[Fwd: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues]

[duane <duane@xmlglobal.com>]

FYI

Duane

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• From: "Ismael Ghalimi" <ghalimi@intalio.com>
• To: "Ken Levy" <klevy@xmlfund.com>, "Duane Nickull" <duane@xmlglobal.com>
• Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 09:43:43 -0700

Ken,

I understand that people might think that BPMI.org is more marketing than
technology, at least today. Until we release the first draft for BPML, this
feeling will exist and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.

In the meantime, there are some critical concepts BPMI.org tried to promote,
like the need for different semantics between Collaborative Business
Processes and Enterprise Business Processes. This is the foundation for
BPMI.org and the reason why BPMI.org and ebXML should not overlap.
Nevertheless, until we manage to articulate this idea in the proper way,
many people will still think there is some overlap, and there is nothing we
can do to prevent it. It will take some time for BPMI.org to come up with
the right set of documents that will properly demonstrate the validity of
this concept and in the meantime, either people will have to trust us or
they will have to ignore us, but we are fine with this idea.

I discussed by email and over the phone with all the people from ebXML that
came to us with questions and comments. I really tried to made our point
clear at many occasions and invited XML Global to join BPMI.org several
times. I discussed with Duane over the phone and tried to expose why ebXML
should focus on Collaborative Business Processes and why BPMI.org is
legitimate at working on Enterprise Business Processes. At this point I
believe we made everything possible to foster a productive collaboration
between BPMI.org and ebXML.

I understand that the mere existence of BPMI.org will have a strong impact
on ebXML: it will force ebXML to decide wether they should focus on
Collaborative Business Processes or compete directly with BPMI.org. I
strongly believe that the first option could lead to outstanding results,
but there is so much we can do to prevent the second one.

When building the group of founders for BPMI.org, we commited to setup an
organization that would lead to tangible results as soon as possible. This
means that we took several decisions that other people might not agree with
(like using XML Schema upfront). We are fine with this idea as well.
BPMI.org does not try to convince everyone that everyone should endorse
BPML. BPMI.org tries to convince the largest audience that BPML is a good
way to manage the integration of e-Business processes in a vendor-agnostic
fashion and that the separation between Collaborative Business Processes and
Enterprise Business Processes is the only way to manage such an integration,
period.

The reason why we do not agree to postpone the BPMI.org press release by
several days is because we truly believe there is no reason of doing so.
Either ebXML will understand that Collaborative Business Processes and
Enterprise Business Processes should be modeled, deployed, and managed in
different ways and they will focus on Collaborative Business Processes. In
such a context, we will be glad to collaborate with this group and make sure
that BPMI.org and ebXML are fully interoperable (as explained in the press
release). Or ebXML will not see the difference and there is no point for any
collaboration. Or they will see the difference but decide to standardize the
two kinds of processes, and therefore BPMI.org and ebXML will compete on the
Enterprise Business Processes side. Whatever could be the outcome, I believe
tomorrow's press release will not harm either ebXML or BPMI.org and leave
the ebXML group free to decide what is best for them.

ebXML managed to create an outstanding group of supporters and I truly
believe in their ability to standardize the modeling, deployment, and
management of Collaborative Business Processes. Should they decide to focus
on that, we would be really glad to work as hard as possible to make sure
that BPMi.org's Enterprise Business Processes and ebXML's Collaborative
Business Processes interoperate in the best possible way. I will spend most
of next week explaining this point to the members of the ebXML group and I
would love our two organizations to come up with a joint press release at
the end of next week or during the week after. I really believe this to be
the best way to manage this situation.

