Re: multi-hop requirement

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Henry Lowe believes "SMEs are one of the major reasons for doing ebXML."
That is one of many reasons - ebXML will make it possible to produce
shrink-wrapped software or offer services that are amenable to SME use.

But I wasn't arguing against bringing SMEs into the e-commerce fold.  I
was just commenting that none of the multi-hop stuff seems to have
anything to do with SMEs. Instead, it looked like VAN support to me, and
as Marty has confirmed, "VANs [were] specifically given as a reason for
multihop."  Now I'm perfectly comfortable with the notion of multi-hop
since it conforms with my world-view, even if I don't pretend to
understand the details.

Henry further said "Back in the OSI days, we assumed one protocol
globally -- this may have been one of (certainly not the only) the
reasons for its failure (the Internet bridges)."  And today, we're
pretty much assuming one protocol globally - TCP/IP.  What's the
difference?  I haven't seen mention of anything else in the TR&P
documents - just the (usually) TCP/IP based HTTP, SMTP and FTP
protocols.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
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