Re: [ubl-dev] B2B and IT standards... interesting paper and Gartner'sview

[David Lyon <david.lyon@preisshare.net>]

Hi Roger,

They're interesting points.

I'd just like to add an alternate perspective that I see at some of my 
clients. They're not the same clients as Gartner would have. They're 
much smaller of course.

A lot of these clients are in reality going backwards in productivity 
with regards to IT and B2B standards.

The reason for this is quite simple.

Large companies now have complex websites and are more commonly refusing 
to do data entry. Instead making their smaller Customers do double entry 
instead. First into their own accounting system and then into the 
suppliers website/online system.

This of course goes against the grain of what many of us promote, 
exchanging business messaging. But it's quite true.

I can name many large international companies who work this way. They 
don't provide any web-services with automatic upload capabilities. Just 
browser based entry screens.

So whilst Gartner may say it is one way that relates to their own 
clients, there is a whole 'nother business world out there where the 
reality is entirely different.

And the numbers of businesses that operate in this 'alternate' system is 
the majority by number... but none of the actual business reporting 
mechanisms will mention this because of various commercial loyalties and 
concerns that are in place with the big players.

Regards

Davod


Roger Bass wrote:
> In view of the discussion about ebXML and WS-*, I wanted to share a couple of things that seem potentially relevant.
>  
> This paper http://www.w3.org/2007/01/wos-papers/gall <http://www.w3.org/2007/01/wos-papers/gall>  (from a Gartner VP no less), talks about how the whole WS-* stack is actually antithetical to web architecture principles, and calls for a new focus at the W3C on a set of A2A protocols (and by implication, B2B as a subset) that are more weblike, leaving the big IT middleware vendors to evolve WS-* on their own.  He also makes some interesting points about how web-like resource architectures are inherently more viral, ie may proliferate faster (though he doesn't quite say it like that).
>  
> Separately, but quite related I think, Gartner's B2B research leads are articulating a vision that explicitly states that B2B infrastructure will become the infrastructure for IT outsourcing.  And with services in the cloud proliferating and increasingly valuable, the architecture for IT outsourcing will increasingly become the architecture for IT, period.
>  
> So, an interesting hypothesis emerges - whatever standards and technologies win in B2B eventually win everywhere.
>  
> The Danish paper implicitly argues the other way around - WS-* is winning within the enterprise, so it will win in B2B. The points here suggest that that may not necessarily be so.
>  
> Regards,
> Roger
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