RE: [xml-dev] Edi complexity, does ebxml really reduce it?

["Dale Moberg" <dmoberg@cyclonecommerce.com>]

I guess there are different views of SME capabilities. Your SME seems to
have an application integration problem which tends to be a higher-end
SME to me.

One stereotypical SME is the seasonal christmas tree vender. This SME
has a PC and a dialup ISP and uses Excel/Star Office to keep track of
all orders. That is the SME who _might_ want a file export. [Often this
is the just above fax level supplier.] This will not a big ticket
software sale by the way.

Others might be happy just using the form and not even worry about
records to import, of any format. Individual customers are SMEs of this
sort (where b2b becomes indistinguishable from b2c).

Others might want some more exotic format, like whatever formats Great
Plains or Peachtree or whatever uses. These are higher end SMEs to me.
Then there are IDOC users. Then there are the folks with their own
database formats. And so on.

Notice I said "Probably"  This was just to gesture at a kind of solution
of interest to people who would not be ones with an IT staff willing to
build out internal integration points using their internal message bus/
EAI solution.

Getting SMEs off fax so that other businesses don't have to maintain
dual systems would be an interesting thing to do. I personally am
sceptical that anything in WS area or ebXML will do that. If there is a
way to do it, I think it would be forms based. What do you propose?


-----Original Message-----
From: Bryce K. Nielsen [mailto:bryce@sysonyx.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 10:53 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Edi complexity, does ebxml really reduce it?


>There was originally some hope that ebXML specifications
>could be used to produce a solution more attractive to
>small and medium sized businesses that would be less
>trouble to use. Probably this would require forms-based applications, 
>with options to save in desktop formats ( .txt, .xml, .csv, .xls, etc).
>

This is one approach I've never understood, and I've seen a few, EDI
applications "targeted" to SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises)
that require a user to key data into a form that spits out an EDI
document, like an 850 PO. Why on earth would an SME want to key in data
into yet another application just to produce an EDI document? If you
have an EDI system target to small businesses, then that system should
integrate with the applications of that SME and be able extract/import
the necessary EDI data. Otherwise, you're just making life even more
difficult for SMEs and giving them yet another reason to hate
computers...

Just my 2 cents...

Bryce K. Nielsen
SysOnyx, Inc. (www.sysonyx.com)
Makers of xmlLinguist, the EDI-to-XML Translator
http://www.sysonyx.com/products/xmllinguist


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