Xml Shockwave

Berthold Daum Chris Horak

The XML Shockwave What every CEO needs to know about the key technology for the new economy

The XML Shockwave

What every CEO needs to know about the key technology for the new economy

Software AG Headquarters Uhlandstr. 12 D 64297 Darmstadt Germany Tel: +49-6151-92-0 Fax: +49-6151-92-1191 Web: www.softwareag.com

First published in Germany in 2000 © Software AG 2000

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the Publishers, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or interviews.. The authors and publishers have made every effort in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information. However, the information in this book is provided without warranty, either expressed or implied. PageMaker is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated, Word is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Publisher: Software AG Corporate Marketing Typesetting and Layout: bdaum Industriekommunikation, Lützelbach, Germany

Contents Foreword ........................................................................................ 5 Introduction ................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements ..................................................................... 10 Why electronic business is taking off now .................................. 11 Resources being freed up after the Year 2000 programming crisis ....................................................................................... 14 Technology components are becoming available ..................... 15 The game generation is growing up .......................................... 17 XML: The rising tide ................................................................... 18 The origins of XML .................................................................. 19 XML basics ............................................................................... 21 Advanced XML ........................................................................ 26 XML horizon ............................................................................ 28 Web speed ahead.......................................................................... 30 Buzzword: Storage .................................................................... 30 Buzzword: Publishing ............................................................... 32 Buzzword: Electronic ............................................................... 35 Buzzword: Exchange ................................................................ 36 Buzzword: Documents.............................................................. 37 XML-based Web applications ..................................................... 40 Electronic Data Interchange to the power of XML ................... 41 Document and knowledge management to the power of XML 53 Data warehousing to the power of XML .................................. 55 Content presentation to the power of XML .............................. 58 Mobile computing to the power of XML.................................. 62

The XML Shockwave

XML technology .......................................................................... 68 XML databases ......................................................................... 68 XML application engineering ................................................... 70 XML application integration .................................................... 72 Frequently asked CEO questions ................................................. 74 Do you need XML? ..................................................................... 77 XML survey ................................................................................. 78 Appendix A: Glossary of hype ..................................................................... 80 Appendix B: Online information about XML .............................................. 84 Appendix C: Bibliography............................................................................ 85

4

Introduction

FOREWORD The Internet is changing business much faster and in more far-reaching ways than even the most optimistic technology pundits could have predicted. The potential for drastically cutting costs by conducting business via the Web is enormous. This is why more and more companies plan to handle purchasing, distribution and logistics via the Internet – preferably in the context of an integrated information and supply chain. Analysts therefore estimate a much higher growth potential for the Internet in the business-to-business sector than in the consumer market.

Many companies falsely assume that they will have to reorganize their business to gain the advantages that electronic business can bring. In reality, however, it is much more important to link existing processes in intelligent ways in order to tap new markets and customers.

The key to success here is the eXtensible Markup Language, or XML. XML is the fuel that will drive the engines of electronic business. This universal meta language ensures that Internet applications “understand each other” and that Internet applications and traditional enterprise software can communicate smoothly. Thus, XML makes it much easier to design integrated business processes, for example, where an order to a supplier triggers production and then generates a shipping order with a freight carrier. The benefits of XML can be summed up in one word: SPEED - Storing, Publishing and Exchanging Electronic Documents.

5

The XML Shockwave

The technology and tools for building XML-based applications exist today, and the first exciting applications based on XML are currently being rolled out into the market place. The most promising application areas for XML include supply chain management, content management and electronic data exchange. Hundreds of industry initiatives that have already defined their own XML-based languages are poised for the quickening. Those companies who ignore XML’s potential do so at their own peril.

Like most decision makers striving to gain an edge in the global economy, you probably have little spare time for novels on Internet strategies. That’s why Software AG, The XML Company, has produced The XML Shockwave, a compact executive summary containing everything you need to know about XML from a business perspective. I therefore encourage you to seize the moment and read The XML Shockwave to find out more about this revolutionary technology.

Dr. Erwin Königs Chairman and CEO Software AG

6

Introduction

INTRODUCTION A year or two ago, few people could have predicted the current shockwave generated by the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in the software industry. As an IT decision maker, you have probably heard or read something about XML. You may also be aware that XML is a standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and that XML is endorsed by a host of industry heavyweights such as IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Software AG, General Motors, and many others. But you may also be asking yourself: Why has XML been adopted so quickly and what does it mean to my business? The answer is actually quite simple. XML is the most radical change in computing since the invention of relational databases and SQL.

Opinion:“XML has proven to be an incredible, effective, easy way to get data back and forth between trading partners over the Internet.” James Utzschneider Director of business frameworks, Microsoft

With its ability to describe any kind of information, XML has the power to become the most important Web standard. It is rapidly evolving as the key enabler for the new online economy of electronic business, and it will remain a key technology even after “e-business” has become a nostalgic term from the past. The letters in front of the dash are changing faster than it takes to say “dinosaur” from e-business to m-business (mobile business) to s-business (silent business between computers). In part, this rapid change is caused by XML itself. Hardly a day passes without an announcement of a new XML application. 7

The XML Shockwave

By adopting XML now, enterprises can transform their existing multimillion dollar investment in hardware and software into an asset that can be used to derive revenue growth and productivity benefits during the electronic business boom and beyond. Fact: According to Warburg Dillon Read, the investment banking arm of UBS in Switzerland, XML’s largest tremor will be felt in the ERP, EAI, e-commerce and web-tools software categories – markets that will be worth approximately US$ 52 billion by 2002. According to the Gartner Group, a typical enterprise will use up to 40 percent of its programming budget to perform data extraction and to update programs for the sole purpose of transferring information between different databases and applications. And this is only for the data traffic within, not between, enterprises. XML has been described as the “Esperanto” for computers. This is true in that XML can make the most heterogeneous computer applications communicate with each other. Unlike Esperanto, however, XML is a runaway success, to the point that the ease and flexibility of XML-based communication has already changed the landscape of business itself. In contrast, the traditional supply chain applications based on EDI/ EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange) are difficult and expensive to implement and to maintain. EDI works best with long-term relationships between client and supplier and with a small number of partners. It doesn’t work at all with complex supply networks or open markets. This is one reason why only two (yes, two!) percent of US companies use EDI for supply chain management. In the rest of the world, the percentage is even lower. The Internet and XML have rewritten the rules so extensively that the classic supply chain starts to resolve into supply networks with an unlimited number of suppliers interacting with an unlimited number of clients. Setting 8

Introduction

the pace is the car industry, which, since Henry Ford, has pioneered industrial automation. Initiated by General Motors, the ANX network went into production in 1998, connecting about 15,000 business partners in the US and 40,000 worldwide. By early 2000, the world’s three largest car manufacturers  General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler  had jointly announced plans to combine their efforts to form an integrated businessto-business supplier exchange through a single global portal. The new enterprise is open to all car manufacturers worldwide as well as to their respective suppliers, partners and dealers, and is currently the world’s largest virtual marketplace. And this is perhaps the most striking difference between EDI and the Internet. EDI was used to electrify existing trade relationships. The Internet, in contrast, is an existing marketplace where new business contacts and new trade relationships can be established. EDI requires networks that are carefully planned and implemented in advance, while the Internet develops in an “unplanned” way driven by the autonomous activities of millions of users. The technologies of the past that were used to connect users on a one-to-one basis are hardly suitable to facilitate the communication requirements of the new mega-markets.

Single Sentence Summary If you don’t know enough about XML, your business might be outpaced by the major revolution XML will introduce to business practices.

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The XML Shockwave

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank all those from Software AG who helped in the making of this book, particularly Paul Baur, editor, and Zoë Rouwen, proofreader. Paul Hughes supervised the project and acted as the general troublemaker. Rainer Glaap provided creative input and valuable technical input came from Nigel W.O. Hutchison, Peter Mossack and Jonathan Robie. Thanks go also to the Tamino developers, in particular Klaus Fittges and Jürgen Harbarth, for providing technical details on XML storage. Thanks go, too, to Software AG for supporting this project, and to our family members, partners and friends for their patience and modem time.

Berthold Daum

Chris Horak

[email protected]

[email protected]

June 2000

10

Why electronic business is taking off now

WHY ELECTRONIC BUSINESS IS TAKING OFF NOW Many believe electronic business is the future of all business. In fact, electronic business is currently going through the transition from early adoption to mainstream. A clear indication is the current trend to inThe book trade is a good example. tegrated “click and brick” soluAmazon.com definitely pioneered tions: cyberspace integrates with the idea of selling books online. But the material world. while today Amazon diversifies its The combination of electronic business and existing logistics is

In Germany, libri has established an online bookshop in cooperation with the traditional book trade. Any book in print can be ordered, and is then delivered to your doorstep or to your favorite bookshop. This allows libri to use the efficient logistics of the traditional book trade. When browsing, customers can click through to sales staff for Internet chat or for assistance over the telephone. New software may eventually allow for videoconferencing between customer and sales representative.

merchandise, the traditional book trade is taking electronic business to heart. Take Borders, for example. Specializing in books, CDs and videos, Borders has set up 300 outlets all over the US and more in other countries. These are shops where you can spend an afternoon browsing, reading and drinking coffee. At the same time Borders features a huge Web site at Borders.com.

very powerful, a win-win situation for online traders, existing businesses and customers. We believe that this trend will continue and introduce electronic business as an integral part of any business. Even gas stations have Web shops nowadays. Just 11

The XML Shockwave

have a look at bpexpress.de, a flashy site resulting from a cooperation between BP and Software AG. BP’s virtual gas station is not just a nice shop front but integrates the whole supply chain, including suppliers and delivery services.

But electronic business is more than online shops. Electronic business includes all areas where transactions between individuals or organizations take place:

◗

B2C (Business-to-Consumer) includes online shops, and also includes sales channels to content-related sites, online banking and other financial services. A joint venture between IBM and Non-tangible goods such as Deutsche Post (German postal sersoftware or MP3s can be vice) provides a complete e-comdelivered directly over the merce solution for small businesses. Internet. Increasing bandBusiness partners can sell products width will finally allow from a virtual storefront and then tap video on demand. In coninto Deutsche Post’s existing nationwide transportation network to offer trast, tangible goods reproduct delivery to their customers quire solid and effective loanywhere in Germany within 12 gistics solutions. hours of ordering.

12

Why electronic business is taking off now

◗

B2B (Business-to-Business) includes all kinds of transactions between commercial enterprises such as procurement, and supply and demand chains but also includes activities such as support, training, electronic newsletters, etc. 1300 1200

US e-Commerce 1998-2003

1100

Business to Business

1000 Business to Consumer

Amount in billions US $

900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Business-to-consumer transactions are almost marginalized against the growth in business-to-business (B2B) transactions on the Internet. Until 2003 the total volume of business-to-business transactions is estimated to grow by a factor of 30 to 1331 billion US $. In comparison, businessto-consumer transactions are estimated to grow by a factor of 13 to 108 billion US $. (Source: Forrester Research)

◗

B2A (Business-to-Administration) includes transactions between businesses and government institutions or industry associations such as economic and environmental monitoring, tax, insurance, etc. Fact: Europe spends between 180 and 230 billion Euros a year to collect administration data from 16 million businesses within the EC. In Belgium alone approximately 1,500 different forms are used for that purpose. It is estimated that the exchange of information between business and administration currently costs 2,250 Euros per employee per year.

