HL7-XML Progress Report		Table of contents		Indexes		Streamlined Multimedia Production and Distribution Line

XML and e-Commerce

Larry Alston

Vice President, Marketing

Object Design, Inc.
USA
Email: alston@odi.com

Biographical notice:

Larry Alston joined Object Design in 1993. As vice president of marketing, Alston is responsible for all marketing activities associated with the company's complete product line of enterprise, embedded and XML data management solutions.

Prior to joining Object Design, Alston was a senior consultant for the DMR Group, a systems integrator, where he developed client/server applications. During his career he has also held senior technical positions at Bachman Information Systems and at Symbolics, where he built systems using the company's prototype object database.

Alston holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Northeastern University.

XML is an emerging universal data interchange standard from the World Wide Web Consortium. While most of the hype surrounding XML focuses on client-side applications, one of the most compelling uses of XML is when it is applied to the server side of Web E-Business applications, where data consumers and data providers all come together, each talking a different language. XML can be used to calm the "Tower of Babel" in the middle tier of Web E-Business applications by providing a single, logical view of all corporate data.

e-Business is more than just replacing manual tasks with electronic automation. It is about being able to improve the service you can provide by taking advantage of your most valuable corporate asset: information. XML, because of its flexibility, extensibility, and standard adoption is uniquely qualified to be the data format that will launch a whole new generation of extended applications


HL7-XML Progress Report		Table of contents		Indexes		Streamlined Multimedia Production and Distribution Line