Stephanie:
You have touched upon a highly subjective issue. There are those that
firmly believe XML will never take hold because there are too many
issues standing in the way of a clear industry direction. Likewise,
there are those that believe XML, because of its versatility, will
sooner or later send Traditional EDI to the boneyard. Finally, there
are the middle-of-the-road gangs that view XML as a viable option that
can function as an extension of EDI or else incorporate EDI within it.
It is too early to say in which direction e-Commerce will progress.
Thus, if you are looking for a quick and immediate answer, there isn't
any to be had. However, here in summary is what we know about the
extent of penetration of e-commerce so far:
There are four e-commerce scenarios that exist. Business-to-Business;
Business to Consumer; Business to Government; and Consumer to
Government.
Traditional EDI works best with Business to Business and Business To
Government Here is where trading partners representing both classes
have invested in EDI resources and maintain production-level e-commerce
activity via sending and receiving of transaction sets.
Traditional EDI works the poorest if being existant at all in all
consumer to business and consumer to government applications. EDI does
not reach down to the consumer level, and is very costly for small to
medium sized enterprises to implement.
Resources such as ForeSight and DynamicWeb Enterprises are two of the
sources I know about that have developed web-enabled EDI based on
traditional EDI but capable of being accessed by anybody with a Windows
95 computer. Both are presently developing XML interfaces but I am not
familiar with the work of either in this area.
For XML itself, I would recommend accessing this web site:
http://www.gca.org. Another (I think) is www.xmltoedi.com. This could
get you started on an action plan which will hopefully bring the best of
either system to your consideration.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
Bob Carper
> Stephanie Upton wrote:
>
> I am in need of some advice...We are currently using traditional EDI
> via GENTRAN:Director translation software and we have around 15 to 20
> trading partners. We have been told that updating our
> GENTRAN:Director software may be only a short term solution. We
> should be thinking XML for long term because traditional EDI is
> becoming obselete. I have done a lot of reading and I don't ever
> recall any information on traditional EDI becoming obselete. I have
> read numerous things about traditional EDI being used along side of
> other methods of EDI (XML & Web). I can't see how traditional EDI
> would just disappear. I must also say that all of our trading
> partners are still using traditional EDI.
>
> I would appreciate any infomation and advice about where you think EDI
> is going in the near and distant future and how your companies may be
> implementing other forms of EDI with traditional EDI. Any advice on
> my predicament would also be helpful :)
>
> Thanks in advance !!
>
> Stephanie Upton
> EDI Coordinator
> Design Ideas
> 217-753-3081 ext. 213
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