13

The XML Shockwave

◗

C2A (Consumer-to-Administration) is still in an embryonic state but offers also big potential: schools and libraries go online, car registration, tax declaration, and welfare payments become possible over the Internet, etc.

Before the state of Alaska introduced car registration over the Internet, motorists had to wait for hours in line and then again for another 6 to 8 weeks until they received their car registration. Now the same process is completed in 3 minutes over the Internet without leaving home.

The question, “Does my business need an electronic business solution?” is just as easily answered as the question, “Does my business need a telephone?” If you are living in an Amish village the politically correct answer might be “no,” but for the majority of us there is hardly any choice. Opinion: Klaus Schwab, president of the World Economic Forum.“I see two revolutions, which are interrelated: the first is the e-revolution, the second is globalization. To survive, each business must answer the question: How do I become global?” XML is the breakthrough technology that makes electronic business and globalization possible for everyone. If you believe the following factors to be true, it is probably high time you initiated your first XML project.

RESOURCES BEING FREED UP AFTER THE YEAR 2000 PROGRAMMING CRISIS

As companies mastered the leap into the next millennium, massive programming and testing resources were freed up in major international corporations. While the introduction of the Euro continues to be an issue for

14

Why electronic business is taking off now

IT departments, budgets and programming resources will focus on the task of turning information technology into a marketing and sales asset. In electronic business, the battle for market share and mind share will be fought on the Internet, and the global mega-corporations will engage in an enormous race to lead the Age of E. Early leaders such as AOL, Amazon.com and eBAY are stepping up their marketing and infrastructure to prepare for the onslaught of industry giants such as General Motors, Nike, and Sony who have the budgets and brand recognition to build the largest commerce sites in the world. Companies that have grown big on the Internet like AOL or Yahoo buy heavily into existing industries, especially into content production. The “merger” between AOL and TimeWarner is just one example. These companies will build supply chain and sales channel relationships with vendors of other complementary products to increase traffic to their sites. XML will play a key role, as it is the simplest and most open technology to facilitate communication between companies, customers and supply chain partners.

TECHNOLOGY COMPONENTS ARE BECOMING AVAILABLE In the pre-millennium phase of the Internet, most projects for electronic business had very long implementation cycles due to the lack of enabling technology. With the advent of component standards such as CORBA and DCOM and the rapid adoption of XML, it will finally become cost effective for small and medium corporations to get into the game and integrate their offering with the biggest single market ever: the Internet. Increasingly, instead of in-house development, users are moving to standard software components. Internet service providers host standard applications, like databases, enterprise resource planning systems, backup solutions, etc., allowing clients to lease application services and concentrate on their 15

The XML Shockwave

own business. Computer grids, i.e. networks of interconnected and specialized application modules, will replace the Internet as we know it. Security is not a problem: today nearly 90% of all security breaches happen

Market server Warehouse server

Database server Global directory server

ERP server

Internet Commerce Server

Service Provider B

Service Provider A

Enterprise

Grids of servers offering specialized services and connected over the Internet seem to be the future for electronic business infrastructure. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are moving en masse into the application domain.

in-house. Highly specialized service providers will often be able to provide a higher degree of security than the in-house computer center ever could. Implementation cycles for robust, secure and user-friendly e-applications will be reduced from years to months or even weeks. XML certainly contributes to this increase of speed. Independent of the specific domain of a particular XML application, standard tools to process XML, like editors, parsers, validators, browsers, etc. are available freely on the Web. Vendors such as Software AG are building complete integrated XML development studios that allow you to implement your XML application safely and efficiently. Can you afford to stay out of this race? 16

Why electronic business is taking off now

THE GAME GENERATION IS GROWING UP As we move into the Age of E, companies are faced with a completely new consumer generation. Generation-E, which includes teenagers of the 1990s that will enter the job market in the new millennium, will share a number of common characteristics: ◗

Instant gratification via the Internet is a given. This “game” generation will combine a regular paycheck with the lack of patience, expecting 100 percent availability, traceability and reliability of online purchases.

◗

Communities, chat groups and tribes are the information sources for this generation. Companies that are not “hip to the Web” and don’t understand the new marketing process will be shunned by this consumer generation.

◗

Shopping globally will be the norm. Get your suit in Korea, your car in Germany and your coffee from Guatemala, all from the same Internet access portal. Many businesses will take advantage of the market research skills of this new generation and will thrive on Generation-E. XML style sheets and XML-based Web page databases will help companies target this group with one-on-one personalized content.

Single sentence summary Electronic business is the future of any business and XML is the key ingredient to it.

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The XML Shockwave

XML: THE RISING TIDE There are three reasons why XML is transforming the software industry at breakneck speed:

1.

XML defines an open and flexible standard for storing, publishing and exchanging any kind of information. This frees business information from proprietary data formats and renders it readable forever. This is a radical innovation and breakthrough improvement opportunity for companies suffering from the “DB-mess” (DBMSs) that was created by 40 years of fierce competition between database vendors.

2.

XML is easy to understand and learn. Both people and machines can interpret XML information without much effort. This is radically different from any other data description standard of the past two decades. Here is an absolutely valid sample of XML code. <price> <currency> USD 99.95

In XML content is marked up with “tags” which clearly describe the content. In contrast, data stored in classic database systems is cryptically coded, so that there is no way to determine whether “99.95” is a percentage, a price, or a speed limit. In an open environment like the Internet marked up content can be understood by any potential partner. 18

XML: The rising tide

3. XML is a standard driven by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the same organization that is setting the overall direction for the Web. And, most importantly, huge end-users like General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, governments and health care institutions are directly involved in the definition of XML-related standards. For these reasons, major industry leaders are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into building system technology and applications based on XML. Any organization that is ready for this innovation will benefit.

THE ORIGINS OF XML XML was completed in early 1998 by the W3C and has since spread like wildfire through universities, scientific institutions, research labs and industries ranging from manufacturing to healthcare. This surprisingly quick adoption of XML is driven by the hope that it will solve some of the fundamental problems the Web has today. While the Web is theoretically a light-speed network, it sometimes resembles a “World Wide Wait.” And although the Web probably presents the biggest online information library mankind has ever had, it is still extremely frustrating how many clicks are needed to get to the information needed. Both of these problems can be traced back to the basic nature of the Web’s main language, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Although HTML is possibly the most successful electronic publishing language ever invented, it lacks depth in essential features. In essence, it describes how a Web browser should arrange text, pictures or graphics on the screen. HTML’s main focus on appearances makes it a snap to learn, even for non-programmers, but this ease of use has some nasty side effects when trying to build serious business applications. 19

The XML Shockwave

One problem is that it is difficult to create Web sites that do more than act as a fancy fax machine, sending you a document when you ask for it. Global companies are under ever increasing pressure to build Web sites that take orders from customers, transmit transaction records, or even run production equipment or assembly lines from halfway across the planet. HTML was never designed for such a job. One of the deficiencies of HTML is its inability to handle semantic markup. For example, the HTML expression Seal denotes that “Seal” is to be displayed in bold letters, but does not define what it is: a rubber gasket, a rock artist, a marine animal, or an elite group of the US Navy command. What is needed instead is a language that can semantically markup content. But because semantic markup depends on the application domain, a semantic markup language needs to be extensible to cater for all existing and future applications. To solve this problem, the members of the W3C began working on an extension to the HTML specification in 1996. The working group did not start from scratch. The initial proposal was based on an already existing specification called the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). SGML is an ISO standard and had already served as the foundation for HTML. The group worked hard to scale down the excessive complexity of the 500 page SGML standard to just 26 specification pages. They arrived at a concise, easy to understand data description language, called the eXtensible Markup Language. XML provides software developers with a mechanism to easily create their own information labels, called tags. By using XML, companies can begin to set corporate and industry standards about the way information is to be described and structured. Basically, XML consists of rules and conventions that allow anyone to create his or her own markup language from scratch, or to extend existing markup languages to match his or her requirements. 20

XML: The rising tide

What most CEOs don’t know is that all the Web application projects of the past five years are about to become legacies because they are not based on XML. Even HTML will eventually be replaced by its successor XHTML which is based on the more strict standards of XML. Make sure you look into this with your Internet Applications group.

XML BASICS Because of its simplicity, XML has the potential to solve significant performance and programming problems for building business applications on the Web. The tag sets programmers can build in XML are like a language that neatly describes the meaning of information specific to one application. XML, therefore, is a language to create languages, often called a meta language. Here is an example:

John Paul 089-3939321 089-3423443 <mobile> 0170-4949233

21

The XML Shockwave

This example could be called the Address Markup Language, which is completely compliant with the XML specification. The tags are marked by brackets, and are used to describe the content of a document. Each tag defines an element type. The example above contains seven elements: Address, FirstName, LastName, Phone, business, home, mobile. The elements Address and Phone contain other elements, while the elements FirstName, LastName, business, home, mobile contain text data. Now, wait a minute. What is so special here? Weren’t we able to store addresses before the advent of XML? Of course we were. But in a file system or a relational database the record above would look similar to this: John,Paul,089-3939321,089-3423443,0170-4949233

You can already see where the trouble is. Separated from the data record, we cannot decide what is the first name and what is the last name. And what do all the numbers mean? This knowledge is contained in Here is just one example of what the application that created the can happen when data is incompletely tagged or is not tagged at all. record. Without this application On September 23, 1999, NASA’s the data is worthless. If you send Mars Climate Orbiter vanished bethis record to a business partner hind Mars, never to be seen again. without further explanation, he or This mishap was caused by the fact she is in trouble. that a software module ‘Small Not so with XML. By tagging every data item, we are able to understand the data record even when we do not know the application that created the record. Because the data is self-describing, this also enables partners to 22

Forces’ in the ground control station used English units while the shuttle assumed metric units. This error occurred because the data was transmitted as plain numbers, not decorated with tags or units. The incorrect thrust data caused the loss of the vehicle.

XML: The rising tide

understand and process it. The data will be understood long after the applications that created it grow obsolete. You certainly can imagine what this means for electronic business. It’s pure dynamite. The other simple but powerful idea in XML is that it is extensible. This allows programmers to reuse existing XML document types by extending them with new tags. The core elements of the new document type, however, will still be understood by all other users of the original document type. The golden rule for the development of XML schemata is therefore not, “Do everything from scratch” but, “Adopt and adapt.” You can adopt existing and proven solutions and adapt them to your purposes. For example, if we want to define a Titled Address Markup Language, we can refer to our Address Markup Language defined above but simply add another element <Title>.

<Title> Dr John Paul 089-3939321 089-3423443 <mobile> 0170-4949233

For users of the original Address Markup Language the new document is still meaningful. They can simply ignore the new element <Title> . XML is so simple that even non-programmers can develop tag sets in a matter of hours. Tag sets (or document types) can be easily defined for 23

The XML Shockwave

specific applications. These documents can then be interpreted and processed with standard XML tools that are readily and freely available on the Internet, or are embedded into commercial application software. This will allow programmers to get started with XML programming at once. The unifying power of XML arises from a few well-chosen rules. One is that tags usually come in pairs. Like parentheses, they surround the text to which they apply. And like parentheses, tag pairs can be nested inside one another to multiple levels. The

Address

Name

Phone

business

Title

FirstName

home

LastName

Any XML document can be represented as a tree structure. Tree structures are easy to navigate and to modify. Tools for XML “tree walking” are readily available.

