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WHY XML?
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For years, office furniture dealers have relied on the traditional
electronic data interchange (EDI) and the office furniture standard
interchange format (SIF) to carry out their transactions with office
furniture manufacturers. The problem is that the manufacturers have
chosen to interpret this standard in ways that suit their unique
business requirements. As a result, dealers who engage in EDI and SIF
with multiple manufacturers typically must create a unique solution to
handle the transaction sets for each manufacturer. This makes the
implementation of EDI and SIF far too expensive, especially for the
smaller dealer.
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Now, along comes the markup language,
XML, with the potential to reach new markets, simplify access, populate
Web pages, and serve as a universal format for transactions of all kinds.
Should dealers stay with EDI? Should they move to XML? Should they try to
get EDI and XML to interoperate?
For dealers already using EDI,
the motivations to move to XML evolve from some of the drawbacks to
EDI itself. Most EDI traffic flows over VANs, which can be expensive.
The open and free Internet beckons, and while EDI over the Internet is
possible, it's not fun.
In contrast, XML is a child of the Internet and
seems a more natural format to use. EDI is also primarily a one-to-one
technology, while XML supports many-to-many connectivity.
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© 2004 Office Furniture
Dealers Alliance. All Rights Reserved.
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