CTO Forum: XML the supply-chain missing link; Documentation restrictions lose grip.(Panel Discussion)

Byline: Brian Fonseca

A group of panelists at the InfoWorld CTO Forum discussed the possibilities that documentation armed with XML could result in a sagging supply-chain management model being stressed by customers' desires for immediate returns and applications sorely in need of stronger integration.

Available in mid-2003, Microsoft Office 2003, featuring new templates to allow end-users to integrate Word and Excel into databases at the field level through XML, was a hot topic during the panel discussion because of its capability to marry Web services and documentation.

"I really believe the role for [Microsoft] Office is to create the best front-end for Web services. I think about XML as the glue, the integrator," said panelist Jean Paoli, XML Architect for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. "The end-user for the first time will take data from a Web service and do something with it. That is the democratization of XML."

Unlike HTTP and PDFs which are presentation-oriented, Paoli said, documentation is quickly pointing toward a conveyance of data to be shared among multiple business processes and infrastructure pieces.

Speaking on behalf of his industrial supply organization, George Rimnac, vice president and chief technologist at W.W. Grainger, said customers' needs for catalog information - is a product available? at what price? where is its location? - demands around-the-clock supply-chain immediacy coupled with many disparate systems.

"The real challenge is the tremendous variety that is still exceedingly across all suppliers and partners, what platforms [are in use], what software, what standards," said Rimnac, whose distribution company serves as both a customer and supplier for many companies in the United States.