[ebxml-dev] Discovery

["Nieman, Scott" <scott.nieman@synchrocon.com>]

>>   This "discovery" crap sounds like e-marketplace hype which
>>   only analysts and VC would swallow. If Ford wants to
>>   "discover" a direct supplier, their own buyers and
>>   engineers know where to look - they don't need ebXML.

William, your examples are too typical of big business, which are
unfortunately riddled with point to point integrations.  There are examples
that could be placed at a consumer or retail level.  For example, what if
William Kammerer wanted to buy a Peruvian sweater, and his Internet search
found sweater that he could buy directly from a woman in Peru.  Instead of
that woman getting 10 cents/ day to make the sweater, she is getting a
reasonable sum of money directly from you using PayPal.

This has been the vision of UN/CEFACT for ages, to help the emerging
nations.  If it wasn't for the middleman and big business, we would not have
sweatshops.  These thoughts also freak out the e-marketplace vendors.

The vision of the ebXML Registry has been distributed, which means many
things:
1) every web site could have an ebXML registry - ideally part of the
everyday plumbing (I am happy that apache is taking this on),
2) every web site/RA can control its own destiny - creates its own
classification schemes, link its assets to nodes in other classification
schemes, etc etc, to create a "web" of associations
3) distributed technology like peer-to-peer (P2P) popularized by Napster can
relay searches to other ebXML Registries in the peer community (the
distributed part still needs work, as P2P concepts need to be standardized
- ideally in XMLP), and each registry can respond directly to the requestor,
4) it eliminates the middleman - no brokers, no exchanges (sorry folks, that
model will eventually be like the dinosaur)

As far as your example, your are correct that these point to point
relationships exist, but they will exist for a long time.  But if I am a new
vendor, and if I can associate my part I manufacture as a
substitute/alternative to a specific node in an AIAG classification scheme
(perhaps by a part number taxonomy), my part MAY come up in a search if the
previous manufacturer is continuously late on shipments, and/or has a poor
quality record.  

Discovery IS a good thing.

Scott Nieman
Practice Director - eIntegration
Synchromesh Consulting
952.352.5889