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B2B Internet 'yellow pages' to go live
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THE Internet's first dynamic ``yellow pages'' of business services will open next month under the auspices of Microsoft Corp and International Business Machines Corp, but analysts say only a handful of early adopter companies will be able to use it.
The directory, likened to an online yellow pages listing businesses and their products and services, is designed to encourage business-to-business commerce by giving users a single source of information about goods and services, as opposed to the hundreds of alternatives they have today.
The directory will not only list how to find businesses, but provide technical details on how to do business with the companies over the Internet.
For instance, it would tell potential customers what format a business uses for online purchase orders, or which electronic commerce standards it adheres to.
Right now, said Bob Sutor, IBM's XML program director, there's no easy way to find such detailed information about suppliers over the Web.
``In traditional business, you go and look up the services you need in the yellow pages, but how do you do that on the Web?'' Sutor said.
The answer to that problem is UDDI, for Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, Sutor said.
The directory defines a series of standards that are used to provide a consistent set of data about supplier services, in much the same way as the yellow pages gives standard information about businesses, their name, address, telephone number and a description of the services they offer.
Designed to work with Web services
UDDI was designed to work hand-in-hand with so-called Web services, software building blocks that enable companies to convert existing and new applications into paid-for services that are then stored in directories on the Web.
Right now, there are so few software tools available for suppliers to build Web services that the directory can't be used to its full potential, analysts said.
``When we talk to our clients about Web services, it's only the early adopters who understand what that means and are beginning to use the technologies,'' said Mike Gilpin, an analyst with industry research firm Giga Information Group. ``It tends to be the financial and travel services companies who understand the benefit, from a business perspective, of delivering their products as services over the Web.''
In addition, said Gilpin, the tools necessary to build Web services are only just beginning to be delivered.
``As companies like IBM and Microsoft start to deliver the software tools later this year then that will really help this start to take off.''
UDDI was first announced last September, under a joint initiative by Microsoft, IBM and business-to-business software company Ariba Inc.
The first pilot version of the directory was launched the following November, and so far about 2,000 suppliers have registered themselves and their services online.
IBM's Sutor acknowledged the current limitations of the directory but he said, given its backers, that UDDI would become the standard way business services were described and stored on the Web.
``It'll become like all the other standard Internet functions that just sit under the covers and you never really know how they work, you just use them,'' Sutor said.
Analysts said that widespread acceptance is still a long way off. Version one of the directory is out now, but there are two more versions to come before the group passes the UDDI specifications over to a standards body, about a year from now.
``If you think of this as a staircase, we've just taken another couple of small steps up,'' Gilpin said. ``I don't think it's going to change things overnight, but I do think it's important because it means initiatives around Web services are continuing to move forward.'' (SD-Agencies)
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