Shattered Language: XML Debate Heats Up

Extensible Markup Language (XML) appears to be fragmenting about as fast as the industry is adopting it, and recent moves by major vendors have some observers concerned.

XML lets developers custom-design tags for defining data exchange. Although the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) owns XML and has defined a single standard, vertical market XML schema innovations continue to run rampant.

"The threat of XML balkanization may loom on the industry horizon if a body is not set in place to act as an independent source to manage vertical market XML schema innovations," according to recent research from Zona Research Inc., Redwood City, Calif.

Recently, some big-name vendors have heeded this call. Microsoft Corp. formed its BizTalk framework of implementing an XML schema and a set of XML tags used in messages sent between applications.

BizTalk's backers include enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors The Baan Co., J.D. Edwards & Co. and SAP AG; electronic-commerce vendors such as Ariba Inc.; and technology consumers such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

Meanwhile Oasis, a six-year-old nonprofit consortium backed by Sun Microsystems Inc., Novell Inc. and Oracle Corp., among others, launched an online effort to define XML schemas. Microsoft joined Oasis shortly after launching BizTalk, a move that helped to ease fears major software makers will use their financial clout to develop proprietary and incompatible versions.

"[Divergent schemas] may not be a death blow to the technology, but [they are] harmful," said Dave Kelly, vice president of application strategies at Framingham, Mass.-based research firm The Hurwitz Group Inc.

For developers, divergent schemas mean the absence of a mechanism for interchange and, ultimately, a hesitant market. "Any time you have competing standards bodies or that type of uncertainty on standards, it is going to cause some level of hesitancy in the marketplace," Kelly said.

However, some industry executives believe the "X" in XML will keep the technology safe from proprietary efforts.

Spreading fear about fragmentation is a tactic used by big vendors whose relational database products do not support XML's extensibility, said Coco Jaenicke, product marketing manager at Object Design Inc., Burlington, Mass. "Traditional technology was not extensible and needed standards so that everybody's products would be compatible," Jaenicke said.

"Extensibility is very revolutionary, and a lot of large vendors just can't support it."

Multiple vertical industry XML semantic standards will not harm XML, said Jaenicke. "When you have vendors dictating standards, the rest of the world has to abide by their rules, but because XML is extensible, one vendor can come up with the [schema] base and if another wants to use that schema, they can still customize and extend on it," Jaenicke said.

Still, most XML analysts said they hope Oasis, BizTalk and similar efforts reach some sort of consensus.

"The real significance of XML is allowing people to create a mechanism for interchange, but in order to do it, you need . . . a schema," said Martin Marshall, director at Zona Research. "You have to get an entire industry to agree on what the schema is."

Microsoft unveils first BizTalk specs. For more, visit: www.crn.com/onlineplus