RE: [ebxml-mktg] ebXML name

[Adam Tanton <atanton@oncecorp.com>]

My two cents:

I think ebWS is an excellent name. It's descriptive and accurate. The term
"Web Services" is widely known and it could finally stop the wide spread
misapprehension that ebXML and WS are combatants.

Cheers,

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: ARIJIT.SENGUPTA
To: feygin@unitspace.com; ebxml-mktg@lists.ebxml.org
Sent: 6/21/02 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ebxml-mktg] ebXML name

This is really interesting. Daniel, were you there at Barcelona? The
ebXML JCC discussed this exact issue and came up with the following:

1. The ebXML spec names should not change as that would be confusing and
lose quite a bit of brand value

2. The versions of the combination of specs and necessary infrastructure
should be published as a profile. For example Profile 1 could be CPPA
2.0, Messaging 2.0, BPSS a, RegRep b, SOAP c, WSDL d, etc. This
combination of interoperable specs could be used to create mission
critical, industrial strength WebServices.

3. This profile could be branded as something along the lines of
Business WS, Collaborative WS, ebWS, or anything else the marketing team
come up with.


I think this would address your concerns adequately. I too have faced
the perception problem of "ebXML must be yet another XML payload like
cXML because it has XML!" This is stupid, but it is rampant.

Please let me know what you think. And please feel free to suggest names
for this profile. I really like ebMS best at this point. What do others
think? I would like to resolve this branding issue before we start doing
outbound communications through Analyst briefings, journal articles,
etc. Regards,

Apu

  _____  

I believe ebXML's public perception problems begin with its name. Those
wishing ebXML well need to realize that it is never too late to change
it.
I would suggest something along the lines of WS-Business - that would be
the
name of the framework. WS-Commerce can be used to refer to some subset
of
ebXML specs. The individual ebXML deliverables would then be called
something like WS-Business Repository, WS-Business Processes,
WS-Business
Communications, WS-Business Agreements, WS-Business Language, etc.

My particular choice of WS-Business vs ebXML stems from the thinking -
whether appropriate or not - that e-business (at the core of ebXML) is
an
irrelevant concept, since there is nothing special from a business
perspective about business processes that rely on computers and network
transport rather than on people and fax machines. The WS prefix
indicates
affinity to Web services technologies, which, following W3C's
definition,
implies only a reliance on XML, which is also the logic behind ebXML's
current name. "WS-" makes more obvious the complementary nature of ebXML
to
Web services and everything else represented by the "WS-" moniker. From
an
even more purely marketing-technical standpoint, whenever another
WS-Something spec comes out or whenever WS-I makes noise again, that
might
translate into some publicity for ebXML. Finally the more popular
Microsoft
makes its "WS-" efforts (7 at last count, so there is much potential
there),
the more receptive Microsoft's audience is going to be to ebXML.

In terms of making the transition go smoothly, perhaps the new name
could be
applied to the suite of approved 2.0 specs. That would reflect the
growing
maturity of the framework, minimize the negative impact of the name
change,
and justify any required incompatibilities with previous spec versions.

Daniel




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