24

Users and user groups are defining their own, industry-specific standards, facilitating the exchange of documents throughout the industry. One example is the XML standard for health care institutions. Health Level 7 (HL7) will accelerate the exchange of patient and treatment information between hospitals, practitioners, medical insurance carriers, research institutes, etc. In another example, the Newspaper Association of America is building an mobile XML-based markup language for classified advertisements that promises to make searches for jobs, contacts or cars much more efficient. Users will find the new Web faster, more powerful and more useful than the Web of today.

XML: The rising tide

nesting rule automatically forces a certain simplicity on every XML document, which takes on the structure known in computer science as a tree. Trees are extraordinarily convenient for programmers who can write simple programs to display only the information needed. Another very nice feature of XML is its reliance on a new standard for international language encoding called UNICODE. Because XML is based on UNICODE, it will enable exchange of information not only between different computer systems, but also across national and cultural boundaries. In spite of the Babel of incompatible computer systems, languages,

The same example displayed by an XML editor tool. Many XML related tools are already available, and many can be downloaded freely from the Web.

alphabets and code systems, XML becomes a lingua franca, a computer Esperanto that any computer or human can read and write. This is an essential requirement for global electronic business.

Single Sentence Summary The power of XML is that it facilitates the definition of common industry-specific standards for information exchange.

25

The XML Shockwave

ADVANCED XML This chapter delves briefly into the nuts and bolts of XML vocabularies. Since it can be viewed as optional to the understanding of XML’s business benefits, you may want to skip it and move on to the next chapter. Despite the hype over XML in the trade press, it would be daring to claim that XML can solve all communication problems. What XML does is to allow the definition of common vocabularies and to provide a common syntax for documents. It enables partners that want to communicate with each other to define a specific XML-based language for a specific domain. There are many industry association organizations that do exactly this for their own industry domain. Hardly a week passes without the announcement of a new XML-based language. They run the gamut from science (Mathematical Markup Language, Chemical Markup Language) to spiritual applications (Liturgical Markup Language), multimedia (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, Scalable Vector Graphics) and communications (Wireless Markup Language, VoiceXML) right down to business (Open Trading Protocol, Extensible Financial Reporting Markup Language). There is a paradox, however. Unlike HTML, which describes the presentation of a document, XML describes its meaning. A person who reads an XML document can interpret the tags and associate certain semantics with them. For example, when we read the tag we know what it means. To a computer, however, a tag is just a tag. An XML processor can identify the tags within a document, and it can analyze the tree structure of a document. But because XML is generic, the processor does not know what a tag means, nor what the element content is about. The paradox here is that HTML in contrast knows perfectly well what a tag means: the tags enclose text that is to be printed in bold letters, simple as that. This behavior is well defined in the HTML standard and is implemented 26

XML: The rising tide

in Web browsers. In XML, however, the notion of a tag is abstract. The meaning of a tag results from its name and from the associations it invokes in human readers. To computers, the semantics of an XML document are defined by the application that produces or interprets the document. The specification of the application, not of the XML document type, defines the document semantics. In its present form, an XML Document Type Definition (DTD) specifies the syntax of a document, i.e. the vocabulary and its structure. Content enclosed in tags is treated just as plain text with no semantic constraints whatsoever. A new W3C working draft, called XML Schema, is on the way to improve this situation and to allow a limited description of document semantics. XML Schema can put semantic constraints on single elements. For example it could impose the constraint on the element that content must be a floating point number between 1.0 and 20.0. Over time, XML Schema will replace the current XML Document Type Definitions (DTD). New developments like Microsoft’s BizTalk already use XML Schema as a specification language. XML Schema can put constraints on single elements of a document but cannot describe semantic relationships between elements. For example, the product width*height*depth must be within defined limits cannot be defined in XML Schema. Further work is required in standardization bodies like the W3C. Even when it comes to the need for people to understand XML documents, things are not as straightforward as they seem. Identical words and phrases can evoke very different meanings. Especially in a global environment, the meaning of a word often depends on regional, social, industrial and cultural context. For example, the element could be evoke numerous associations: dimensions, decibels and dictionaries. 27

The XML Shockwave

XML vocabulary for travel industries: Since May 1999, the OpenTravel Alliance has been working on an XML specification for use across the travel industry. Working with its 100 member organizations (airlines, hotel chains, travel agencies, Global Distribution Systems, software companies, companies with large numbers of ‘managed’ travelers, etc.), the first version of the specification was published for public review in February 2000.

Obviously the meaning depends on the context. To define unambiguous documents it is necessary to identify the context of the document. Fortunately, XML provides mechanisms for this task. XML Namespaces, a supplementary XML standard, can relate tag systems to a given context. Namespaces can help to avoid conflicts when tags from different contexts are used in the same document.

Still, the definition of a tag system that is clear and unambiguous to all prospective users requires skill and insight. It requires domain experts who carefully select tags, attribute names and attribute values. Especially in a globalized economy, an XML vocabulary for electronic business documents must be intelligible and unambiguous worldwide. Creating such a vocabulary is a task for a global organization. The current ebXML joint initiative by UN/CEFACT and OASIS addresses this problem. This initiative will be addressed in a later chapter: XML-Based Web Applications.

XML HORIZON While XML is currently shaking up the industry, the next paradigm shift is already on the horizon. Many experts in document and knowledge management see Topic Maps as the next big thing for the Web. Topic Maps are a new ISO standard based on SGML and XML. The abbreviation XTM stands for XML Topic Map. What is it all about? 28

XML: The rising tide

The purpose of Topic Maps is to arrange existing documents (HTML pages, XML objects, images, etc.) into groups around topics. Topics can be connected either by an explicitly defined association between topics or by a document that belongs to more than one topic. Users can follow these connections and can thus travel from topic to topic. The trick is that it is not necessary to modify the original documents to define these connections. Each topic map is a separate entity. This makes it easy to change the navigational structure of a document set such as a Web site because only the Topic Map must be changed. Another advantage is that more than one Topic Map can be defined for a given document set. This makes it possible to provide several independent navigation scenarios for a single Web site, possibly a different navigation scenario for each different user type. Because they separate content from navigation, Topic Maps are not only interesting for document management, but could also become interesting for electronic business. A company’s Web site could easily offer different navigation scenarios for staff, new customers, established customers, suppliers and administrators. With the same ease, a Web shop could be rearranged very quickly to reflect changes in product range or customer behavior just by modifying an XML Topic Map.

Single Sentence Summary XML continues to develop: stay tuned!

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WEB SPEED AHEAD The benefits of XML can be summarized by one word: SPEED. Speed is of course a key reason why enterprises are moving to electronic business in the first place: faster reaction to customer needs; faster publishing of information to customers and supply chain partners; faster processing of orders received over the Internet. The list goes on and on. In a world where information is more important than cash, the fast turnaround of information is essential. The faster intelligence about customer requirements and changes in the market is used to adapt enterprise business rules and processes to the changed conditions, the better an enterprise is equipped to survive and succeed in a global economy. SPEED is also an acronym that enumerates the key benefits of XML: Storing, Publishing and Exchanging Electronic Documents. Sounds trivial? Unbelievable? Too simple? Read on for an in-depth explanation of the buzzwords.

BUZZWORD: STORAGE Commonly, Web documents are stored in filing systems. This will continue to be the case, but the filing system will be a database management system to cut down on physical storage space and manpower needed to maintain these documents. Today’s database technology, however, is not capable of dealing with electronic business information such as documents, pictures, sounds, retina images, digital signatures, etc. in their native form. Relational database management systems (DBMSs), apart from sporting a totally proprietary internal storage format for their data, have the nasty 30

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habit of trying to “flatten” the world of data into two-dimensional structures called tables. Like the world, however, electronic business is not flat. It is full of complex relationships between documents, references, hierarchies and images that would be impossible to store in a traditional database management system. Storing such complex documents in relational databases requires fragmenting the document into many separate pieces that are simple enough to be stored in a relational table. The internal structure of the document is lost in this process. When the document is retrieved again it must be reconstructed from its fragments. But the knowledge about how the document was decomposed is hidden in the application that was responsible for its decomposition. Other applications that want to access the document must know the internals of the storing application – a nasty dependency that makes maintenance of applications difficult. Imagine you want to park your car in a garage but the garage rules require you to disassemble your car before you park it and reassemble it before you drive off again. There are more effective ways to park a car or to store a document. Fortunately, XML offers a way out. Vendors such as Software AG are building native XML databases that allow you to store your electronic business information directly in a new kind of filing system. By using an XML database instead of a classical database management system, enterprises can store, retrieve, manage, search and distribute their electronic business information from a single source. Additionally, since XML allows you to preserve the relationship of the information, it is very easy to build an application where your information is stored in distributed classical databases, while the meaning and structure of your information assets are stored in XML databases. The breakthrough benefit of this approach is that you can leverage your investment in databases. The solution for the data integration challenge many compa31

The XML Shockwave

nies face is to build an XML “staging area” for your corporate DBMS infrastructure. This XML staging area provides faster access to Internet related information, manages all the Web-related data and maintains consistency with your classical data processing systems. The nice side effect of this approach is that you also obtain a secure “information firewall” that only exposes the information you want to publish, thereby protecting your mission-critical information assets from intrusion.

BUZZWORD: PUBLISHING Publishing really took off about 600 years ago when Gutenberg invented hot metal letter printing. Prior to Gutenberg, publishing was tremendously expensive and cumbersome. You were either dealing with a pen and paper, or with a fairly difficult etching process for printing plates. Gutenberg had the phenomenal idea of moveable metal letters or moveable type that enabled the “type setter” to configure a page of information in record time without having to throw away the printing plate afterwards. This innovation enabled a number of cultural revolutions in Europe. Experts believe that without Gutenberg’s invention, and the consequent massive growth of literacy in Europe, there would not have been a Renaissance, or a French Revolution for that matter.

Note: It should thus not be surprising to most of you that Johannes Gensfleisch (alias Gutenberg) of Mainz, Germany, was elected man of the Millennium in the US in 1999. Some believe that XML and the Internet will be the key technologies for the next century and will be elevated to a similar rank by generations to come.

