XML usage gains momentum in Asia
Source: Asia Computer Weekly, April 2001
Jorina Choy, Apr 09 2001

In the industry’s quest for a common language for B2B commerce, XML has emerged as one of the more prominent and promising standards.
 
Activity surrounding XML is expected to continue to hot up this year, based on the enthusiasm of speakers and attendees for the technology at the recent XML Asia 2001 conference.
 
Asia’s XML User Group, XMLone.org, (see other story) was officially launched during the conference and marked the beginning of increased momentum of the XML movement in Singapore.
 
Keynote speakers expounded the advantages of XML and suggested how organisations can leverage XML to their advantage in their move towards e-business.
 
Wilson Tan, chairman of the Information Technolology Standards Committee in Singapore, said Zona Research predicted that the percentage of e-commerce transactions using XML would increase to 40% in 2003, up from 5% in early 2000.
 
“The rate of XML adoption is overtaking even those of mobile phones and HTML,” he said.
 
Frank Jung, product marketing manager, Software AG, touched on the work of the World Wide Web Consortium in determining XML standards, the latest effort being the proposed recommendation of the XML Schema 1.0 in March.
 
He also recommended that companies form an XML strategy soon, understand where XML will impact their IT infrastructure, train company staff in XML, and implement a XML-based e-business as soon as possible.
 
Doug Hopeman, spokesperson from US-based XML Solutions, added that a company should also take into consideration its data and document exchange history before deciding on the most suitable XML flavour to adopt.
 
In the Internet space, XML, together with Java, forms the foundation for smart Web services, according to Ed Julson, marketing manager, XML Technologies, Sun Micro-systems.
 
Smart Web services are context-aware, multi-net, customisable to user experience, and have open standards.
 
They can be categorised into management, delivery, policy and process services.
 
“What is unique about Web services is that XML data goes in and XML data comes out and Java accelerates the information request and retrieval process,” said Julson.

Back