The business world is consolidating onto a very few software platforms, the Software Great Powers. SAP and Oracle could be added to the diagram above. There are no others. (Linux is in a different category altogether, although IBM has adopted it.)
When it comes to doing business electronically, each of the Great Powers wants to be its own nation. In other words, they want it to be much easier to do business with other companies using the same software platform, than with companies using different software platforms. It’s called "vendor lock-in", and is an important part of each Great Power’s business strategy.
So if you live in the Microsoft nation, you might speak a different language (Visual Basic vs Java) and obey different laws of commerce (Biztalk and XLang vs WSFL and PAM vs ebXML (see next section)) than the IBM or SUN nations.
You might need translators. You might pay crossing fees of one kind or another. There would be more red tape. In some cases (MSFT vs SUN) there might be border skirmishes or embargoes where one nation makes it difficult to do business with companies in the other nation.
International standard electronic business protocols are like belonging to the United Nations.
In fact, one of the official ebusiness standards organizations is UN/CEFACT, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. Others include the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
These groups all cooperate with each other. If you and your trading partners use the same standards, you need much less translation, crossing fees, red tape, etc.
It’s not magic. The promise of electronic "free trade" is better than the reality as of now. But it gets better every year.
ebXML (electronic business extensible markup language) is a project to develop a full set of standards for doing business electronically over the Internet.
The project was organized by UN/CEFACT and OASIS, an organization of software vendors.
The first phase of the project is complete and products are coming on the market to implement ebXML.
When ebXML becomes mature, which should happen in 2002, it won’t matter which software nation (platform) you use. If you use ebXML, you should find it much easier to do business with other companies who use ebXML.
ebXML specifications are not trade secrets, they are freely available to all at
http://www.ebxml.org.There are several other candidates for electronic business standards, but some of the best of them – like RosettaNet and OAG – are moving to ebXML. ebXML has the best chance of becoming the international trade protocol.
Logistical Software has been heavily involved in ebXML and related ecommerce standards initiatives. We know how the standards work, how to make them practical, how to get them up and running, how to move forward into the future. Step by easy step. From wherever you are now.