Re: [ebxml-dev] Re: [EDI-L] Announce - Latest Article on ebXML

[Mike Rawlins <mike@rawlinsecconsulting.com>]

bhaugen wrote:

> From: Mike Rawlins
> > If I were to consider BPSS and CPA/CPP together, my
> >estimate would be even lower for CPA/CPP due to my
> >lower assessment for the BPSS.
>
> I hate to get into this rathole, but:
>
> How do you account for the fact that the transaction level in BPSS
> is essentially the same as RosettaNet, that RosettaNet is already
> adopting both BPSS and MSH, and so is OAG and probably AIAG?
>

Welcome to the rat hole, Bob!  Standards organizations and user groups
are free to adopt and recommend, but that does not necessarily equate to
achieving a critical mass of implementations.  Would you like to tell me
how many actual RosettaNet implementations are in production now, and
how many of them use BPSS (or something directly equivalent)?  How many
of these implementations use SME packages like Quickbooks, MAS 90,
Peachtree, or Great Plains?  Can you discount my arguments that ebXML
did not meet it's goal of enabling e-business for SMEs?

>
> And that open source implementations are in the works?
>

Does open source confer any special status that closed source doesn't,
other than that developers are willing to donate their time to the
effort rather than charge for it?  This indicates that either they have
different perceptions of the viability of these technologies than I do,
or that they are willing to make that investment in something that won't
achieve critical mass as I have defined it.  There are a lot of niche
markets out there.  And, following Mr. Moberg's criticism of my train of
inference, don't take working code as an evidence of achieving critical
mass.  There's a lot of OSI network software that is nothing more than
shelfware now.  I'm sure we can all think of other examples.

Just to set this in perspective, according to the fashion in which I
have defined "critical mass" even EDI hasn't achieved critical mass for
all user communities (maybe for the Fortune 1000, but not everyone
else).  Just because something doesn't achieve critical mass doesn't
mean that no one is going to be using it.

--
Michael C. Rawlins, Rawlins EC Consulting
www.rawlinsecconsulting.com