relationships with several competing financial institutions. "XML-based standards will help customers aggregate data on multiple products, from many different providers," Green says.
With such a wide variety of implementations already under way, XML is off to a solid start. Not long ago, analysts predicted the protocol would not hit the mainstream for years. Now, some experts think entire documents will be written in XML within 18 months.
"In the meantime, there will be simpler uses of XML just for data flow. And that's six to nine months away," says Bruce Delagi, senior director of architecture for the enterprise products group at Sun (SUNW) Microsystems. "It will be an evolution." In some ways, the emergence of XML looks a lot like the early days of Java: Early hype, accompanied by high hopes for dramatic change, followed by slow but steady adoption. Don't be surprised to see XML follow the same pattern.
XML is being adopted much more quickly than many people expected. The one-year-old language is cropping up in a variety of offerings, from search tools to electronic publishing, and even to browsers and servers. The following is a selection of products fashioned with XML.
- J.C.
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