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Now, with the invention of XML we are seeing another revolution in publishing. The author has dubbed this revolution “push button publishing” because it will enable companies to define a mechanism for sending information to any kind of output device at the push of a button. The element of XML that will enable this is called style sheets. If you have ever used a desktop publishing system such as Adobe ® Pagemaker™ or even Microsoft® Word™ then you have probably experienced the joy (or pain) of watching the layout of your document change instantaneously in front of your eyes. This ability to reformat documents changed the pre-print industry after 1984 (with the advent of the Apple Macintosh). It led to the restructuring of the internal organization of many enterprises that could now own the power of publishing into the hands of their knowledge workers. XML takes this capability to the next level. Users and programmers can apply rules organized into “style sheets” to reformat XML documents automatically for various devices. The standard that is being developed underneath of the XML umbrella is called the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). The latest versions of several Web browsers can read an XML document, fetch the appropriate style sheet and use it to sort and format the information on the screen. The reader might never know he’s looking at an XML document, rather than an HTML document, except that XML sites are faster and easier to use. Even people with visual disabilities can benefit from the concept of pushbutton publishing. Style Sheets will enable application programmers to render information in optimal form for output on display or printer, in Braille for the blind, or as audible speech for people that cannot read. Commuters on their way to work might prefer to have the Web News read to them as opposed to balancing their laptop computer on the steering wheel while trying to plug in their mobile phone. With XML style sheets, you can not only influence the look and feel of the information you send to output devices such as printers, Web browsers, mobile telephones or soda machines, but you can also control what infor33

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Using XSL style sheets XML business data can be displayed in a wide variety of layouts. In this example raw XML data is displayed as a table and as a catalog by applying two different style sheets.

mation is being published. This is a key requirement for enabling the new economy. As customers become more and more used to the fact that they can be online all the time, they will require you to send them the relevant information with the correct level of detail. XML style sheets will drastically reduce the cost and time it takes companies to deliver the information to whomever they need and in the appropriate format. At the same time, customer satisfaction and loyalty will go up if you are ready to give them the information they need, on-time and with the right level of detail. So in short, XML will evolve the field of publishing from “reusable type,” 34

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invented 600 years ago, to “reusable documents,” invented at the end of the millennium by the W3C. XML will take online publishing to an industrial level, in the same way as Gutenberg’s hot metal letters industrialized medieval book printing.

BUZZWORD: ELECTRONIC We are living in the Age of E. Web publishers are bombarding the market daily with e-mail, e-zines, newspapers, and books that speak about e-Business, e-Commerce, e-Government, e-Conomy and so on. Pundits and laymen alike want you to believe that if you don’t move to “E”, you will have an e-Mergency. Many of us on the receiving end have expressed the urge to say: e-Nough. So, what is really behind this? If you really spend some time thinking about it you will realize that the hype around “electronic” actually has nothing to do with the Web. It has nothing to do what computer hardware you have installed, or which programming model you follow. It really has nothing to do with putting people in front of Internet browsers so they can type in an order. There are still an unbelievable number of companies that have claimed success in e-Commerce, yet are faxing the order forms received from their Web site to their suppliers who have to retype them. In our opinion, “electronic,” in the context of electronic business, means the “complete automation of a business transaction across organization boundaries.” This of course should include Internet access for your customers so they can use their Internet browser software to directly enter their ordering information into the order processing system of your company. The most important aspect of electronic business, however, is the ability for machines to speak to machines.

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Note: If this sounds like science fiction to you, we urge you to wake up and smell the coffee. Java and XML technologies are making machine-to-machine communication easier than ever before. XML frees information from the shackles of proprietary data formats used in application programs, Java frees applications from the shackles of proprietary hardware and software architectures. One could say that XML and Java are a marriage made in heaven.

BUZZWORD: EXCHANGE Up to now, the average CEO and CIO have been thinking of their information technology (IT) as something that concerns their corporation on an internal level. Most of them are still visualizing IT as being about users in front of screens, entering, evaluating, and formatting information. In the Age of E, however, information technology achieves a mission critical function by providing the mechanisms and standards for the exchange of information, i.e. for the opening up of the corporation to a global business environment based on the Internet. As you know, it has become vital for many enterprises to be connected to email. Now, it is becoming just as important to integrate the supply chain of your company with the ordering systems of your supply chain partners. And you won’t be able to do this by having your employees retype the information into the system. The expensive enterprise resource planning system (ERP) you installed is simply not geared up for this challenge. And the fancy Web shops you can buy from the dime-a-dozen Silicon Valley DOT COMS won’t get you there either. They are simply not sophisticated enough for the task of automated communication.

Here are some examples of what we mean: warehouse shelves talking to restocking systems, factory assembly lines talking to parts manufacturers 36

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Document A

Document B

XML was designed with some “slack” in mind. Parties communicating via XML need only agree on common elements, at the same time allowing documents to contain elements which the partner does not understand. This “slack” in document definition makes XML almost as flexible as natural language but without implying the complexities of natural language processing.

or databases, power plants talking to emergency response systems. All of these examples are not the stuff taken from the latest science fiction novel or film. These applications exist here and now. The fact is, however, that prior to the arrival of XML, it has been notoriously difficult to achieve this kind of information exchange. Opinion: “From our perspective, corporate purchasing is the killer app for XML. … We see supply-chain automation as the next killer app.” James Utzschneider, Director of business frameworks, Microsoft

BUZZWORD: DOCUMENTS Why are documents a hot item for XML and electronic business? Haven’t we had documents for the past 3,000 years? Yes, and this is precisely the point. Business continues to run based on the exchange of documents. Electronic or not, orders, invoices, status reports, contracts, brochures, etc., will be prepared, shipped, received, sorted, tracked, queried and so 37

on. As more and more of these documents are becoming digital, they will also contain more and more multi-media content such as pictures, digital signatures, etc. On top of this, the volume of electronic documents will grow exponentially as more and more users link to the Web and drive up the demand for electronic documents. Banks, insurance companies and other industries have the legal obligation to store business documents for decades. How will they ensure the new digital documentation will be readable 30 years from now? Today they are mostly dealing with simple information, the ABC and 1-2-3s of computing. In electronic business over the Internet, however, they will have to manage and exchange more and more new types of information, including Web pages and application components. In fact, enterprises will have to store and, if necessary, reference this information very reliably and very quickly. XML offers a brilliant solution here as well. With the standards related to XML, companies can describe the content, relationship and meaning of any kind of document. And, since XML is self-describing, this information will remain readable forever, even if the applications that created it are long gone and forgotten. Of course, since the millions of stored documents must be retrievable, a reliable, efficient search mechanism must be provided. Searching the Web is currently a laborious activity. Even the simplest of queries can cause result sets of many thousands of Web pages, and even more qualified queries can be equally “successful.” For example, the query stock quote yahoo

entered at lycos.com, resulted in over 19,000 hits. The reason is that the search algorithm reports all documents that contain these three words anywhere in the text. This is necessary because HTML does not markup documents semantically. So the search algorithm not only finds documents that

contain Yahoo’s stock quote but also any stock quote published by Yahoo. With HTML searches, you don’t find the needle in the haystack – instead you are presented with all the haystacks containing needles for lengthy and time-consuming evaluation. XML documents, on the other hand, structure information entities into separate elements that are nicely labeled with tags. This makes it much easier to pinpoint the specific document of interest. An XML query can therefore be much more specific: stock_quote[company=”yahoo”]

which translated into plain English means: find all documents of type stock_quote that contain an element yahoo

If this is not precise enough, the query can be easily narrowed down: stock_quote[company=”yahoo” and year=”2000” and exchange=”new york” and publisher=”e-trade”]

Single Sentence Summary XML enables the Storage, Publishing and Exchange of Electronic Documents, which is the foundation for any kind of electronic business.

The XML Shockwave

XML-BASED WEB APPLICATIONS What we have described up to now is just the beginning of the revolution that XML is about to drive. Everyone knows that libraries would be fairly useless without a librarian to sort the books into shelves, and without a catalog to see which books are available. In technological terms, Huge cost reduction the job of the XML librarian is The G-EDI project at a major bankgoing to be performed by an ing institution in Belgium processes XML database management systelecommunication bills. Initially tem (XDBMS). The library catadeveloped as an EDIFACT project, it log, i.e. the information about the uses SGML/XML as a neutral interinformation, is commonly renal data format. Although the format of the EDIFACT messages transmitferred to as meta data. It is these ted by the telecommunications comtwo areas, database management pany has changed four times since and meta data for business inforthe system was put into production, mation, that will be revolutiononly the mapping to the generic ized by XML. underlying XML model had to be reviewed. Owing to this approach, it

Many of you have probably heard has been possible to reduce the of applications that enable enterapplication maintenance costs by a prises to deal more effectively factor of five. with distributing information and knowledge. We would like to mention four application types that will be completely transformed by XML

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ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE TO THE POWER OF XML The recent growth of retail sales over the Web driven by companies such as Amazon.com has drawn much attention and has lead to insane market valuations of start-up companies trying to make it in the DOT.COM universe. Business-to-Business commerce is moving online at least as quickly, and according to independent research, presents the opportunity to increase corporate savings tenfold. In the past, a standard EDI requires negotiating and implecalled Electronic Data menting each business relationship Interchange or EDI has been used separately. At one conference on to automate Machine-to-Machine EDI law, James Pitts, a purchasing and Business-to-Business manager at R.J. Reynolds, said he communication. But EDI has spent 18 months negotiating a single trading partner agreement. failed to take off due to a lack of That left him with only 349 other a self-describing data format such trading partners to go. as XML. EDI has floundered because it depends on a uniformity of processing that simply does not exist in real life. Let us compare this to how business is done today. For centuries, humans have successfully done business by exchanging easy to create, cheap and easily readable documents: purchase orders, invoices, freight documents, bank notes, prescriptions, user manuals etc. These documents work for any commerce because they do not require the parties involved to know about one another’s internal processes. Each data element on the document exposes exactly what its recipient needs to know. The exchange of documents which has worked well in the past is also the right approach for doing business online. It is quickly becoming clear that universal electronic commerce and Business-to-Business communications will rely heavily on the flow of 41

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agreements, expressed by millions of XML documents distributed over the Internet. Transporting EDI messages using proprietary value added networks (VANs) is much more expensive than using the Internet for transporting XML documents. The few dozen EDI vendors are moving in the direction of XML as fast as possible and will provide their customers with a reasonable upgrade path to XML and generalized electronic business.

Protecting the environment Magis is an environmental service provider in Bad Camberg, Germany. Employing XML technology, Magis has developed a pilot application for the exchange of safety data sheets in the chemicals industry. The application replaces the traditional practice of sending paper documents by way of electronic transfer of standardized data via the Internet. Easier to use and more universally implemented than EDI, XML is the chosen data format. “Until now,” confirms Klaus-Dieter Mehler, CEO of Magis, “there has been no way of electronically exchanging the different information contained in the safety data sheets between companies in the chemical industry. Doing this with electronic data interchange (EDI) is too complex and, above all, too expensive for small and medium-sized companies.”

The same is true for other middleware technologies that were originally developed for the purpose of enterprise application integration within enterprises. Such systems include de facto industry standards such as CORBA and COM. Their way of interfacing with the rest of the world is far too rigid and inflexible for open communication across company boundaries. Not surprisingly, both technologies are striving to integrate XML into their architecture.

The end of the supply chain? The supply chain in its current form is directly related to the existence of EDI. Despite the fact that EDI was slow and expensive to implement, change and 42

XML-based Web applications In the classical supply chain, the client seems to be the center of the world. But this is an illusion furnished by inflexible IT structures.

maintain, the supply chains that could be established through EDI improved production processes and saved costs. So much so, that the Internet and XML are seen as the opportunity of a lifetime to introduce supply chains to the rest of the industry (EDI covers only two percent of the US industry) and at a fraction of the cost. But the rigid form of traditional supply chains is caused by the limitations of EDI. The inflexibility of EDI technology hardly allows for structures other than one-to-one trade relationships. Enter XML. By introducing an XML-based markup language that allows anybody in the industry to talk to anybody else, the situation changes completely. Partners that were formerly locked together by EDI now face an open environment. Clients can extend procurement to many possible sup-

As formerly isolated supply chains grow together, supply networks evolve. New possibilities for cooperation lead to higher specialization, higher productivity and wealth. 43

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pliers, while suppliers can submit bids to many possible clients. The supply chain changes into a supply network. But the development does not stop there. Even supply networks are closed worlds, the VIP lounges of the industry. The Internet and XML, in contrast, are open standards, designed to get everybody connected.

