Oracle Corp is working on its response to Microsoft Corp’s BizTalk and Hewlett-Packard Co’s E-speak, and says it will announce its own technology to support e-commerce business to business information exchange over the next few months. Thomas Kurian, vice president of Oracle’s recently formed E-Commerce Program Office, said that although Oracle’s internet-enabled 8i database already supported XML and the XSL extensible stylesheet language, which underpin both BizTalk and E-speak, it will add a further set of services for building document types and defining schemas for e-commerce transactions.
According to Kurian, Oracle will offer pre-enabled database servers supporting XML and document types aimed at particular businesses. It will also support an XML-based framework in its ERP applications where appropriate, the equivalent of Ariba Inc’s cXML Commerce XML framework. And it will add XML-based commerce services to its Business Online applications hosting service. Kurina promised a clear picture of business to business communications including single sign-on security and discovery services, within the next six months.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, however, indicated that the company wouldn’t go as far as Microsoft and HP towards what used to be called Electronic Data Interchange services. He said that standards for vertical market EDI were nothing to do with Microsoft and HP and that such specific transactional and information exchange standards will come from the companies exchanging that information, as it always has, historically.
Meanwhile, next week will see yet another electronic commerce business interoperability standardization effort launched. RosettaNet, a not-for-profit consortium formed last year to establish standard electronic commerce interfaces, will announce the implementation phase of its initiative. Some 34 companies are expected to support the event, including Intel Corp, Ingram Micro, GE Information Systems Inc and pcOrder.
