GROUP WANTS TO MAKE "E-BUSINESS" AS EASY AS "A-B-C".

Computer scientists at NIST have been participating with the information technology/electronic commerce industry in the development of a set of emerging, global e-commerce standards. These standards comprise electronic business XML (known as ebXML), a joint effort sponsored by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business.

The goal of ebXML is to specify an e-commerce infrastructure where enterprises of any size and in any geographical location conduct business with each other. ebXML enables businesses to find partners, develop business agreements and find and process the necessary documents for business transactions--dramatically lowering the cost of exchanging business information electronically. ebXML makes use of the eXtensible Markup Language (known as XML) for the representation and exchange of documents and messages. XML, a leading industry specification for e-commerce, is a language that describes data in a way that allows computers to exchange information and automatically act on it.

NIST contributes to the development of the technical specifications for ebXML, especially in the areas of registries/repositories and conformance. The ebXML effort came to a successful conclusion at the group's May 2001 meeting in Vienna, Austria.

NIST has been at the forefront of a variety of XML efforts, including the development of software conformance tests that allow people to make sure their XML systems conform to voluntary industry standards.