Huggies and Towels
When reading last Friday's Line56 article on Kimberly-Clark's use of EDI and XML, I noticed two things.
First of all, it confirmed what I've always thought about XML and EDI - that it's a fallicy that companies simply want to "throw out" EDI. EDI systems were generally put in place for a reason, and generally speaking, they are efficient and useful. The problem is the 80% of customers and suppliers who never signed up for the service, because of cost and implementation time. XML and its related technologies aim to solve these problems, and bring the missing 80% into the fold. I used to work for an EDI Value-Added Network (VAN) [Eirtrade, in Ireland] and I sometimes think that specifications for secure and reliable XML transactions are largely about adding the "Value-Added" prefix from "Value-Added Network" to the Internet itself.
[ It's interesting to look at the Eirtrade website from 1997 in the Internet Wayback Machine - back then, Secure Electronic Messaging meant our private X.400 network, accessed over an X.25 dial-up link. Some customers wished to link X.400 and "Internet electronic mail", so we did that for them. X.400 email was seen as superior to SMTP email, because it had receipt and open notifications built in. Arguably, it still is. We used to send EDI documents - HL7, EDIFACT, etc - as X.435 attachments to X.400 emails, much like ebXML puts its data into SOAP attachments now. I used C++ and EDI APIs like Personal ISOTRADE, which included encryption and authentication, to write these EDI programs. ]
The second thing I noticed when reading the Line56 article was the banner advertisment on the right - SAP are giving away free beach towels!
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