Re: What do people really expect from ebXML? - the Vision \"thing\"

["andreas.schultz" <andreas.schultz@cityweb.de>]

It is very surprising reading all this comments on \"common\" messages coming out of ebxml. First, like Arofan reported, there was a decision that ebXML will not create messages in the sense of transactions. This was a good decision. One good thing with the \"old\" stuff coming out of X12 and especially EWG that these are organisations which are seen as official and neutral standardisation bodies. If there is a need for new \"common\" and global messages, than they should come out under the umbrella of UN/CEFACT and there under EWG. If ebXML is doing this, it is just one more not in the same way official organisation who tries to come out with transactions. But this has nothing to do with standardisation as we understood this until now. No doubt, that things could be done better, and that with one of the goals of CC, to have a set of syntax independent, cross sectorial core components and sector specific extensions following the same rules, there are good chances to do that.!
 But as I said this should be done by organisations who makes sure that this is done neutral and not software or software vendor dependent.

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I\'m not sure, whether the following comment has been send out via the list serv, so I attach it to this:

William has raised a very good question,\"why is it expected that the
standards and products built upon
> the CC specs will result in anything better than what we have today with
> EDI?\"

I think we have to distinguish the semantic content of EDI (especially
UN/EDIFACT) and the syntactical implementations. It seems to be true, that
the implementation of EDI is very difficult (cost intensiv and complex) for
SME\'s. But it seems to be also true, that there is yet no alternative for
exchanging mass data in an B2B environment. As far as I understood, XML is
not a sufficent way to do the same.

On the other hand, I do not believe, that we can handle all the business via
a PDA or something like that. But let\'s think there is no problem with that,
than we have one (very) little message to be exchanged. But what\'s about the
big number of parts data a supplier has to exchange with a manufacturer.

So, where does the CC lead us to. First it\'s a new approach to come to data
descriptions which, because of it\'s syntax-neutrality, can be used as a
basis for Data Exchange on different syntaxes. Which means, from the models
populated with this data you can derive an EDIFACT Message or an XML message
it\'s the same for both. So especially big companies can deliver the data in
a format the SME\'s can process (automatically or \"by Hand\") and they can
read the incoming data. Allthough, I guess this is a step backward\'s,
because a company has to have again more than one interface to understand
the data coming in. One of the ideas of EDI was to reduce the number of
interface to minimise the cost. But maybe this will be compensated by the
benefit of having electronic data interchange with a larger number of
companies and from the automated processing of this data.

So, the syntax neutral base is the one thing. The other is, that the CC is
really cross sectorial. The same (core) data now means the same in all
industries. And having started this within ebXML, this work will be
continued by the joint group out of ASC X12 and EWG.

David wrote: \"it\'s just like a steam engine.... it\'s time for a change.....
\" - It is good to have a machine that works, to bear heavy loads (mass data)
but it is also good to have a smaller machine for smaller loads. So, it\'s
not the question for changing the world but for expanding to be enabled to
react on new requirements.


Andreas Schultz
 
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