a larger number of suppliers. Businesses will have the flexibility to outsource more of their functions to third parties that transact almost exclusively on the Web - and at the same time have the ability to document these activities in real time.
Business-to-business commerce isn't the only place XML has gained ground. For retailers, the protocol provides a way to reinvent the online mall, allowing consumers to shop from many sites at once.
That's the theory behind Junglee, a San Francisco company recently acquired by Amazon.com (AMZN). Junglee's software is turning companies into superstores without requiring supersize investments. "Instead of having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put together a comprehensive retail site, Junglee gives us access to 80 of the best brands," says Victor Oquendo, VP of technology at Seattle-based Go2Net, which operates an online shopping site.
Go2Net's WebMarket and MetaShop give shoppers a level of convenience they may not have experienced before: near-instant searches of a wide range of retailers. One Go2Net customer had spent weeks trying to find a particular scholarly book, scouring each online bookseller individually; WebMarket found the book in 15 seconds.
Given that kind of search capability, it's no wonder that Amazon.com bought Junglee. The acquisition catapults the bookseller into a broader retailing space, as the XML engine can search through 16 different categories of products as if they were a host site's own.
Despite XML's power, the language hasn't become a standard yet. A recent survey of 207 webmasters found just 5 percent plan to add XML to their sites within the next six months, according to Zona Research, a Redwood City, Calif., market research firm. Another 17 percent say they'll adopt XML within the next year; 12 percent say they'll be using XML within two years.
That's not terrible for a language that's only been around for about a year - the standard was only finalized by the World Wide Web Consortium in February.
But roadblocks remain. For starters, consumers will need XML-enabled browsers. So far, neither Netscape nor Microsoft fully support XML, although Netscape's Communicator 4.5 uses a modicum of the new protocol. However, the next versions of both Internet Explorer and Communicator will utilize XML extensively, although neither company has set a release date.
Standards issues remain, but a variety of vendors and industry consortia are working on solutions. Among the more visible efforts is CommerceNet, a Palo Alto, Calif., business-to-business group that's testing an online product catalog. At least two other groups have tinkered with retail shopping applications. Keep your eye on the Open Trading Protocol, and a rival effort called Open Buying on the Internet.
A raft of financial services groups have also been grappling with XML standardization. The Open Financial Exchange specification, developed by Microsoft, CheckFree and Intuit (INTU), facilitates the exchange of information across different home banking applications.
On Wall Street, firms are welding XML into trade instructions using a specification called Financial Information Exchange. "XML will give us greater interoperability," says John Goeller, VP at Salomon Smith Barney. "It will be simpler and cheaper for us to program."
Citibank, meanwhile, is spearheading an effort to spice up electronic data interchange, or EDI, a well-established method for transmitting payments and information. The hope is to boost usage, with XML making EDI more flexible and cost effective.
Jay Green, who is the business development manager for electronic commerce at American Century Investments (dossier), a Kansas City, Mo., mutual fund company, believes that using XML will lead to better customer service. Green thinks XML will let American Century deliver more account information to customers who use Quicken, for instance.
To make that happen, American Century uses software from Innovision, a Lenexa, Kan., company. Innovision's XML-powered software fetches information formatted with the Open Financial Exchange specification from legacy systems in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take.
Green says that gives American Century a distinct edge in an industry in which the average customer typically has
