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Article
extract from "Australian Anthill" issue
#01
At
a time when web presence is almost as important as having a
securely connected telephone, SME's still aren't finding the budget
get online. Mention the cost of automated in-bound and out-bound
goods, on-line sales and other important e-commerce and B2B
facilities and your average start-up will turn slightly pale and
promptly consider their day job. According to Glen Kerr, Technical
Development Director, the set-up costs needn't be unreasonable,
providing that the right software is available in tandem with the
right domain manager. "Some software vendors have attempted to
offer packaged solutions, but few have got it right. And the
'blue-ribbon' online facilities, such as electronic data
interchange, or EDI, are still outside the reality of most small
businesses." XML can easily change this. I don't think it's an
exaggeration to say that XML will revolutionise the Web.
The combination of XML with EDI holds the promise of extending the
advantages of web-based EDI through an open standard to the
hundreds of thousands of small to medium sized enterprises in
Australia. "EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is what big
businesses use, and have used for almost a quarter of a century, to
automate the transaction of in-bound and out- bound goods. It may
sound boring, but it has been a logistical blessing for the global
players in industry, such as the car makers", the airlines and
electronics manufacturers, by allowing their systems to
automatically identify when quantities of goods were low and to
re-order supplies, while accepting and processing requests for
goods from I other companies. "These services have always been
expensive to set-up because each different system needed to be
built so that it would be compatible, and able to communicate, with
other suppliers and purchasers." XML stands for eXtensible
Mark-up Language. What it does is create a common language so that
vendors' systems can ' speak' with each other without being
restricted by the size or geographical location of the enterprise.
"The ebXML standards (the standards for electronic business
using XML) were recently endorsed by the international standard
bodies, OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation
and Electronic Business, in June 2003." The ebXML endorsement
paves the way for the development of a formal UN recommendation to
governments, inter- governmental organisations and non -
governmental organisations - on the use of ebXML in their business
transactions. "This is likely to extend the advantages of
web-based EDI, through an open standard, to the hundreds of
thousands of small to medium enterprises in Australia, and the
millions throughout the world. What we are doing is creating a
business model that is able to fully exploit the changes that are
already happening."
WebAlive Technologies Pty Ltd has developed a domain management
system which provides web services using extensible mark-up
language and has coupled it with a software package that allows
users to access and alter fully automated sites remotely. " We
created the Web Wizard to draw customers to our domain management
system. For a couple of hundred dollars, an SME can build a site
and continually update it without ongoing costs. Users with only
basic word processing packages can deploy and edit their website
with minimal training. " WebAlive Technologies Pty Ltd spent
three year's developing the product, which it believes can surpass
' share-ware' and other alternative, often proprietary, products.
While WebAlive will one day be available in a box, according to
Ken, it will never be the core revenue driver."With the Web
Wizard, revenue is immediately generated by an annual application
licence fee. While this service provides stable income, our real
focus is on building a reseller network. Later down the track, this
will enable us to charge fees for EDI transactions - which has
significant upside potential."
WebAlive Technologies Pty Ltd has developed commercial
relationships with several Australian resellers, to promote high
volume roll - out of the WebAlive software, and has also completed
programming script for the Mandarin Chinese market. "We now
have partnerships with ANZABI (Australian & New Zealand
Association of Business Incubators), Business Enterprise Centres,
Office National and a number of other distribution networks. These
organisations have direct access to more than 75,000 small
businesses across Australia. While there is plenty of business for
us here in Australia, we are also looking toward Asia for a China
roll-out."
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