Best regards

ig.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Levy [mailto:klevy@xmlfund.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 8:04 PM
> To: 'Ismael Ghalimi'; Duane Nickull
> Cc: Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool; Ryan Madden; Thierry
> Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> Subject: RE: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
>
>
> I, and others, agree with your goals but not the methods.  Since it's
> directly relates to and affects XMLFund and other XMLFund portfolio
> companies, it's my responsibility to express views, concerns, and offer
> suggestions to the situation.  Some people perceive the effort more of a
> marketing effort than a technology and standards effort.  It
> doesn't matter
> if they are right or wrong, the fact they think it and it is an
> issue.  I'm
> not trying to create problems for you, I'm trying to help you resolve them
> before they are serious.  I guess you are not afraid of any public
> misunderstandings, I was and still am.  You say that you love to get a
> statement from ebXML in the press release, but you are not
> willing to delay
> a few days in order to talk to them first.  What you want and what you are
> doing are not in synch.  This is just my perception.  My interests are in
> helping XMLFund, Intalio, XMLGlobal, DataChannel, etc. and this is why I'm
> making a big deal about this.  The long terms results are very important,
> much more than the short term.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ismael Ghalimi [mailto:ghalimi@intalio.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 5:43 PM
> To: Ken Levy; Duane Nickull
> Cc: Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool; Ryan Madden; Thierry
> Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> Subject: RE: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
>
>
> Ken,
>
> I understand your concern. At the same time, you really need to understand
> that there is no overlap between BPMI and ebXML. We will make it
> very clear
> in the press release and in the different documents we will make available
> from the BPMI.org website, but we can not postpone the release one week
> more. We already did it twice and it does not make sense to me to do it
> again.
>
> We took the commitment with the fouding members of the BPMI to get things
> done in a pragmatic fashion. Delaying that process by one more week just
> because we are afraid of misunderstandings does not prefigure
> anything good.
> We will do our best to explain to the ebXML group what BPMI is intended to
> cover and why there is no overlap, but we cannot reasonably wait for that
> understanding to be shared among all the members of this group
> before doing
> anything ourselves.
>
> The concept of public processes and private processes is a complex one. It
> takes time for people to really understand it, and some will never, for
> sure. Moreover, you need to understand that it is in the interest of some
> companies (and especially Vitria) to make sure that people don't
> get it: it
> enforces customers to use the same platform at every end of the
> value chain,
> offering some kind of viral business model for software vendors using this
> approach. If we wait for everybody to really get it, we will never get
> there.
>
> The founding members of the BPMI understood that and this is the
> message we
> intend to convey. We would love to see the ebXML group to be convinced of
> that and to focus on public processes (what they should do to begin with).
> In such a context, we would be glad to include a quote from the
> ebXML group
> in the BPMI press release making it a very clear statement. In return, we
> could emphasize even more in our press release the fact that the BPMI will
> make its best effort to ensure that BPML is fully interoperable
> with ebXML.
>
> We commited to results and we are going to deliver results.
>
> Best regards
>
> ig.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ken Levy [mailto:klevy@xmlfund.com]
> > Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 5:26 PM
> > To: 'Ismael Ghalimi'; Duane Nickull
> > Cc: Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool; Ryan Madden; Thierry
> > Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> > Subject: RE: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
> >
> >
> > I think you need to delay the press release for at least one week from
> > today, this thread has all the logical reasons to do so, and it can be
> > explained to the other companies who want to launch their own
> > press release.
> > If not, the result will be a negative towards the BPMI effort.  Do you
> > really want e-mails, articles, and editorials flying around the internet
> > saying negative things about BPMI and the perception of it trying to
> > undermined the ebXML effort?  Obviously it's not trying to do
> > that and it's
> > not the intent, but perception is reality and unless you spend
> > several hours
> > with several people during next weeks ebXML conference, the BPMI
> > effort may
> > be seriously or fatally harmed.  Having a press release on BPMI
> > released the
> > same day the ebXML committee meets and the BPMI committee hasn't spent
> > significant time communicating and clarifying issues back and
> > forth with the
> > ebXML group, it will surely result in something you don't want.
> > This is my
> > opinion, likely shared by others.
> >
> > Ken
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ismael Ghalimi [mailto:ghalimi@intalio.com]
> > Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 3:23 PM
> > To: Duane Nickull
> > Cc: Ken Levy; Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool; Ryan Madden;
> > Thierry Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> > Subject: RE: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
> >
> >
> > Duane,
> >
> > I'm sorry, but we can't postpone the press release that easily,
> especially
> > at this time. Several other companies are going to issue there own press
> > releases and we do not have full control over it. Are you sure
> you do not
> > have at least 15 minutes to discuss about it on Sunday?
> >
> > regards
> >
> > ig.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Duane Nickull [mailto:duane@xmlglobal.com]
> > > Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 2:13 PM
> > > To: Ismael Ghalimi
> > > Cc: Ken Levy; Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool;
> Ryan Madden;
> > > Thierry Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> > > Subject: Re: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
> > >
> > >
> > > That will not be possible to schedule at this late hour.
> Monday will be
> > > hard enough due to the overwhelming amount of work we have.  The
> > > STeering committee schedule has been filled for the week for several
> > > weeks now but I am sure that there can be some informal sessions on
> > > Monday.
> > >
> > > I will let you know of the response when I get an answer back fromt he
> > > STC list.
> > >
> > > Duane
> > >
> > > Ismael Ghalimi wrote:
> > > >
> > > > What about a meeting on Sunday so that we could make the press
> > > release on
> > > > Monday (we already commited to that with a lot of founding members)?
> > > >
> > > > Best regards
> > > >
> > > > ig.
> > > >
> > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > From: Duane Nickull [mailto:duane@xmlglobal.com]
> > > > > Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 2:02 PM
> > > > > To: Ismael Ghalimi
> > > > > Cc: Ken Levy; Ismael Ghalimi; 'Brian Eisenberg'; Dave Pool;
> > > Ryan Madden;
> > > > > Thierry Koehrlen; Rachel Foerster
> > > > > Subject: Re: BPMI announcement timing, ebXML issues
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Ismael:
> > > > >
> > > > > I am meeting with the rest of the steering committee on
> > > Sunday.  We have
> > > > > a 6 hour meeting to kick start the week. I will bring up the
> > > subject of
> > > > > who should be the parties within ebXML you shoudl talk to
> to discuss
> > > > > BPML.
> > > > >
> > > > > I will suggest to them that you should be placed in contact
> > > with Marcia
> > > > > MacClure on the BPM Project Team and use that as a
> starting ground.
> > > > >
> > > > > I will post a copy of this message to the Steering
> > Committee list and
> > > > > ask for advice on how to best coordinate our efforts.
> > > > >
> > > > > The marketing and awareness team also are drafting guidelines for
> > > > > alignment with ebXML and issuing News Releases mentioning
> > > EbXML.   That
> > > > > group is run by Rachel Foerster (cc'd).
> > > > >
> > > > > I think I speak for everyone within ebXML when I say we
> are looking
> > > > > forward to discussing the fits between BPML and ebXML.
> > > > >
> > > > > I will be staying at the Doubletree Hotel.  It is possible
> > we can meet
> > > > > after the plenary session on Monday
> > > > >
> > > > > Duane Nickull
> > > > >
> > > > > Ismael Ghalimi wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks a lot for the notice. This makes perfect sense to
> > me. That's
> > > > > > definitely a good diplomatic move. We could postpone the
> > > announcement on
> > > > > > Tuesday, but not later (we already postponed it too many
> > > > > times). Duane, when
> > > > > > would be the appropriate time for a meeting on Monday, either
> > > > > just you and
> > > > > > me or with other people involved with the ebXML group?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Best regards
> > > > > >
> > > > > > ig.

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