Imagine what the world would be like if one company’s computer system could automatically read any other organization’s documents – and make complete sense of them? This is the goal that … EDI has struggled unsuccessfully to achieve for years. Though efforts have barely begun, there is a chance that XML could actually make that happen. If it did, business on the Web could run riot. The Economist, April 25, 1998

Right now we can identify three major trends in electronic cooperation: supply networks, electronic markets, and virtual enterprises.

Supply networks As any manager knows, networking is vital. Establishing contacts and long-term relationships is essential for any business. Compared to the supply chain, a supply network provides flexibility and safety. The best example for the network paradigm is the Internet itself. The robustness and efficiency of the Internet results exactly from the fact that it was designed as a network. When one node fails, messages are passed without delay via an alternate route. And because each node serves many clients it can work more efficiently. In industries where enterprises rely on a multitude of peer-to-peer trade relationships, the sum of all these trade relations forms a complex net44

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work. The single enterprise, however, sees itself as the hub of all trade relations, the center of the world. This results, in part, from the use of inflexible technology. We already mentioned EDI, which is blind to the complex pattern of trade relationships. XML is already changing this situation, as IT departments become more and more aware that they are part of an intricate web of trade relations. Compared to the traditional supply chain, some changes can be expected in the way organizations interact within a supply network. Aided by XML, communication between partners will become more flexible and sophisticated. Product catalogs, for example, will be updated more frequently and with less effort. XSL style sheets make it possible to pass catalog information from the supplier directly to the end-user. Price and availability information can be updated not just by the day, but by the hour. The traditional product-catalog-based procurement procedure can be augmented by dynamic procedures. Procurement systems will learn to haggle over prices and delivery details, and software agents will negotiate contract terms and conditions.

Electronic markets Electronic markets go a step beyond supply networks. While supply networks are still closed societies – subcultures within the Web – an electronic market, as the name says, is open to anybody to buy and to sell. Electronic markets are usually set up by collaborating or competing companies but are deliberately kept open for others to join. Typically, an electronic market does not require a pre-established business relationship to perform a business transaction. It may even be possible to perform business transactions anonymously. 45

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It sounds crazy that competitors should cooperate, but as we all know, competition is good for business. Did you ever wonder why all the furniture shops or all the car dealers in your city cling together in the same street or the same block? They don’t do this to improve their social life but to attract customers. King Customer loves aggregation of similar businesses because the choice is bigger and the buying process will more likely lead to success. The concentration of products adds value.

Electronic markets facilitate information exchange between any interested partners. The rigid structure of the supply chain no longer exists.

So, electronic markets make perfect sense. A customer who looks for a certain product is more likely to succeed at a digital marketplace compared to visiting a series of Web shops. Therefore digital marketplaces attract more customers. But electronic markets go beyond the plain buying and selling process. They can offer additional services, such as order acquisition, fulfillment, clearing, settlement, or payment flow. Apart from buyers and sellers, they also attract services such as buyer cooperatives, logistics, financial services, researchers, directory services, industry associations, trade publications and news feeds. The electronic market develops its own specific quality which goes far beyond a simple aggregation of Web shops.

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Electronic markets can work horizontally and vertically. They can combine businesses that complement each other’s product portfolio to provide customers with one-stop shopping, or they can combine businesses with similar merchandise. Companies can join multiple electronic markets. The consequence is that networks of electronic markets emerge. Most electronic markets feature an Internet portal. Generally, portals serve as an entry point into an Internet community or an organization. Usually, companies represented on the Web maintain a company portal that integrates the different information sources within the company. The portal can advertise services and Here are some of the markets that offer guidance to users. Often, already exist: portals can be configured for regAmerican IC Market (semiconducistered users. For electronic martors), Auto-xchange (automotive), Band-X (IP backbone bandwidth), kets, portals serve as entry points Chemdex (life science), efor the public. In some cases, an ChoiceNet (energy), e-Markets (aginformal market has been ricultural), e-Steel, FastParts (elecequipped with a portal, while in tronic components), MetalSite, other cases a market was later PaperExchange, PlasticsNet, Rateadded to an existing portal as an Xchange (telecom bandwidth), TechnologyMall (technology), additional service. TradeXchange (automotive).

Demand chains As supply chain automation becomes, thanks to XML, more and more of a reality, a new method of industrial production evolves: demand driven production. Factories no longer produce for the warehouse, but produce what the customer ordered. The customer’s order is passed from the customer (possibly through a buyers’ cooperative), through traders and distributors to the manufacturer, who, in turn, generates orders for components and parts. A demand chain replaces the classical productiondriven supply chain. 47

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As a consequence, demand-driven markets could emerge. What are traded on these markets are not products but demands: “I have 25 orders for electric wheelchairs. Who wants to produce them?” Embryonic examples of demand driven markets are the “Wanted” sections in the Classifieds.

Sales channels Electronic markets are only one possibility for the exchange of products. Other sales channels include co-branded sites and affiliates. Sales channels can provide much higher visibility for a corporation or a brand than a single presence on an electronic market. On the Internet, Amazon.com pioneered the technique of selling through affiliates on a wider scale. Partners place links to Amazon on their Web pages. Sales made through these links generate a provision for the partner.

Demand-driven production at Dell An example for demand-driven production is Dell. After selecting a PC from Dell’s Web site the customer can further customize the computer, for example add more RAM, order a faster processor, or swap the CD against a DVD. The customer’s order is passed from Dell’s Web site directly to Dell’s suppliers who in turn build the PC according to the customer’s specifications. Three days later the PC is delivered to the customer’s doorstep. A warehouse for the end product is not necessary.

XML-based software allows even better integration of a sales facility into the partner’s Web site. Customers can make a purchase directly from this site without leaving it. The look and feel of the integrated sales facility can be adapted to the look and feel of the site by using XSL style sheets.

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Virtual enterprises Virtual enterprises are supply networks that consist of a network of intimately connected enterprises. They are created to provide an integrated service to customers, establish a brand, or gain competitive advantage by collaboration. The benefit of a virtual enterprise is that each enterprise can achieve more as a part of the group than it could on its own. Usually, virtual enterprises exist for a specific purpose. When the purpose ceases, the virtual enterprise is abandoned and each of its members continues to operate individually. In the past, IT has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks during company mergers, and the same is true for virtual enterprises. The fusion of two companies can lead to a “con-fusion” of their information technology. Different database management systems and database schemata, data that only makes sense in the context of a certain application, and proprietary data formats have in some cases made the road to a joint enterprise very rocky. XML data is self-explanatory, making it easy to understand partner’s data and to build an integrated information system. With XML in place, we will certainly witness and perhaps participate in a rising number of temporary or permanent company alliances.

Market intelligence and the reverse supply chain In traditional “brick and mortar” businesses, data about sales, relationships, costs and overhead are evaluated and analyzed. The results are applied to improve operations and to fine-tune business rules and processes. In traditional businesses this can take a while – things must be physically rearranged. In some cases, it is necessary to close shop during this period. Not so in electronic business. Electronic markets can provide rich statistical data, simplifying analysis of customer buying patterns, behavior, rela49

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tionships between products, and the effectiveness of advertising and sales channels. The results of such an analysis can be applied to improve product presentation and product mix, customer service and loyalty, advertising strategies and channeling policies. These results can be applied almost without delay and without closing the Web site.

Wal-Mart shares information with suppliers Wal-Mart is a good example of how to use market intelligence. Wal-Mart collects data about every transaction in its stores. Data Warehousing techniques are used to extract intelligence from the raw data. So WalMart knows which products sell well where and when and which promotions have which effect. Sharing substantial information with its suppliers, Wal-Mart is able to improve the forecast abilities of its suppliers. As the suppliers use this information, Wal-Mart can expect higher quality in order fulfillment from its suppliers.

In supply chains and supply networks, the intelligence gathered can be passed back to suppliers, allowing partners to plan collaboratively. Suppliers can improve their forecasts and clients get suppliers that understand their requirements better. That is what we call the Reverse Supply Chain, a supply chain for information where stock movements and market intelligence is passed back to the suppliers of products and components.

Intelligent contracts and clever markets As we already mentioned above, electronic markets can offer a number of additional autonomous and intelligent services such as: ◗

Automatic translation between different content languages, for example if partners use different XML document types.

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Active help negotiating contract terms and conditions between agents.

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Business directories with intelligent search capabilities.

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Hosting services for software agents from buyers and bidders.

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Auction and classifieds capabilities.

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Data warehouses with transaction data to facilitate sophisticated market analysis.

Rule-based contracts for grain The company e-Markets provides a digital marketplace for agricultural products, including crops and inputs, grains, and livestock. With Decision Rule Contracts™, e-Markets addresses a common problem among grain growers. Forward pricing of contracts can be a source of endless frustration for producers. If the market is moving up, premature pricing can lead to regret. In contrast, a market on the way down can cause hasty decisions. It is the uncertainty these situations generate that cause many growers to forward contract less than they could. Decision Rule Contracts is a technology introduced by e-Markets that allows growers to select a rule-based policy that will respond to the market situation and adapt the price accordingly. The contract acts autonomously as an agent for the producer.

Standards for global markets As mentioned earlier, XML is a generic document standard. Anything that can be expressed as a document can be expressed in XML, whether it is the human genome, a musical score, a tax declaration or last night’s bowling scores. Although XML is one of the major enabling technologies for electronic business, it is not an electronic business standard. In particular, XML: ◗

Does not define a common core vocabulary and document structure for electronic business documents.

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Does not define a common standard for the transportation and the exchange of documents, including security standards. 51

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Does not define common business processes and protocols.

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Does not define a common electronic business architecture.

Within the short time that XML has existed, various competing XML groups such as RosettaNet, CommerceOne, BizTalk, XML.ORG and others have published architectures that address the above or some of the above topics. In particular, Microsoft’s BizTalk has recently drawn a lot of attention from the industry. In its present form, BizTalk comprises the following elements: ◗

A standardized method to package XML documents and non-XML elements in an XML container to enable point-to-point communication between electronic business applications. A BizTalk container acts as a mailbag.

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An architecture for the transport of BizTalk containers (BizTalk server).

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A set of simple guidelines for the definition of consistent XML schemata.

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A repository for XML schema definitions. Central repositories are important. Authors of XML schemata, i.e. new XML-based markup languages, can contribute their schema to the repository. Other interested parties can reuse the schema, possibly extending it for their own purpose (remember, the “X” in XML stands for extensible). Reusing an existing schema is almost always better than creating a new one. Instead of creating your own island, you speak a language that is also used by others. The motto of XML is, “Adopt and adapt.”

BizTalk, however, does not define a core vocabulary and a core document structure, nor does it define common core business processes and protocols. These tasks are left to ebXML, an international initiative between UN/ CEFACT and OASIS. ebXML is a new initiative, whose goal is not only 52

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to address all of the topics mentioned above, but also to act as a common umbrella for the various proprietary standards such as BizTalk, Rosetta, or CommerceOne. Target: “The goal is to provide an open technical framework to enable XML to be utilized in a consistent and uniform manner for the exchange of Electronic Business (EB) data in application-to-application, application-to-human and humanto-application environments thus creating a single global market™.” electronic business XML (ebXML) Requirements Specification

The list of companies that have endorsed the ebXML project is impressive. Many of the EDI manufacturers and EDI users have joined the project. First results are expected for the second half of 2001.

