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

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

Hi Roger,

After two weeks of asking I can't get anybody to give me a simple 
example of a UBL catalogue file. They either don't have any or don't 
want to give me any.  Maybe it's just not developed.. .. I really don't 
know...

So if you are doing mass interconnections or about to on a vast scale 
with UBL, then it obviously that means that you've overcome these issues 
and are in the clear jetstream...

Well, quite frankly, that's very good to hear...

Meanwhile, I will very patiently await my example file to come.... I'm 
interested to see how long it will take....

Best Regards

David


Roger Bass wrote:
> David,
>  
> The points in my email were pretty high level strategic ones. I'm not 
> quite clear which points if any you're disagreeing with there.
>  
> I do agree that this is all quite some way from the more immediate 
> concerns faced by SMBs, and the companies trying to solve these 
> problems for them - which include my company as well as yours.  The 
> behavior you describe of large companies with their "supplier portals" 
> is very familiar to us too. Indeed, I see that behavior as driving 
> demand from SMBs for solutions like my company's. And I expect and 
> hope to see much more of it!
>  
> You say these big companies don't provide any automated upload 
> capabilities. Well, in specific cases that may or may not be true. 
> It's certainly not what's promoted, and the individual large companies 
> may not even know about it, but my sense is that in an increasing 
> number of cases, there are in fact ways to connect programmatically 
> using XML standards. I'm working through these issues now with some of 
> the very big names in the industry so that we can actually deliver a 
> solution that is able to make those connections at vast scale.
>  
> Best,
> Roger
>  
> PS: btw, I didn't get what you meant about business reporting 
> mechanisms not mentioning this etc
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* David Lyon [mailto:david.lyon@preisshare.net]
> *Sent:* Sun 2/4/2007 3:35 PM
> *To:* Roger Bass
> *Cc:* ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org
> *Subject:* Re: [ubl-dev] B2B and IT standards... interesting paper and 
> Gartner's view
>
>
> 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
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >
> >  
>