XML: The TCP/IP of information |
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By Tim Matthews
07 Apr 2003 | Ipedo, Inc., special to SearchWebServices.com |
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A new standard for information is poised to make the biggest impact on information technology since the TCP/IP networking protocol. The information technology industry has benefited from standards in the past, starting with the network (TCP/IP) and the operating system (Unix). After waiting over twenty years, there is finally a standard for information itself. This article from Ipedo, Inc. discusses the impact that XML will have on Web services, CRM and other key corporate applications -- becoming, in effect, the "TCP/IP of information."
Often even the smartest investors only notice the biggest new technology trends years or decades after they are introduced. Listen to this admission from the Web site of a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist: "We were meeting a startup company called Cisco. They were pitching us on something called a 'fast packet switch router'. We gave them a blank stare." The investor passed on the investment. Today, many venture capitalists may be missing as revolutionary a standard in the making.
More than anything, the success of Cisco Systems illustrates the power of an open standard. Before Cisco led the industry in introducing products based on the TCP/IP networking protocol in the 1980's, any medium-sized organization had to routinely employ four or five network protocols each using different wires carrying different bits.
TCP/IP was not technically better in all respects than, other popular protocols like DECnet or AppleTalk. But it worked well. And, more important -- no one owned it -- which meant any company could build it into their software or hardware. As a result an upstart networking company like Cisco was able to leverage the standard and grow, benefiting thousands of customers over the years. Since then open standards have been taking over level after level of the so-called IT stack: first the network with TCP/IP, then the operating system with Unix, and most recently the presentation layer with HTML.
That brings us to the last and vast frontier. What remains wild and chaotic is the biggest area of the stack: all that information that the systems are designed to control and manipulate. According to UC Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems, the world produces between one and two exabytes of unique information per year, which is roughly 250 megabytes for every man, woman, and child on earth. While there are numerous methods of producing and sending all that information, there are no universal IT standards employed by the world's governments, companies, universities, libraries and research institutions to keep track of it all.
At last there is great hope is the form of three letters: XML. Introduced five years ago by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) -- the same group that developed HTML for the Web -- XML has been quietly gaining some big followers. We can already see its influence on some of the largest Web sites, including IBM's and eBay's sites. Mobile applications from Nokia use XML. The US government is using XML for data mining in the Homeland Security initiative.
That should be just the beginning. According to IDC, over 65% of all Web information will be expressed in XML by 2003. In that same time frame, predicts the Meta Group, 95% of the Global 2000 will need XML-based infrastructure to support Internet and intranet applications.
What makes XML the right standard? The secret to XML is in its twofold bang for the buck. Like HTML, XML has a rich set of features for presenting information. But it actually reaches much further than HTML by allowing formats for non-Web use, everything from ERP and CRM applications, to PDAs and other devices. A real difference between the two languages, however, is that XML controls not just the presentation of information but its meaning. XML is a tagging language, which means it inserts tags inside the information. The tags describe both how information is presented and what it means. So while developers can still make their point with a tag, they can also be explicit about meaning with tags like or .
XML meets all the criteria to become an important standard. It is technically sound and it is open. In fact, XML is so open that not only can any company or individual programmer learn everything about its structures and transformation methods, but companies and groups can even make up their own specialized tags, which become published as "vocabularies." Since it is overseen by the W3C standards group, no company has a stranglehold over it. So a new upstart could leverage XML much the same as Cisco did with TCP/IP, giving customers a whole new way to manage information.
XML also shares another unofficial criterion for becoming an important standard -- it has had a winding route from unusual beginnings. As TCP/IP was originally designed for the US government's nuclear missile system and the Web was originally developed for a bunch of physicists to discuss particle research, XML was originally created to help engineers build airplanes. There's an old Boeing joke--an airplane is a million parts flying in formation. To meet that need for standardized documentation, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) created a markup language called standard generalized markup language, or SGML, in 1980. In 1998, the W3C simplified SGML for the Web and dubbed it XML.
How big an impact will XML have? After all these years, the IT industry is finally starting to standardize the way it treats the information that flows through its networks and servers and applications. While its penetration is still low, every major hardware and software vendor is adding XML interfaces, which means CIOs should soon have new options for managing information better. What also portends big growth for XML is the current buzz in the IT community about Web Services--a new software development approach with simple integration capabilities--that is built entirely with XML.
While XML has started to gain attention from major companies, investors are just waking up to the potential. A small but growing group of startups are building new software products to manage information using XML. Seeing the trend, mainstream VCs have begun to put money into the area, smelling the same potential that fueled the growth of companies serving the lower levels of the IT stack.
With or without venture backing, XML is poised for success. It is the only standard for information management that has gained any critical acceptance. The need for such a standard is now also clear. According to a recent survey by the eponymous CIO Magazine, integration and management of information remains the biggest problem area for chief information officers. Much as the introduction of the TCP/IP networking protocol simplified the transmission of information to any networking system, XML can now allow for the efficient management of all that information. The question is which venture capitalists will be kicking themselves twenty years from now for missing the opportunity to propel it along?
Tim is founder of Ipedo, an infrastructure software company in Redwood City, California.
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