Michael Meehan

The first round of efforts by e-commerce standards bodies to harmonize XML-based technology with EDI protocols is making the promised world of seamless B2B transactions look like a mirage.

It's safe to say that anyone who's ever worked on a Windows system has seen the infamous "blue screen of death." This solid blue screen with white lettering tells you that the system has crashed and gives you a couple of options. If you're lucky, all you do is reboot and redo all the work you just lost, but you could find yourself dealing with major system corruption.

Until now, Web services have been more theory than reality, but users are starting to turn to them as a way to democratize enterprise application integration (EAI).

The Value Chain Markup Language retains the structure, business terms and industry specifications of the x12 and EDIFACT standards and translates them into formats that can be understood by XML-based systems.

Online marketplaces designed to speed business-to-business transactions in the chemicals industry are now rushing to examine their security systems to look for blind spots that could allow terrorists to obtain potentially deadly substances.

B2B marketplaces in the chemicals industry are now rushing to examine their security systems to look for blind spots that could allow terrorists to obtain potentially deadly substances.

Caterpillar is launching a major manufacturing collaboration initiative, which will require as much focus on new middleware as it does on supply chain management and B2B software.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is launching a bold new e-commerce strategy that combines private and public B2B marketplaces with a unified supply chain asset-management system.