- 42 -
•
PeopleSoft Inc.
•
Procter & Gamble
•
SAP AG
•
Sharp Electronics Corp.
•
WebMethods
Though these are some pretty impressive names, Microsoft’s goal is to get more than
one million businesses online.
Will it work? Cautiously, we say yes, but we should qualify this by stating that we don’t
think it will meet the levels of success that Microsoft feels it will—at least not in the short
run (two to four years). However, we think it’s a great idea and are pretty sure that there
will be a similar, clashing framework proposed by some other company or consortium in
the near future.
Regardless, any new initiative will also base itself heavily on the support of XML. Bottom
line, XML is going to be central to all e-commerce initiatives of the future.