Single Sentence Summary XML is becoming the major enabling technology for supply chains, sales channels and electronic markets.

DOCUMENT AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TO THE POWER OF XML Since the invention of the personal computer at the beginning of the 1980s, there has been steady growth in the number of documents being produced, edited, sent, received, stored, managed and distributed by the average corporation every day. The notion of the paperless office has failed. We actually seem to be working in smaller offices with more paper piling on our desks than ever before. To solve all this, document and knowledge man53

The XML Shockwave

agement companies have successfully sold applications and technologies to large corporations. All these systems are a phenomenal improvement over the traditional physical filing systems, or the online file systems that are delivered with any operating system. However, this is just about to be turned on its head by XML as well. None of the systems in the market today are based on the notion of self-describing data. On the contrary, these systems differentiate their capabilities by keeping the internal tagging and storage formats a

Combating AIDS The Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS) started in 1988. SHCS scientists began long-term studies of HIV patients in Switzerland. Their goal was to learn more about the progression and spread of AIDS. So far, a total of about 10,000 HIV patients in hospitals and clinics in Basel, Berne, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, St. Gallen and Zurich have taken part in the study. The patients’ case history, clinical and sociological data and laboratory test results are assessed, rendered anonymous and stored in a central SQL database in Lausanne. Integrating all this patient information, particularly regarding treatment, proved to be quite difficult at first. In 1998, an XML-based solution was developed. “What convinced us about XML more than anything else was its potentially universal availability on the Web, its independence from any proprietary system and its document orientation. By this we also mean its good legibility and its suitability for preserving medical records,” explains Dr. Rolf Grütter, Head of the research division, Knowledge Media for Professional Communities (KMPC), at the Institute for Media and Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen. “We map and store the information in XML format in its original structure, so that it resembles a conventional patient file with a cover sheet and entries following every doctor’s visit,” comments Dr. Walter Fierz, Head of the Immunology Division at the Institute for Clinical Microbiology and Immunology of the canton of St. Gallen.

54

XML-based Web applications

secret. This is done to force customers to buy filters and conversion programs to enable the exchange of information. Even mighty Microsoft will have to radically rethink its file system and application architecture to support XML. As XML gains momentum, Microsoft and the knowledge and document management companies will have to open up their systems to allow XML data to flow freely between the systems of heterogeneous companies. This is a boon for users and is also good for the industry. Just imagine the state of the telecommunications industry if every telecom provider would have its own private transmission format. Opinion: “XML is a very significant standard that has been emerging on the Internet for a number of years now, and it seems to have really reached a critical point. We’ve been in the business of information for 150 years, and always tried to adopt the latest technology, and XML is exactly that.” Dr. Nic Fulton Leader of XML design and architecture at Reuters

Opinion: “Every time a closed system opens, it begins to interact more directly with other existing systems and therefore acquires all the value of these systems.” Kevin Kelly Executive Editor of Wired

DATA WAREHOUSING TO THE POWER OF XML Data warehousing has been around for less than a decade. It is the process of extracting information from operational data stores to put the extracted and cleaned-up information into intermediate data stores. These so-called data warehouses or data marts are made available to decision makers to derive historical business information. 55

The XML Shockwave

The reason why companies implement data warehouses is twofold: 1.

To offload the complex query processing from the transaction systems for optimal performance.

2.

To provide better and more timely reports based on information from multiple data sources to decision makers.

The past decade has shown, however, that data warehouse projects are tremendously cumbersome and expensive because of the incompatibility of the historical database infrastructures. This is due to the fact that, in the past 40 years, database manufacturers have done as much as possible to differentiate their systems based on performance and functionality, all at the expense of standardization of query interfaces and meta data. This is about to change. As XML becomes the most significant standard for storing, publishing and exchanging information for electronic business applications, existing data warehouse companies will move aggressively to transform the historical information into XML format. They will do this to take advantage of the instant publishing capabilities of this standard. With electronic business, the amount of operational data will drastically increase. Data collected from transactions by far exceeds the capacity of today’s hard disks. In fact it is data warehousing which is the motivation for the release of ever-larger hard disks. Electronic business operational data in particular is a prime candidate for XML. This data will fill massive XML-based database systems and will require very efficient database management systems to store and manage this information. Single Sentence Summary XML will facilitate massive data warehouses leading to new insights and understanding.

56

XML-based Web applications

A source of knowledge Let us extrapolate from the previous example. The health system today has one of the most archaic data exchange and storage systems in existence. Most patient records are kept on paper, stored in old-fashioned registries, and exchanged between health institutions by mail or courier. In the USA, around 30 billion transactions are processed each year in the healthcare industry, but only ten percent are processed electronically. The cost for manual processing is approximately $10 per transaction while the cost of an electronic transaction is approximately $0.50. Apart from the waste of money, the medical community also loses a valuable source of knowledge. For a moment just consider the advantages of having patient data available in XML. What an opportunity for data mining, what a source of knowledge for better treatments, what a possibility to monitor success of medication, and so on. Some institutions, like the one in St. Gallen, that specialize in a narrow range of treatments already do exactly that. They warehouse any data about patient history and treatments. By running statistical analysis across the data, they are able to learn from experience and to improve results. The good news: the health industry has jumped on the XML bandwagon with the Health Level (HL7) standard and other XML-based developments. The emerging HL7 Patient Record Architecture (PRA) standard for encoding of patient record documents aims to provide a vendor-neutral, platform-independent means of exchanging clinical healthcare information from a wide variety of sources. But an integrated and networked health system is still a long way off.

57

The XML Shockwave

CONTENT PRESENTATION TO THE POWER OF XML By default, XML does not care about presentation. XML, as we noted above, describes the meaning of documents but not how they look. As a result, XML business data can be presented in any form imaginable:

◗

Multimedia. If you think the Web is all song and dance, you might just be right. In a few years we will have wide bandwidth Internet connections in our homes that can deliver rich multimedia content. What today is already possible within companies by using fast Ethernet LANs will be available to a large number of Internet users in the not so far future. The Internet will then possibly become the one and only TV channel you will need: just specify your favorite topics and enjoy. No need to “zap” through all of the channels. In contrast to the “one fits all” policy of current TV channels, future multimedia content will be highly personalized. Again, the technology to facilitate this will be based on XML. For example, the W3Cs Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) – pronounced ‘smile’ – is an XML-based markup language for multimedia presentation. SMIL can combine multimedia components from different sources, like video and audio clips, text and images, into interactive shows. Supported by industry leaders such as RealNetworks and Microsoft, SMIL could change the way we watch our news, see advertisements, or obtain training. Just imagine what SMIL could do for your business. SMIL makes it possible to generate on-the-fly customer-specific, compelling multimedia shows from dry text information, such as a product catalog, to create a personalized version of a news show, to produce highly targeted Web advertisement, or to deliver training with the personal attention of a private tutor.

58

XML-based Web applications

◗

Graphics. Another emerging W3C standard is scalable vector graphics (SVG). SVG optimizes the delivery of business graphics and other drawings over the Web. Traditionally, graphics on the Web have been represented as pixel-based images in formats such as GIF and JPEG. While pixel images are great for photographs and other halftone images, they are less than optimal for drawings. Enlarging a pixel-based image results in a grainy and fuzzy picture. Often it is impossible to read annotations and other text contained in the drawing. Scalable vector graphics work differently: they describe a drawing in terms of lines and fills instead of pixels. This makes it possible to enlarge a picture to any size and not lose picture quality. All drawing and CAD/CAM tools use scalable vector graphics. This is where the trouble begins. What has developed over time is an incredible chaos of proprietary vector-graphic file formats: each manufacturer has created its own. The W3C has now addressed this situation with the new SVG file format, which defines a common vector graphics format for the Web. Because future browsers will be SVG-enabled, SVG will quickly be adopted by content providers. SVG is of course based on XML. An SVG file is an XML document where each document element describes a line, a fill, a text, etc. This allows the easy creation of an SVG file.

◗

Print media. Despite the omnipresence of Web information services, printed media will remain important. Printed paper is actually great stuff (as Gutenberg found out). You don’t have to boot it when you want to read it, it does not need batteries, and it will outperform almost any other display technology in terms of readability for many years. It is so good that Xerox is working to develop electronic paper.

59

The XML Shockwave

The printing industry has used PostScript as a page description language for nearly a decade. During this time, it has become a de facto industry standard for the whole production chain within the printing business. Prior to PostScript there were proprietary systems and, before this, hot metal letters. Currently, the printing industry is going through a transition. The Portable Document Format (PDF) has been used during the last decade to format documents for the computer screen (and display them with Adobe Acrobat Reader) and to print out downloaded documents. Now PDF is about to replace PostScript in the printing industry and is becoming a standard format for print layout, whether for computer screen, desktop printer, or offset and rotary printing.

Web HTML / XHTML

/J

av a

SQL

XM

XS

L

Lm

ap

pin

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Codasyl XMLmapping ng

L

XS

XML Enterprise Data

Mobile WAP

Print Media PDF

Multimedia SMIL

a / Jav

a av

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Lm XM

XSL

Other

XSL / PDF converter XS L/ Ja va

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Vector Graphics SVG

Speech VoiceXML

XML business data can be presented in many different formats with the conversion controlled by XSL style sheets and/or Java. For interactive applications server-side Java is used to process user inputs. By using XML mapping techniques, legacy data can be integrated into a Web- and XML based solution. 60

XML-based Web applications

In the long-term, XML-based markup languages may take this role, but not yet. Fortunately it is not difficult to convert XML into PDF. Such converters are available on the Web. This allows the generation of appealing PDF documents from XML business data, either for download over the Web or for mass printing. XML is not only used to describe content but also as a base technology for numerous information presentation standards. This is a big advantage because it makes the sophisticated presentation of content easy and flexible. Because XML can describe the meaning of data, business data can be stored in a presentationneutral format and can then be converted to a specific presentation format, such as HTML, vector graphics, multimedia or speech. This conversion is carried out by XML style sheets, which are written in the XML style sheet language XSL. Style sheets can be applied to single XML documents, to a whole product catalog, or even to a whole Web site. One style sheet can define how the product catalog is presented on Web pages, while another can define how it is translated into multimedia shows, and another how it will appear in print.

Supply chain integration At Mädler, a German manufacturer of machinery parts, supply chain integration has become reality with XML. Product descriptions are stored in XML and can be displayed in both German or French simply by switching XSL style sheets. Suppliers’ product catalogs are seamlessly integrated into Mädler’s catalog via XML. When a supplier changes the details of a product description, the changes are automatically reflected in Mädler’s catalog. Stock quantities are readily accessed from Mädler’s ERP system and intelligent shopping carts are able to predict delivery time from the catalog entries. As an extra service to the customer, CAD drawings of products can be imported into the customer’s CAD system directly from the Web page. 61

The XML Shockwave

Because business data is stored in a representation-neutral way, it can be easily reused, for example, on the Web site of a business partner, matching the look and feel of the partner’s Web site. This is just a matter of applying the appropriate style sheet.

Single Sentence Summary Like a chameleon, an XML document can adopt many different presentation styles.

