RosettaNet, the Santa Ana, Calif., consortium specializing in XML standards for the IT, electronic components and semiconductor industries, is trumpeting the benefits of convergence around fewer standards.
To that end, RosettaNet officials on Tuesday unveiled a conceptual model depicting where the various XML-related efforts fit in relation to one another and where convergence is needed.
"For B2B e-business to become pervasive requires the availability of common vertical and horizontal business processes and supporting standards," said Jennifer Hamilton, CEO of RosettaNet.
But the proliferation of various initiatives and XML component standards has led "to some degree to mass confusion for end users," Hamilton said. It's also led to a delay in implementations, in some cases, or what Hamilton dubbed "analysis paralysis."
"Potentially that could slow down adoption moving forward," she said.
Overlapping efforts
For example, the ebXML initiative from OASIS and the United Nations overlaps with the World Wide Web Consortium's work on the Simple Object Access Protocol. The group in charge of ebXML recently agreed to incorporate support for SOAP in its own work, a move Hamilton applauded.
There are other overlapping efforts on registries and repositories and security.
"A lot of work is happening in some areas ... that's not only overlapping but also competing," Hamilton said. She likened the situation to the mid-1980s when there was confusion surrounding various computing and networking standards.
RosettaNet officials separated standards efforts into two camps -- horizontal and vertical. Hamilton said RosettaNet will continue to focus on vertical efforts, except in cases when a horizontal standard is not universally accepted or proven.
Hamilton said RosettaNet will support the UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) standard for registries and repositories, and will create extensions for ebXML.
When similar efforts are under way at different organizations, it may not matter where a given standard winds up as long as there is critical mass around the effort, Hamilton said.
The non-profit organization plans to house a depiction of the conceptual model for various XML efforts with regular updates on its Web site, www.rosettanet.org.
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