Re: [ebxml-dev] Gartner and ebXML

[Brian Repko <brian_repko@hotmail.com>]

Duane,

I agree with you wholeheartedly on "burning bridges" with
Gartner - actually my point is more to the ebXML community -
how do we win mindshare with Gartner so that they pass that
on to the CIOs that do listen.  Gartner is such an important
channel.

I can somewhat appreciate that they would take a neutral stance
and wait for the standards process to prove them out but I
actually see that more as the CIO role.  As a vision organization,
I think that even if Gartner is waiting for ebXML to prove itself,
then they should at least let CIOs know that it exists and where
it fits in and that the CIOs should take a wait and see attitude.
I'm not seeing that initial level of publicity in the material
for this conference and I don't know how we get that message out
- perhaps again, describing how ebXML does meet (today) existing
problems with EDI and web services architectures - the paper from
RedWahoo was great!  Also, X12 content via ebMS would be an
important point to bring up as something that CIOs could look
at today to lower their VAN costs.  The external process versus
the internal process would be a good discussion to have. A good
understanding of ebMS would also help support the specification
development processes related to SOAP with Attachments and others
(so why do we actually need DIME, WS-Attachments and
WS-Choreography?? why are those specs written for B2B scenarios
when ebXML is there already?).

If I look at other specs in this space - UDDI, XLANG/BPML -
the amount of publicity/information sharing they get vs their
usefulness today is out of whack with ebXML.  So I would also
argue that "wait and let it prove itself" is not evenly
applied - but that is their right - and maybe I don't totally
understand where Gartner fits in with emerging technologies.
And maybe it is just this conference...I don't know.

In the end, I just want to point out that we are barely reaching
CIOs via Gartner (for this conference) and that I'm hoping that
folks at OASIS and UN/CEFACT know how to change that in the
future.

Brian

----Original Message Follows----
Subject: Re: [ebxml-dev] Gartner and ebXML
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 13:21:57 -0700

Todd,  you know I usually agree with you but in this case,  I
have to put the record straight.  The guy from Gartner is
named Jess Thompson and surprisingly,  he is in your back yard
(Seattle).  He was gracious enough to set aside time to do an
analyst briefing with me and has a rather extensive knowledge
of ebXML.  He quite correctly also sees a few of the current
shortfalls of ebXML and is aware of their pending solutions.

To be fair,  Gartner has cast a fairly neutral shadow on ebXML
and prefers to let ebXML proof itself.  I find this rather nice
compared to other, less knowledgable analysts who have recently
downplayed ebXML's usefulness.

Gartner is one of the good guys.  Let's try to not burn this
bridge.

Duane Nickull




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