Re: XML and AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

William:
I have been involved in EDI for 15 years and am a Harbinger business
partner.  In 1997 EDIFACT was the data interchange standard that was going
to be the "savoir standard" of the world......., it never happened.  I am
waiting on the sidelines for XML, if Harbinger is pushing its customers to
XML by the end of 2000, they will have an up hill push.  Customers drive the
standards used for EDI, I'm not talking about my customers, I'm talking
about my customer's customers.  As a vendor, tell Sears you will be using
XML by 2001, they will laugh at you, and I can site a zillion more like
that.  In the auto industry, proprietary standards were (and still are used)
in many cases, the government (even with it's big EDI standards push), still
prefers many proprietary standards in the shipping industry (ie CAMIRE).
What benefit is there if you have 100 trading partners using EDI to switch
to a new "standard".  What is the business case to switch?  Is one standard
better than another?  Will there be a better XML next year?  XML may be the
greatest thing since sliced bread, but I don't see many in any major EDI
hub/spoke networks dumping X.12 for XML.  Actually I'd like to see that,
there we could redo all the EDI systems we have installed over the last 10
years.

Someone mentioned that the X.12 standards are not very standard... well that
is not so.  (There is a joke in the EDI community that the best thing about
standards is that there are so many to choose from).  Different companies
IMPLEMENT EDI standards differently because their applications systems and
business are different.  Take for example a simple PO.  One customer may
send you a single PO ordering 5 widgets, and the detail level of the
document tell you to ship 1 widget to 5 different locations.  Another
customer may send you 5 different POs to accomplish the same thing.  Forget
the EDI, what is different here, the application.  If you received 1 PO from
vendor 1 and 5 POs from vendor 2 without using EDI, would you say they their
paper POs are flawed???  Companies implement EDI differently because they do
business differently.  The EDI standards merely try to reflect the various
ways companies CAN do business electronically with all their flexibility.
It is NOT the standards fault, it is just easier to blame EDI and the
standards than it is to blame your customer or poor design of your
application systems.
Just my opinions of course!
cjg

Carl Galgano
EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
540 Powder Springs Street
Suite C19
Marietta, GA  30064
770-422-2995
mailto: cgalgano@ediconsulting.com
http://www.ediconsulting.com
EDI, Communications and AS400 Technical Consulting

>Harbinger (formerly Premenos) is one of the leading AS/400 EDI solutions
>provider.  They are fully committed to XML to the extent that they are
>reworking their entire product line to be XML-compliant and asking their
>customers to move in this direction before the end of the year 2000.  Say
>what you will about their "forcing" their customers down a path they might
>not what to go.  But Harbinger is basically betting their business on XML.
>By the way, I am not affiliated in any way with Harbinger.
>
>Like I say, I'm no expert and I hope my facts are accurate.  JMHO
>
>William K. Reger
>Senior Project Manager
>Levitz Furniture Corporation
>Phone:  (561) 994-5114
>E-mail:  breger@levitz.com <mailto:breger@levitz.com>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Schenck, Don [mailto:Don.Schenck@WL.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 7:17 AM
> To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
> Subject: RE: XML and AS/400
>
> Ignore XML.
>
> At your own risk.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stone, Brad V (TC) [mailto:bvstone@taylorcorp.com]
> Sent: February 02, 2000 1:55 PM
> To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
> Subject: RE: XML and AS/400
>
>
> Scott,
>
> You hit it dead on.  My thoughts exactly.  Throw in a
>buzzword or two, and
> it has to be something great.
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