Microsoft Corp has now joined XML industry group Oasis, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards – a move that could forestall a potential split in XML caused by vendor specific schemas such as BizTalk. Oasis – which changed its name earlier this year from the SGML Open Consortium – counts IBM Corp, Oracle Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc among its members.
Last week Microsoft and Oasis simultaneously set up new portal sites – Biztalk.org and XML.org respectively – as open repositories for Framework schemas. These, also known as DTD Document Type Definitions, are designed to help organizations integrate applications and exchange documents, and are likely to be an important component of future e-commerce implementations. While Microsoft’s membership of Oasis doesn’t guarantee interoperability between DTDs, it is likely to result in more consensus.
Other vendor-specific XML schemas include Ariba Corp’s cXML and Commerce One Inc’s CBL, although both of these companies agreed to become charter members of Microsoft’s BizTalk committee, along with Baan NV, JD Edwards & Co, Peoplesoft Inc and SAP AG. Hewlett-Packard Co’s E-speak, and currently unreleased future technology from Oracle (CI No 3,674) could also add to the potential confusion.
