and already are)
transforming small business.

Real Estate agents use digital cameras and color printers, and have
1,000Mflop computers. Even big business had trouble affording that sort of
stuff ten years ago. Last week, I was delivered a parcel, and signed for it
on a digital touchpad.

I'm not bamboozled by this technology, I'm embracing it, and saying that
ebXML is surely destined for devices like the Linux wristwatch by IBM, or a
console in the car, or in the hallway at home.

I think want to make ebXML be able to order Pizza and Videos, and collect
parking and petrol receipts.

The only way to do this is to get it off fixed location backoffice servers
and onto the dedicated hardware where it belongs.

With regard to SMEs, they are remarkably well equiped now. It's simply
amazing what technology can be bought with just a few hundred dollars.

Yes, you are correct, ebXML needs to be focused on providing a technical
framework to allow all the PeachTrees, QuickBooks and so forth to work
together.

Take care

David Lyon

----- Original Message -----
From: William J. Kammerer <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>
To: ebXML-core <ebxml-core@lists.ebxml.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: What do people really expect from ebXML? Answer: Saving
theEarth??


> 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/
> "accelerating time-to-trade"
>
>
>
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