Automating business-to-business Analysis/Commentary Two years ago, the World Wide Web Consortium, an MIT-based group of academics and business leaders, developed a higher grade of HTML, the code used to transfer files across the Web. The new format -- eXtensible Markup Language (XML) -- has some of HTML's features, notably an ability to carry text and graphics and to organize a document along human-readable lines. But a majority of Website developers have judged XML too complex. A complete move to XML might have overhauled the Web as they know it. Before there was a Web many companies sent purchase orders and payment notifications over dedicated telephone lines. The process, known as Electronic Data Interchange, persists. EDI requires special telephone lines and documents formatted in EDI are only machine-readable. So EDI documents tend to be inelastic, and require frequent and costly redefinition. Programmers have now found a way to convert EDI documents into XML. The XML Standards Corporation calls this procedure XEDI. It promises seamless communication between XML-enabled companies (the majority) and EDI-enabled companies (20% of the market). Above all, XML serves as a reasonable way of nestling text and data into movable compartments. The compartments, known as elements (or objects), are written in English and contain common grammars, rules for conveying an action or a meaning. Computers have always been able to convey action or meaning, but only with numbers. XML marks the numeric sequence so that communication makes sense using common language. For example, XML marks a piece of text "Quotation from Bill Gates" so that it can be identified both by machines and men. XML is beginning to entrench itself in business-to-business trade, the electronic activities connecting companies to their suppliers, because it acts less like a programming language than the fancy scripts behind most of the Web's magic. Like a common tongue, XML joins together programming commands, format decisions, data and text, cached and non-cached elements, and widespread language attributes till now unsupported by conventional Web software. As Websites grow more sophisticated and current Webmasters retire or make way for better-educated and specialized technical experts, XML will likely extend its sway. Most likely, it will play an increasing role in business-to-business transactions and e-commerce as well. At first, XML will allow payment documentation and processing systems; later, it will diversify and organize widespread data more clearly than before. Like an improved engine beneath the hood of a car, consumers will only feel differences in functionality and speed, while mechanics will understand the refinements underlying the improvement. April 5, 2000