The XML Power Promise
E-business is poised to take the next step in communication power on the Web by adopting Extensible Markup Language (XML), and it's an evolution marketers must watch closely.
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA--E-business is poised to take the next step in communication power on the Web by adopting Extensible Markup Language (XML), and it's an evolution marketers must watch closely.
"Marketers must get involved in the standards-setting processes or the full promise of XML will never be realized," warns Ralph Oliva, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets in Penn State's Smeal College of Business.
Firms exploring the Web as a business-marketing tool find it's excellent for strengthening relationships with customers. A key facet of Web technology making this possible has been the standard language of the Web: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In general, HTML provides a series of standards and descriptive "tags" that enable users to specify how a page would look when loaded into a Web browser. Since its introduction in the early 1990s, HTML has become one of the great communication enablers and liberators in Web space, notes Oliva.
"XML promises a great potential next step for interoperability and open communication over the Web, particularly for complex messages such as the details of business transactions," says Oliva.
XML provides a set of additional tags, which permit more powerful information and data sharing than HTML allows. With XML, browsers can move structured data directly into business applications with flexibility previously data impossible in computer-to-computer transactions. XML-enabled buyers and sellers, Oliva says, can easily place orders, submit invoices, exchange product specifications, download configuration coefficients, and transfer other information directly into each others' back office systems.
"The trick now is getting industries to agree on standard protocols," says Oliva, who addresses the issue in a recent article he authored, "The Promise of XML." The article appears in the Spring 2001 issue of Marketing Management. No universal vocabulary is yet established for XML tags. Although based in the same language, competing XML protocols use different words to describe the same things. Achieving appropriate XML standards is an important priority for IT users, particularly the business-to-business e-marketers who stand to be XML's biggest beneficiaries.
Early XML adopters are reporting impressive results, points out Oliva. For example, Dell Computer's custom-ordering pages use XML to update customers' internal procurement systems. XML lets Dell customers cut the cost of data re-entry, thanks to easily configured computer-to-computer interactions, and some of Dell's customers are reported to being saving millions, says Oliva.
"Business marketers must get involved in the XML evolution and champion a universal standard for XML communication across all industries. We should not leave it to people who put technical priorities ahead of real-world usability," says Oliva.
