Sponsored Links
IBM bets on XML
After putting its money on Java, Big Blue is upping the ante with an ambitious XML initiative
- Feedback
- Discuss
Page 2 of 2
Many of XML's benefits will be invisible to users, said Valerie Olague, manager of IBM's application development and object technology, in Somers, NY. She describes XML simply as a tagging language with beginning and ending tags.
How users interpret those tags and the data between those tags depends on what specific document type users are dealing with.
"There is a lot of momentum around utilizing XML as a way to pass data around the Internet," Olague said. "It gives you a very easy way to specify what to do with that data on the receiving end when you get it."
From the tools and languages end of IBM's software business, executives view XML primarily as a metadata interchange format.
"Basically, the focus is to have XML serve as an interchange format between repository tools like Team Connection and various industry modeling tools from both IBM and other vendors products," Olague said.
IBM's database group is one of the earliest elements of IBM to seize on the potential of XML.
"XML can tag data of a textual nature, which users will have a lot of in the future, because a lot of Web sites now contain a lot of XML," said Jeff Jones, program manager for IBM's Data Management marketing, in San Jose, CA. "You want to store [XML data] in a place that can scale, that can reliably manage it."
One XML vendor noted that while many companies have made XML announcements, such as Lotus, Netscape, and Microsoft, very few vendors have outlined a comprehensive strategy for using the technology and even fewer are actually shipping XML tools today.
"Whether it fits into Notes or the AS/400, the question is, when are they going to ship?" said David Pool, president and CEO of DataChannel, a Bellevue, WA-based XML software producer.
Although IBM's commitment to XML is all-embracing, veterans of the company's Java drive welcome any attempts at coordination.
"From the technical side, there's this landslide of new technologies. We need to take a pragmatic view of XML," said one IBM insider. "Early on with Java, we had a Java hammer and everything looked like a Java nail. XML is very useful, but we're not going overboard."
- Feedback
About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy
Copyright, 2006-2008 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.