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April 3, 2000

Adoption Of Standard Fuels Growth In XML Tools
Vendors add support for language to dozens of products to speed data exchange

By Charles Waltner

Related links:

sidebar: Questions Still Surround XML Specification Standards

The Rush To XML (1/3/00)

And from our sister publications:

InternetWeek BowStreet XML Wares Include Software, 'Factory" (3/13/00)

EETimes XML environment aids network code development (2/28/00)

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bout a year ago, Kathryn Peteani, a senior systems consultant at Wells Fargo & Co., wanted to use the Extensible Markup Language to manage data for an intranet application. However, the financial-services company's computing department had reservations because it knew little about XML and had heard even less about products for supporting the promising new Internet technology for data exchange.

That's because not many XML tools existed at the time and few vendors supported XML. Peteani finally found a data-management product with XML support from Excelon Corp. Still, the IT staff said she was on her own. "We were stepping out of the bounds of corporate support," she says.

That was the case just a year ago for most technology managers interested in using XML for Internet applications and data exchange. There was little support available, especially from software tool vendors.

A lot has changed in the past year. The World Wide Web Consortium, which oversees development standards for most Internet technologies, last year approved version 1.0 of the basic specifications for XML. While there are still many standards issues hanging over the data exchange language (see sidebar story, "Questions Still Surround XML Specification Standards"), the publication of the W3C standards jump-started the market. Most vendors now say their tools are XML-enabled, and dozens of products ranging from code editors to E-commerce engines are becoming XMLed.

The adoption of XML has been quick, thanks in part to the relative ease with which vendors can integrate the nimble technology. "XML is really a tiny technology," says Philip Russom, director of business intelligence for the Hurwitz Group. "Just about anyone can build a system to support XML."

Unlike other product categories, XML isn't a type of software; it's a technology that adds greater functionality to most kinds of products involved with data. Fundamentally, it's a data-exchange language that can be used to format and package any type of data, so it can easily be transferred between applications.

Russom says the addition of XML capabilities to a software product is similar to a database or database tool carrying open database connectivity drivers. Today, everything from Microsoft Word to Oracle databases to Lotus Domino servers is becoming XMLed.

The most important tools that make use of XML are the same types that were important for other document and data development, exchange, and management tasks. Those XML products fall into a few broad categories such as authoring, content management and storage, and transactions and E-commerce.

Some of the leading vendors of applications and servers for XML data transactions include Bluestone, Extricity, OnDisplay, and WebMethods. Content and data storage software vendors include companies such as Enigma, Flow Systems, Poet, and Vignette. XML authoring toolmakers include companies such as Exosoft and SoftQuad.

But these companies and product categories are just the beginning. "It's getting to the point that every tool is being XML-enabled," says Uttam Narsu, a senior industry analyst with Giga Information Group.

Narsu says the tools in the XML marketplace are still, for the most part, rough-hewn. That's partly why he says the XML marketplace still has a year to go before it hits its stride and enjoys strong growth.

Michael Radovanevich Photo by Gary Parker As a result, most developers still have to work around gaps in the XML tool supply. Michael Radovancevich, chief architect for Just in Time Solutions Inc. in San Francisco, an Internet billing and customer-care software vendor, uses XML extensively in his company's products. The company has gotten by for the most part by using its own XML tools. Radovancevich says most XML development products have been "flaky," much like any first generation of a new software technology.

"Anybody who is developing seriously in the AML arena is probably writing lots of their own tools," Radovancevich says. "But I think we're on the verge of getting XML to be a real thing with real support."

The driving forces behind the boom in XML-enabled tools include the growth of the Internet and a surge in business-to-business E-commerce. XML also is viewed as a promising replacement for electronic data interchange.

Dennis Freeman, senior director of product marketing for Harbinger Corp. in Atlanta, which has been facilitating the exchange of electronic data among trading partners since the mid-1980s, says XML offers several advantages over EDI--which has been most common data exchange language used by businesses.

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