Re: [ebxml-dev] RE: [EDI-L] Article on ebXML Core Components ...

[bhaugen <linkage@interaccess.com>]

From: Rachel Foerster


> But, Bob, what's the impact to the SME when all of the big guys he
does
> business with want him to download their specific technical
specifications
> and deal with them individually. This doesn't take the cost out for
the SME
> since all of this stuff can/does/will come at them differently. The
SME
> doesn't have the time or knowledge or expertise to deal with this. The
SME
> will just throw up his hands and say the h*ll with it!

If the big guys all insist on their own separate specs,
then we get the bad results you describe above.
If the big guys can adopt some standards, we may
get a better situation.

I know of lots of big companies either participating or
lurking in ebXML and the story I hear from each of
them is that their smaller suppliers have much large
transaction costs than their big suppliers, but in
many cases they either need or want to deal with
the small suppliers and want them to get automated.
They often mention the small suppliers as a reason
for involvement in ebXML, because the big suppliers
are already wired with X12 EDI.  Is all this talk sincere?
I don't know, we'll see.

> The vision and dream for ebXML was shrinkwrapped solutions for the
> SME....how come this vision seems to have gone down the sewer?

I don't think it has.  It's just coming about more slowly
than we might have liked.  The dotcom bomb hit,
the economic tanked, VC capital dried up and the
Web service hype took up a lot of software vendor
attention.  There are still companies like Duane's
offering ebXML software for reasonable prices and
open-source projects like openebxml.org.

But I would agree that the shrinkwrapped solution
was always the vision of a minority in ebXML.

-Bob Haugen