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January 1, 2001

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Innovators And Influencers 2001

Lots More Ahead For XML Co-Inventor

For Dave Hollander, XML development work keeps on coming

By Saroja Girishankar

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nnovators seem to breed higher expectations than the rest of us. For example, XML co-inventor Dave Hollander has barely finished work on the XML schemas that make E-commerce applications more accurate, reliable, and quicker to write, and already his plate for the new year looks full. There's key work to be done in the Name Space--an extension to XML that identifies elements critical to dynamic Internet commerce among thousands of business partners. Then comes the Herculean task of evangelizing and helping hundreds of software providers and vertical industry groups incorporate the schema recommendations published last month.

But Hollander keeps pushing the envelope in his personal and professional life. This summer as the Hollander family's annual camping trip adds the challenge of riding on horseback across the Rocky Mountain wilderness, he'll be riding hard on the XML Dave Hollander Photo by Ray Ng front as well. "I want XML to remove barriers, empower Internet businesses, and open new frontiers for E-commerce," he says. While his goals are lofty, Hollander and his team mostly work deep behind the scenes and without fanfare to get the job done. His world is akin to a research facility where a bunch of graduate students talk programming all day and create solutions at warp speed.

FAVORITE BOOK IN 2000:
"Memoir From Antproof Case," by Mark Helprin

FAVORITE SPORT :
Ice hockey

WANTS TO DO MORE:
Evangelizing XML schema

WANTS TO DO LESS:
Traveling (travels every week)

WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IN TWO YEARS:
Wireless E-mail

WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IN FIVE YEARS:
One-pound notebook computers

In 1993, when Hollander co-wrote the rich Extensible Markup Language, he wanted to simplify his life as the architect and custodian of HP.com--one of the first sites to publish product and marketing information. The work was based on an elegant and simple programming semantic and tool, Semantic Delivery Language, that Hollander worked on himself. Hollander co-developed XML with a dozen programmers, in particular John Bosak, the man responsible for Sun.com at Sun Microsystems.

Little did Hollander realize that the World Wide Web Consortium and its global membership of 486 companies and individuals would look to him and his co-workers to continue to invent XML into a full-fledged vehicle for E-commerce. As co-chairs of the World Wide Web Consortium's XML Coordination Group and Schema Working Group, Hollander and Michael Sperberg-McQueen have spent countless evenings and weekends shepherding the complex XML schema work. "Dave is consistently focused on solving real problems of users because he himself has been a user," says Sperberg-McQueen. Others agree. "He bridges the gap between standards zealots and the real world," says Randy Whiting, founder, past president, and CEO of CommerceNet and Hollander's one-time boss at HP.

Hollander is creating content solutions as chief technology officer at Contivo Inc., but he sees his real role as an evangelist for XML and the benefits it can offer E-commerce.