XML and Its Potential for Ecommerce

This paper reviews the origin and development of standards for Electronic Data Interchange, considering exceptions and variations that standards need to accommodate It examines cost factors that affect implementation and discusses conducting EDI over the Internet and the importance of metatags and data type definitions for interpreting data structures and improving functionality of business transactions. It looks at XML (eXtensible Markup Language) as a proposal to broaden the applicability of transacting business over the Internet by bringing EDI to the desktop