An EC-funded e-commerce research project set up by a host of
European firms has vowed to make US developed e-commerce standards
suitable for the common market.
Imperial College and IT consultants Druid are among the members of
the Co-operate project which will seek to build on standards
established by US bodies such as RosettaNet, which has spent around
two years building standards for e-business in the IT industry.
Herman Loeh, research director of the project for Imperial College,
said part of the motivation for Co-operate had been to address
idiosyncrasies of the European single market which had not been
tackled by US standards bodies. “You can discuss these topics
theoretically, but the real problems are only detected when you are
doing things,” he said. Problems which related specifically to
Europe that would not cause difficulties in the US, that would be
addressed by Co-operate included differences in legislation,
working practices, and taxation between the member states. The
RosettaNet standard is set to be pressed on to the rest of the
industry by powerful players such as distributors Ingram Micro and
Tech Data, along with PC vendor Dell. Efforts were made to ensure
that there was international input in the development of RosettaNet
standards, but most of the representation came from US firms. Loeh
said that Co-operate would also improve on existing e-business
standards by making them more suitable to complex business
processes, such as collaborative supply chain planning. These aims
mirror those outlined in Compaq’s latest supply chain efficiency
drive: to improve information sharing in the supply chain; to
quickly spot and tackle supply problems; to improve forecasting for
manufacturers; and to reduce inventory levels. The Co-operate
project will focus first on the microelectronics and automotive
industries, but the standards could be applied to the IT business
after they were developed, added Loeh.