XML is the new gold standard for a solution in search of a problem.
One of the classic justifications for XML is «Better EDI[1] than EDI!» And now that rally cry has been disproven by none other than McKinsey.
Not only do businesses have nothing to gain and everything to lose by throwing out their EDI implementations, but the cost for XML replacements could be as much as 10x to 15x their EDI analogs. Where's the cost savings in that? Where's the extra flexability? Where's the logic?
Eventually, when this XML business settles down, there will be a lesson to learn from it all. Hopefully in another decade or two the industry will be a lot more critical of new technologies that makes bold, unproven claims that simply cannot be realized.
[1] EDI: Electronic data interchange. How big companies send invoices and purchase orders to each other.
-Dom
Re:Ha!
ziggy on 2003-07-19T17:02:49
Yep. I do.There are lots more tech savvy managers in the field today. People who have lived through the latest cycles of hype and have been burned by them. People who can calculate TCO for themselves and don't need to rely on this week's analyst report to disprove last week's contradictory report.
And if you don't believe that, look at how many businesses aren't upgrading to the latest and greatest shiny releases of Office or Windows, and how many fewer are interested in upgrading to the next couple of releases...
Re:Ha!
jmm on 2003-07-21T16:11:16
Heh, heh...I recall hearing about these lots more tech savvy managers a while ago. No longer would managers remain brainwashed by the pervasive IBM viewpoint, and get blindsided by those pesky upstart mini-computer makers, like DEC.
I guess those tech savvy managers remained managers and stopped being tech savvy over the years.
(Hint - a majority of managers will always be old farts whose tech savvy abilities are a decade or more out of date, and a decade is even longer in computer years than it is in dog years.)
