EDI, ebXML groups agree to cooperate

[Ram Kumar <rkumar@msi.com.au>]

EDI, ebXML groups agree to cooperate
By Michael Meehan
4 July, 2001 8:10 FRAMINGHAM , U.S.

Laurel and Hardy. Peanut butter and jelly. EDI and XML?
Though the two electronic trading formats have been cast as mortal foes, the
standards bodies behind them have agreed to create a set of shared business
processes that could ultimately create standards harmony in the world of
e-commerce.
The Accredited Standards Committee X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group, the
standards bodies behind the world's two most widely used flavors of
electronic data interchange (EDI), announced last week that they will join
the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative to establish a set of core
components for global business-process integration.
Business processes are functions that occur after data is exchanged from
company to company. Much of e-commerce to date has focused on companies
being able to talk with one another, but the EDI and ebXML bodies said they
hope to standardize much of the way companies work with one another during
the next two years.
"I never understood the us-against-them assumptions," said David Barkley,
director of e-commerce relationships at home mortgage provider Freddie Mac
in McLean, Virginia, and chairman of ASC X12. "We need to complement each
other, not head off in different directions."
Ralph Berwanger is the ambassador for standards at e-commerce network
provider bTrade Inc. in Irving, Texas, and a participant in both the ASC X12
and ebXML standards bodies. He stressed that unless EDI and XML can find
points of convergence, a new standard will develop during the next 10 years
and "we'll have to reinvent the wheel again."
By October, the EDI and XML standards groups plan to identify a set of
business-process core components that can be standardized. Berwanger noted
that ASC X12 has 313 different business-process messages, from invoices to
health care claims to requests for queries, that could be recast in XML.
Transportation, finance and other industry groups will work on identifying
key process issues that could then be folded into a set of global core
components, which will take about two years, according to Berwanger.
"The key is that if you get the business processes defined, then they can
function separate from the syntax of the messages," he said.
"Collaborative commerce is not going to work without something like this,"
said Bob McCullough, an analyst at Hurwitz Group Inc. in Framingham,
Massachusetts.
Kip Martin, an analyst at Meta Group Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, called
business-process definitions a way "to move beyond technology and get at the
way companies are run."
Martin also said that common ASC X12/XML processes would allow companies to
better tie together their legacy systems.
McCullough agreed.
"Nobody would realistically replace their legacy systems solely for the
purpose of e-commerce, but they do need to figure out a way of using those
systems as technology continues to change," he said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
<XML>
 <PersonName>Ram Kumar</PersonName>
 <CompanyName>Privacy Link Pty Ltd</CompanyName>
 <Address Type="Postal">
   Suite 106
   284 Victoria Avenue
   Chatswood, NSW 2067
   AUSTRALIA
 </Address>
 <Phone>+61 2 9413 9815</Phone>
 <Mobile>+61 412 758 025</Mobile>
 <Fax>+61 2 9413 4275</Fax>
</XML>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------