InformationWeek

November 24, 1997

XML Gets A Push

Vendors prepare tool announcements; language moves closer to standard

xtensible markup language, an emerging data format for structuring information on the Web and creating specialized markup languages, is expected to get nudged forward by several events in the next few weeks.

ArborText, Inso, and Microsoft are expected to announce XML tools in early December at SGL/ XML '97 in Washington. Also at the show, the World Wide Web Consortium is expected to put XML, which was introduced a year ago, on track to become a formal standard.

Early next year, Fed Center, a Web-based purchasing catalog for the federal government that handles about 50,000 transactions a day, will begin to use XML, says Richard Graveley, an executive VP of Digital Commerce Corp. in Reston, Va., which operates the site.

"It's definitely one of the technologies" that the federal government is exploring as it moves to condu ct all purchases electronically, says Graveley, who also heads the Northeast section of CommerceNet, a Palo Alto, Calif., consortium of vendors and users of electronic-commerce software and services.

Those developments should give a boost to the fledgling XML, which is a cousin of HTML. Both are descendants of standard generalized markup language (SGML), which has been around since the 1980s but never gained acceptance outside a handful of industries because it's complex and unwieldy. HTML and XML are much simpler, though they serve different purposes: HTML is used to display information, while XML is employed to construct more specialized markup languages.

Advantages Of XML

Simpler and easier to implement than SGML

Allows more information in each tag than HTML

Can be used by industries to establish common tags for exchan ging data

Will allow more useful Web searches by adding context to data
DATA: INFORMATIONWEEK, ARBORTEXT

For example, XML was a basis for Microsoft's Channel Definition Format and Netscape Communications' Meta-Content Format, two ways to receive and view content that is pushed to users. It was also used by Microsoft and Intuit to create a common data-transfer file format called Open Financial Exchange, so financial institutions can support transactions using personal finance software from both companies.

Tags Are Key
One of XML's attractions is that it offers infinitely more kinds of tags than HTML does, says P.G. Bartlett, VP of ArborText, in Ann Arbor, Mich. "It's HTML with any tags you want. If you want to make the Web more interoperable, the key is coming up with standard tags."

Vertical industries, for example, could define standard ways to describe product features on the Web. "The key benefit [of XML] we see for commerce is that we now ha ve the ability to exchange information as opposed to just text," says Patrick Gannon, CEO of Internet Shopping Directory Inc. in Incline Village, Nev. "By `information,' I mean there is context to the data."

Gannon is a leader of a CommerceNet group that is conducting a pilot that would enable searching across catalogs and is also evaluating an interface with EDI. "Information could be gathered and aggregated much easier when Web catalogs contain XML," he says.

But using XML's full potential would also require the widespread use of Web page labeling templates. A person using a general search engine to shop for, say, golf clubs, would find only sites that sell clubs rather than all those where the words are mentioned.

Widespread use of XML would also require browser support. Microsoft and Netscape are backing XML and, as it matures, are gradually incorporating support for its functions into their browsers.

Industries best positioned to take advantage of XML include the handful that delved into SGML-namely aerospace, semiconductors, and automobiles-because of the similarity of the languages.

Industry groups experimenting with XML have been quiet about their work, but Gannon says one or more should step forward in the next few weeks. Next year, he adds, "is going to be the year of demonstrations and pilots," and 1999 will be when companies start to roll out applications using XML.

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