Ten vendors Tuesday joined forces to demonstrate business transactions over ebXML (electronic business extensible markup language), a specification designed to make electronic trading possible for small and medium-sized businesses around the world.
Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, IBM and other vendors participated in the demonstration, in which simulated buyers and sellers found each other, sealed a contract for supplies and exchanged information about materials being transported.
The specification is intended to provide a framework for companies to exchange all information necessary for e-commerce without the need for relatively expensive and complicated EDI (electronic data interchange) software. A PC and an Internet connection may be all that is needed to participate in online commerce using ebXML, event organisers said.
Sponsored by the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems (OASIS), ebXML is also backed by the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Commerce (UN/CEFACT), the body that created the current international standard for EDI.
Tuesday's demonstration here marked the completion of the core of ebXML's messaging (transport, routing and packaging) service, which OASIS officials said was finished ahead of schedule. That part of the specification has been agreed to by representatives of development groups worldwide and is unlikely to change significantly, so vendors can start to write it into products, said Bill Smith, president of OASIS and an employee of Sun's XML Technology Center.
The overall specification has not yet received final approval. The other key parts of ebXML - repository registration and CPA (collaborative partner agreement) - will be essentially complete by a February meeting of OASIS in Canada, Smith said. At that date, ebXML will be ready for vendors to confidently implement it, two months earlier than had been projected.
About 2000 developers at 100 companies on six continents are working on ebXML, he said. OASIS is also working with the retail industry's Global Commerce Initiative and the Automobile Industry Action Group on developing the standard.
Among the other companies participating in the event were XMLSolutions, Sterling Commerce, Fujitsu, NTT Communications, Savvion, Viquity and TIE Holding NV subsidiary TIE Commerce.
