EDI as well as XML are the basic communication standards used in B2B e-commerce. With special interest to transaction processing systems. According to the specific attributes EDI and XML provides. There could be some common and merely different features derived. But also there could be the impact of considerations from the business organisation domain with additional issues which determine the use of EDI or XML. In this study the particular interest is in the finding of a set of reasons, not only in the single sight of the performance of the two techniques. The study surveys the impact of business processes, the found business environment settings and the choose of standards with special reference to the scrutinised area