Open Malaysia

It was reported in "Tech&U", one of the technology pullouts in Malaysia:  “RosettaNet in Aggressive Move to Push OOXML Tech” [Tech&U doesnt retain its links, so I'm using RosettaNet's archive]

I followed up on this story by contacting Mr Foong, the director of RosettaNET. I asked him if it was really the case that RosettaNET is pushing OOXML, he responded “That is not entirely true. RosettaNET merely supports OOXML as another file format”.

Mr Foong turned out to be an approachable person who was cordial and informative throughout my phone conversation with him. His answers were concise, well thought out and like most directors, very pragmatic in his approach in growing his business. He has no interest in the current ongoing standards battle, and only finds this as an opportunity for RosettaNet to further increase its capabilities and get some PR mileage as a bonus.

I summarised the questions on the phone, and sent him an email for his official response. Here are some excerpts and background information RosettaNet's activities:

What is RAE?

RosettaNet Automated Enablement (RAE) is a project spearheaded by the RosettaNet Global Consortium and engineered by the Development Centre in Penang. This was born out of the realization by the consortium that the ultimate test of a supply chain standard is successful proliferation to lower tier trading partners.

Other prevailing forces that have driven the RAE initiative include the extended length of time needed to bring up a trading partner using the existing RosettaNet solutions, the high cost of entry that requires significant Information Technology (IT) resources and the inherent problem that SMEs face in dealing with diverse applications and data formats from their trading partners.

What is TPIR-PIP?

Trading Partner Implementation Requirements-Partner Interface Process (TPIR- PIP) uses the new schema based PIPs to define Trading Partner implementation requirements in a machine-readable form; esentially this is a constrained version of a full fledged RosettaNet PIP. The TPIR-PF defines a structure for a presentation format to enable trading partners to participate in a business to business integration with a human readable form and the registry defines the requirements for posting and retrieving the TPIR-PIP and TPIR-PF from a shared registry.

How does this involve RosettaNet partners? (my emphasis)

The specifications for all three have been since been delivered to the community and we have seen our partners - the likes of Adobe, Microsoft, Gridnode, IBM, E2OPEN, GXS and CrimsonLogic offering RAE based solutions to their customers.

Each partnering Solution Provider has their own interpretation of how the TPIR-PF can be implemented, may it be an Adobe PDF file, a proprietary Gridnode form, a Crimson Logic web portal or an Open XML compliant document rendered by tools such as Microsoft Office 2007.

Nevertheless each has to adhere to the specifications laid out by RosettaNet on how RAE should operate.

On partner collaboration:

As a flourishing consortium RosettaNet has always and will always continue to support the causes of our partners. We have never been and are not opposed to collaborating with any party, as long as it furthers our cause and the flavor of RosettaNet is maintained.

On the technology involved in OOXML support:

On your specific queries and mechanics on how the Microsoft Office 2007 implementation of RAE operates; Rosettanet and Microsoft Malaysia will be organizing a series of events in March this year, both in the northern and central regions to showcase the nature and result of our collaboration.

So from his answers, we will not see how OOXML is integrated in the RosettaNet workflow. This will only happen in March. However we can deduce some interesting points.

Microsoft Office 2007 is being used as the presentation tool to interact with RosettaNet compliant systems. OpenXML, being a zip container, allows third party XML to be stored within the file. So it is not really because of the OOXML specific features, but rather the zip packaging which OOXML uses, and Microsoft Office 2007 ability to parse these included XML fragments natively.

In essence, the article title which states “RosettaNet in Aggressive Move to Push OOXML Tech” actually should instead read “RosettaNet in Aggressive move to Push Microsoft Office 2007”. And this is a fair position for RosettaNet to take, as Microsoft Office 2007 provides an affordable interface to interacting with the RosettaNet platform the the growing SME market.

It is not about OOXML's special features. Its about Microsoft Office features. Its very similar to the Halal Hub Open XML System. OOXML is just tacked on for marketing purposes to lead up to this month's BRM.

It's a happy situation for RosettaNet. Microsoft develops the technology which expands RosettaNet's featureset, and as a bonus, enjoys the marketing tradeshows around the country and in the press. Any company would accept participating in this partnership especially if one collaborator is funding it.

This continues the "Malaysia warms to OOXML ...?" series.

yk.