The group, dubbed Oasis, which includes IBM, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Hewlett-Packard and others, has worked with a U.N. technology group for the last 18 months to create a blueprint for businesses to use XML (Extensible Markup Language) to connect to one another and make trades online. The U.N. group and Oasis approved the standard at a meeting in Vienna on Friday.
Oasis and the U.N. group have built Electronic Business XML, or ebXML, which will allow companies, whether they are in the same industries or not, to communicate over the Web.
Proponents of ebXML say the standard will allow companies using older data-exchange technology, called Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI, to start using more flexible and potentially cheaper XML-based software.
Microsoft, whose executives have not ruled out support for ebXML, has its own competing set of XML guidelines called BizTalk.
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