MOBILE COMPUTING TO THE POWER OF XML By now you probably realize that you can do almost anything with XML. But if you think that XML is the kind of thing you can take with you on a horseback ride or to a tennis game, you are mistaken. That is WAP. While the industry has in the past competed to deliver the smallest mobile phone possible, the trend seems now to be reversing. The new challenge is to deliver the largest possible screen while keeping the unit size within reasonable limits. The reason for this change of mind is WAP. The Wireless Application Protocol enables you to use a mobile phone to surf the Web. Perhaps we should actually use the term “mobile devices.” WAP is not restricted to mobile phones but can also be used on personal digital assistants (PDAs), palmtop computers, car radios, clothing, etc. Here are a few scenarios for WAP: ◗

In a taxi to the airport, you rearrange your travel itinerary by using the airline’s WAP service.

◗

Sitting in a gourmet restaurant (and despite your otherwise excellent manners) you use your WAP-enabled phone to order a pizza for delivery at home.

62

XML-based Web applications

◗

From your WAP-enabled bicycle, you start the remote-controlled oven in your kitchen. The roast will be ready when you get home. Hopefully you won’t get a flat on the way.

◗

You are a journalist sitting in a Kasbah somewhere in the Near East. With your mobile phone, you query your company’s database to determine what year Saddam Hussein came to power.

◗

From your favorite restaurant in Bali, you do all your financial transactions with your bank back home. Then you sit back and have another papaya juice: you can stay for another month.

Paying with your mobile phone Increasingly, the mobile phone is turning into a payment device: ◗

Paying by dialing a number. In Helsinki, Finland, drivers can pay for a car wash with their mobile phone. They just dial a number and the price for the car wash is charged to their telephone bill. A similar system is used at Helsinki Airport to pay for soft drinks at a vending machine.

◗

Paying with a virtual credit card. Developed by Trintech, this technology enables customers to use a virtual credit card to pay at online shops. Mobile phone payment can be activated by voice. Just say “Pay.”

As the last example shows, mobile phones are not only popular in industrial countries but also in ◗ Developed by Bull, intelligent SIM developing countries. In some card technology allows reloading of cash cards at any time with a countries, wireless networks have two-slot mobile phone. One slot a higher coverage than wire holds the SIM card, the other the bound services. It is much easier cash card. A call to your bank will to set up transmitters than to inreload the cash card. stall miles and miles of cable. The widespread installation of cellular transmitters throughout the world was one of the main reasons why Iridium went “belly up” and left 74 useless satellites in orbit: Iridium’s expensive satellite mobile phone system didn’t find enough of an audience. 63

The XML Shockwave

Faster communication networks and consolidated industry standards will soon make WAP just as popular as the mobile phone. WAP is here to stay. In some countries it could become the dominant means of accessing the Internet. One of the problems that WAP had to solve was how to present Web pages on the screen of a mobile phone. These screens are small, with low resolution, and usually only monochrome. Standard Web sites, in contrast, can rely on the display capabilities of a desktop computer WAP solved this problem by introducing a new markup language. WML, the Wireless Markup Language, is used as a page description language for WAP-enabled devices. You probably have already guessed that: WML is based on XML. Conceptually, WML owes a lot to HyperCard, an early hypermedia system that was introduced with the first Apple Mac, nicknamed Tombstone. The Tombstone also had a small screen. By the way, that name just gave us an idea for a new and innovative WAP application… WML is not compatible with HTML, the Web’s dominant markup language. This means that, by default, you cannot surf normal Web pages with a mobile phone, and you cannot surf WAP content with a standard HTML browser. WAP service providers are aiming to provide smart proxies – WAP gateways that automatically convert HTML Internet pages into WML. But because the two systems are so different (high-resolution images, animations, and any type of dynamic content such as JavaScript or Java applets cannot be converted), the result will be anything but elegant. So, enterprises that plan to tap into the m-business market will offer dedicated WML content for WAP devices. Companies that already use XML as data format for their Web content will have an edge. Instead of manually creating WML pages along with existing HTML pages, they can use XSL style sheets and Java to generate both formats (WML and 64

XML-based Web applications

HTML) from XML documents. This is possible because XML is presentation-neutral and describes the meaning of document elements. According to the International Data Corporations (IDC), the number of WAP-enabled mobile phones will reach 30 million units in Western Europe by 2003, compared to about 90 million stationary Internet users. Competition on the WAP market will be fierce. Service providers, hardware manufacturers and content providers will battle for a very lucrative market. After the experiences with Internet and Web, a similar dynamism will develop on the WAP market: new industry giants will rise, novel business models will be created and fortunes will be made. WAP is a fat new deal. The improvements in bandwidth, processing power and display technology will allow further sophistication of mobile devices. Moore’s law pos-

Bandwidth for mobile communications 2000 kbps (UTMS) 1000 115 kbps (GPRS)

100 10

9,6 kbps

1999

2000

2001

2002

While the current data transfer rate of 9.6 kilobytes per second (kbps) for mobile phones is rather slow, new standards for much higher transmission volumes will be available very soon: GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) will allow 115 kbps — offering a similar bandwidth as current stationary ISDN connections (64-128 kbps). The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UTMS) with a bandwidth of approximately 2000 kbps is planned for 2002. 65

tulates that every 18 months the processing power of computers doubles. This law applies also to mobile devices. Mobile devices will become more and more powerful. The effect on WAP is that this technology will mature and that it will integrate better with the rest of the Internet. This is supported by the fact that WML standardization has passed from the WAP forum to the W3C. The goal here is to integrate WML with the new HTML standard, XHTML.

WAP for the logistics industry Hamburg-based Logistics Offer and Order Net (LOON) is an electronic marketplace for the logistics industry, connecting logistic enterprises with each other and with their customers. LOON allows customers to trace dispatched goods over the Internet. Because LOON is based on XML and WAP it also can connect the truck driver to the network using a standard mobile phone. Dispatched goods can be entered into the system as soon as they are picked up. Delays can be entered immediately by the driver, enabling the system to rearrange schedules.

Nevertheless, WAP has been quickly adopted by users, especially in the business-to-business area and for wireless intranets. Companies are discovering the possibilities of WAP for the mobile workforce: salespeople, drivers, repairmen, couriers, etc. can use a mobile phone to access the company’s information infrastructure. A standard WAP phone can do the same job as a complex and expensive solution consisting of mobile phone, modem and notebook computer and/or custom-built communications hardware. And because the system can deliver the exact geographic position of the user, it enables much better operational planning. Eventually, every phone will become a Web browser. One of the recent activities of the W3C is the standardization of VoiceXML. The major goal of VoiceXML is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and content delivery to interactive voice response applications. This means that you can use a POTS-device (Plain Old Telephone System) to surf the Web, but not with dual-tone dialing, just with your voice. Apart from the

fact that this is a great solution for visually impaired people or workers that need their hands free, VoiceXML will open the Internet to anyone with access to a phone. Voice-recognition technology is poised for application in voice-controlled browsers. Again, because voice is a very different medium than the screen, the format of voice “Web pages” will be very different. Everything must be represented as spoken text or sound. VoiceXML allows “Web pages” to be operated both in a server-driven mode (“Say ONE if you want to go to support, TWO if you want to go to sales”), and in a user-driven mode where the system can react to commands issued by the user. Typically, a Voice Browser would be operated by a service provider – the content provider delivers in VoiceXML format. Because VoiceXML technology does not require new devices for the end-user, its introduction will be much subtler than that of WAP. Again, companies who use XML as a format for their business data have an advantage here: using XSL style sheets and Java, VoiceXML pages can easily be generated from existing XML documents.

Single Sentence Summary XML will become the base technology for mobile connectivity.

The XML Shockwave

XML TECHNOLOGY The more things change, the more they stay the same. As with other information technology standards, XML is breeding a new generation of application engineering tools, application integration technology and database management systems. The biggest change will occur in the area of database management systems.

Single Sentence Summary XML is breeding a completely new generation of tools, middleware and DBMSs that will co-exist with today’s transaction and SQL-based systems.

XML DATABASES The adoption of XML database technology will follow a path similar to the adoption of SQL databases in the early 1980s. The new technology did not replace the existing transaction systems on the mainframe, but established a new, separate growth market for SQL databases next to the transaction systems. SQL is now the de facto DBMS standard for distributed applications and will continue to drive classic applications for the next few decades. XML will drive a new database standard adding the capabilities of content management and information publishing in addition to information storage, transaction processing, error recovery and decision support. Industry analysts agree that the new XML database world will co-exist with the SQL and transaction-processing world.

68

XML technology

XML is having a major impact on the vendors of SQL databases, as more and more customers are demanding they comply with this much more open and easy to use XML standard. SQL vendors, as well as other database makers such as network or object databases, will have to completely re-engineer their kernel or build a completely new system to store, retrieve and manage XML information natively and with high performance. This high level of engineering effort is due to the fact that XML and the Web by nature require a hierarchical view of information that is notoriously difficult to map into traditional database systems. To give you an overview of what is available, we’ll broadly classify DBMS technologies into two categories: native implementations and mapped implementations.

<customer>

...

... ...

SQL

customer

XML

customer

SQL

SQL

customer_address customer_account

SQL

customer_contacts

Native storage vs. relational storage: relational database management systems require complex documents to be split into simpler parts. Maintaining the document structure requires additional logic. 69

The XML Shockwave Native XML Databases

At print time, only one vendor, Software AG, delivers a completely new, native implementation of an XML database called Tamino. The product features two main components, one for the storage of Internet information, and the other for the access of remote enterprise data. Please refer to Software AG’s Web Site (www.softwareag.com) for up-to-date information on the product. Mapped XML Databases

Several players have announced or released XML-enabled versions of their relational or object-oriented DBMS products. All of these products feature a kernel architecture that is not optimized for XML queries and information retrieval. The fragmented way in which relational database management systems (RDBMS) and object database management systems (ODBMS) store complex data structures can lead to performance problems. While these database systems will offer some XML storage and retrieval capabilities, they must also remain compatible with existing customer applications. This will slow down the pace of XML innovation in these systems. For optimal performance, a native implementation is the only acceptable approach in the XML database arena. First benchmarks show that native XML databases perform about one order of a magnitude faster than mapped XML databases.

XML APPLICATION ENGINEERING XML will enable completely new types of applications to be built: applications based on the concept of self-describing data. Before XML, every application programmer had to make assumptions about the data types that were supported and the kind of database to be used for deployment of 70

XML technology

the application. The incompatibility of storage formats, programming interfaces and server programming extensions of the target DBMS forced the programmer to write multiple data access modules that were hard to produce and even harder to maintain. DBMS vendors continued to differentiate their products with proprietary server extensions that allow storage of multi-media data, which has further complicated the life of application programmers. Traditional applications that are based on transactional database technology are function oriented. Applications implement single business functions, each business function mapped to a database transaction. The orchestration of business functions into organic business processes is left to the human operator or to special application integration software. XML will certainly have an impact on the architecture of enterprise application. Because XML facilitates the storage and exchange of complex data, enterprise information architectures will become process oriented instead of function oriented. XML will thus revolutionize application engineering. Based on the broad set of XML definitions and standards, programmers will have access to a growing library of application software components to build their applications. In fact, the idea of monolithic applications may vanish altogether and make room for architectures with components that are easily rearranged to form new processes. With XML, programmers can now define Internet applications based on market standards and will be able to choose from a broad range of database systems that need to comply with this new standard. Several dozen vendors have announced XML-based tools and application engineering products based on XML.

71

The XML Shockwave

XML APPLICATION INTEGRATION Application integration has been a booming business since the late 1990s due to the explosive adoption of packaged applications in enterprises worldwide. As these enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems were deployed, it quickly became clear that there were massive integration gaps between the new and the old application environments. These gaps needed to be filled with connectivity products, often referred to as middleware or enterprise application integration products. XML will also completely turn this area upside down. Prior to the XML Shockwave, application integration vendors were building messaging and connectivity systems based on proprietary internal message formats. This was good for vendors, but bad for customers, as the applications built at the customer site had to comply with the proprietary programming interfaces. This situation has been improving since the mid 1990s when so-called component standards like CORBA, COM, and EJB evolved in the labs of

Over the years, General Motors has accumulated some 8,500 legacy systems to run its operations, accessing 110 terabytes of data. A large percentage of those applications cannot share or exchange information, requiring specialized knowledge to interpret the data. General Motors plans to change this situation by building an XML-based application architecture framework, allowing Web applications to share information from previously incompatible sources. By using XML to gain access to its enterprise information, GM will be able to move aggressively into e-commerce without having to scrap its huge investment in legacy systems. “XML is like legacy system insurance. Extracting data from legacy systems and transforming it into XML is a sound strategy for any company wanting to integrate their key information assets into their e-business.” says Dennis Walsh, CTO of General Motor’s OnStar division. 72

XML technology

Microsoft, IBM, Sun and others. While these standards aid the integration of applications, they do not enable the description of content and structure of the information being exchanged between the applications. This has led to a massive installed base of legacy programs that had to be written to define the content and flow of information exchange. To clean up this situation, users that understand the power of XML can team up to define their own, XML-based data interchange formats. Application integration vendors that do not support XML internally and at the interface level will quickly be left behind in this rapidly evolving market. We also recommend being extremely careful with systems that promise to deliver pre-packaged adapters for moving information between enterprise applications. Unless these adapters are based on XML and the vendor delivers a flexible toolkit and powerful consulting resources, you are in for a rude awakening. For more information on the new breed of XML-based application integration, please consult one of the XML resource pages below.

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The XML Shockwave

FREQUENTLY ASKED CEO QUESTIONS

Q: DOES XML

BELONG TO ANYONE ?

No. XML is an open standard driven by members of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is so open and flexible that anyone can build his or her own markup language in a matter of days or months.

Q: WHICH

INDUSTRY INTERESTS ARE DRIVING

XML?

Both software companies and end-users are driving XML. General Motors and software companies like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Data Channel, WebMethods and Software AG are among the hundreds of companies building technology for XML.

Q: IS XML

A PASSING FAD OR A LASTING STANDARD ?

Since XML was designed with extensibility in mind, it will evolve rather than become extinct. This is a similar question to: “Will the English language die out?”

74

Frequently asked CEO questions Q: D O I

HAVE TO CHANGE ALL OF MY

IT

SYSTEMS TO

XML

NOW ?

Thank goodness the answer is no. XML is the standard for communication on the Web. All of your existing systems can stay in place. Be aware, however, that you will need XML tools to build new applications or to transform your existing applications. In addition, you will need an XML data repository, or XML database that runs in parallel with your decision support and transaction systems to manage your Web pages and multimedia information. Be sure to ask your IT vendors to explain their XML strategy before you invest in further information technology. If they say it is too early for XML, let them read this book.

Q: W HAT

ARE THE BOTTOM - LINE BENEFITS OF MOVING MY COMPANY TO

XML?

The three main benefits are: 1.

Building on a standard that will let you store, publish and exchange your information independent from any one software or hardware manufacturer, i.e. freedom of choice.

2.

Gaining the ability to use XML component technology that will be written specifically for your industry, e.g. health care, financial services.

3.

Gaining the ability to finally manage any data in your enterprise in an open, standards-based way that can be driven by your needs, as opposed to being driven by your IT vendor of choice.

75

The XML Shockwave Q: WHERE

CAN

I

BUY

XML

APPLICATIONS?

ative software vendors are promising XML solutions, and a few s can already deliver. At this point, there are a variety of XML ies that allow you to start building your own applications. Don’t he application vendors that have missed the boat. If the Web is to you, and you want a head start on your competitors in the get started with XML right away. See XML portals such as GOM or XML.COM for more information about XML technologies cations.

Q: WHAT

ARE THE RISKS OF

XML?

vendor-neutral specification. Therefore, there is no risk inherent ther that it might be made obsolete by something better. There is nothing better on the horizon, nor is there any one company that ack this standard in the age of communities and open cation. The main risk is that your company’s IT will not be ready gh. If you stick with the existing technology like SQL and EDI ng, your competitors, who will use the smarter, faster and more L systems for storing, publishing and exchanging information, a cost and innovation advantage over you.

76

Do you need XML?

DO YOU NEED XML?

By now you should have a reasonable idea of what XML can mean. If you think you need more background information on XML, we suggest you take some time out to visit one of the XML reference sites mentioned in the appendix or skim over the glossary to become more familiar with some of the terminology used. If you feel you know enough about XML for now, we invite you to complete the following survey to find out if you require an XML solution for your company. Please copy the following pages and give them to some of your associates such as the CFO, CIO, Marketing VP, Sales Director, Counsel, etc. for completion.

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The XML Shockwave

XML SURVEY No Information is a strategic weapon for our enterprise. We must target our customers with one-on-one content. Customers are interested in information stored in more than one corporate database. We have a complex supply chain that needs to be better integrated. We are using EDI and are finding it expensive and cumbersome. We have a catalog of product information that needs to go online. Customers and partners need to perform complex searches of our information. Multimedia data is becoming more and more critical to us. We have a legal liability to store electronic documents for a long time and we need to make sure the data can be easily transferred to future storage media and systems. We have multiple DBMSs installed and need a single information view. We would like to use the Web more strategically to simplify our internal communications. Our competitors are installing digital asset management systems to derive more revenue from digital media. We would like to take advantage of industry-specific standards for data display and data integration. We would like to build an information architecture that is vendorindependent. We prefer to define a standard for our information format that most industry leading software can support.

78

Some

Yes

Do you need XML?

We have decided to minimize the purchase of proprietary database technologies. We need to restructure our operations to become more internationally connected to partners. We cannot afford to throw away our investment in information technology and need an open integration standard for all information. We are affected by international standards for information exchange. We need to reach a broader set of audiences that will use new devices such as mobile phones and electronic books to stay informed.

Sum

0

u5

u10

=

150 to 200 Points

You have probably moved to XML already.

100 to 150 points

Overdue for an XML strategy. Start a pilot project right now.

50 to 100

Take a deep look at XML. Start a pilot project.

0 to 50 points

You don’t need XML right now but repeat this questionnaire in three months.

79

The XML Shockwave

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF HYPE Data Type Definition (DTD)

A Data Type Definition is a schema formally describing the vocabulary and structure of XML document classes. This allows any XML application to interpret the structure and content of the XML information it is about to process. The new XML Schema language extends the power of DTDs by making XML not only the choice for documents but also for enterprise data. Digital Asset Management

A buzzword describing the activity of a corporate organization to catalog and structure all data that might be licensed to a customer. Examples of digital assets include pictures for news agencies, sound and video for media agencies, fingerprints for security agencies etc. XML is a perfect match for building digital asset management systems since it can describe the content and meaning of any information, whether it is stored in online, near-line or offline filing systems. eXtensible Style Language (XSL)

See ➞Style Sheet. HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

HTML is the format for hypertext documents on the Web. An application of SGML, HTML embeds tags into text to specify presentation properties and links to other information items. HTML is a recommendation of the ➞W3C. 80

Appendix Schema

See ➞Data Type Definition. Search Engine

The capability of Web sites such as Yahoo.com or Lycos.com that allows you to look for information by typing in a search expression such as “XML.” You complete the entry, press Enter, and (hopefully) get a listing of Web sites that contain more information on the subject. What people really need are not “search” engines but “find” engines. XML will enable such “find” engines that deliver much more accurate results than current search engine technology. Structured Query Language (SQL)

Based on research in the early 1980s, the Structured Query Language has become the de facto standard for accessing tabular information stored in so-called relational database management systems. SQL works fine for normal data, but has very limited capabilities to describe the pointers, hierarchies and relationships needed for text-based Internet data management. XML has a query language component called ➞XML Query Language (XQL) that will most likely replace SQL as the key standard for electronic business. Style Sheet

An XML term describing the capability within the XML standard to associate a look and feel definition with any information element. Defined with the eXtensible Style Language (XSL), XML Style sheets will radically simplify the formatting of information for any output device. W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium is a non-profit-organization responsible for the development of standards (recommendations) for the World 81

The XML Shockwave

Wide Web. The W3C is hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) in the USA, INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique) in Europe, and the Keio University in Japan. It is supported by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the USA and the European Commission. Web Page

A page of information belonging to a ➞Web Site. Each page has its own Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address. Web Site

An information repository or server connected to the Internet that has a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) ending in one of the common domain names such as .COM, .ORG, .EDU, .GOV etc. Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Wireless Markup Language (WML)

The Wireless Access Protocol enables mobile phones to act as Web browsers. The Wireless Markup Language WML is based on XML and facilitates the re-formatting of information to fit the limited screens and capabilities of mobile phones. A typical WAPlication consists of a subscriber and a content provider of flight information, stock information, directory access, Internet search capabilities, etc. XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language)

The eXtensible HyperText Markup Language will eventually replace ➞HTML. Implementing the functionality of HTML 4.0, XHTML is based on the syntactically more strict XML. XHTML will simplify browser and Web site development considerably, but is not backward compatible with HTML. In addition, XHTML will integrate also ➞WML. 82

Appendix XML Query Language (XQL)

The XML Query Language allows the formulation of queries against an XML data source such as an XML database. XQL has similar functionality to ➞ SQL but features special constructs to deal with complex documents.

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The XML Shockwave

APPENDIX B: ONLINE INFORMATION ABOUT XML There are numerous up-to-the-minute Web sites that provide excellent information on XML. Here are some: ◗

www.w3.org,

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www.xml.org,

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www.xml.com,

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www.oasis-open.org/cover/,

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wdvl.internet.com,

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www.go-xml.com.

If you need even more information, just search for “XML” using any major search engine. You will be swept away by the amount of information on products, companies and customers that are investing heavily in this new breakthrough standard for information storage, publishing and exchange.

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Appendix

APPENDIX C: BIBLIOGRAPHY If you think the XML Shockwave will affect your business, we recommend the following excellent books on XML and electronic business:

The XML Handbook - 2nd Edition; Paul Prescod, Charles F. Goldfarb; Prentice Hall 1999; ISBN 0130147141 XML by Example: Building E-Commerce Applications (Charles F. Goldfarb Series on Open Information Management); Sean McGrath; Prentice Hall Computer Books 1998; ISBN 0139601627 Designing XML Internet Applications (Charles F. Goldfarb Series); Michael Leventhal, et al; Prentice Hall Computer Books 1998 ; ISBN 0136168221 Building Corporate Portals With XML; Clive Finkelstein, et al; Computing McGrawHill 1999; ISBN 0079137059 Success with Electronic Business, Design, architecture and technology of electronic business systems; Berthold Daum, Markus Scheller; Addison-Wesley 2000; ISBN 0201-67482-3

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