0900 - 1230
Filling the XML skills gap
(For: executives)

Chair: Ann M Wrightson, Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, University of Huddersfield, UK

A massive requirement for XML skills (for new entrants, and for experienced IT professionals) is an inevitable consequence of the phenomenally fast adoption of XML in so many industries - and this `skills gap' is becoming an uncomfortable reality for many of those attending this conference. This track explores several points of view within this situation: employers seeing the `gap' in their workforce; individuals seeing the `gap' in their own skills; and educators and trainers working to fill the `gap'. To close this track, there will be a panel session intended to bring out additional ideas from members of the audience, as well as giving time for interactive debate of the central concepts presented in the preceding papers.

XML education and training - what, where and how?
Denise Downs, Commercial Activities Director, School of Computing & Mathematics, University of Huddersfield, UK and Ann M Wrightson, Senior Lecturer in Information Systems, University of Huddersfield, UK
Developing XML skills (in new entrants, and in experienced IT professionals) is becoming an urgent and widespread requirement, arising from the adoption of XML across many industry sectors over a relatively short space of time. Ann Wrightson discusses a range of ways in which Universities, other educational institutions, and commercial training providers, can work together to help fulfil this requirement. Combining skills development for immediate needs, with wider educational & professional development objectives, and (degree & other) programme requirements, can be a challenge - an open, collaborative approach benefits all concerned.

Acquirement of XML skills in industry
Gert van der Steen, Director, Palstar bv, NL
Increasingly workers in industry are confronted, incidentally or full time, with an application of XML in one or more of its many aspects. Frequently people are insecure about the background knowledge they have to acquire, the training they will need and the resources that are available. In order to arrive at a more general solution we observe that many tasks in automation may be described in terms of Information System Methodologies. According to the layers in these methodologies the respective XML aspects may be identified, together with the required background knowledge for their proper application. The next steps will be to identify the resources for training and the ways to set up training effectively. In that respect typical working habits in industry have to be taken into account.

What Employers Want: A Shift in Skills, Recruiting and Retention
Dale Waldt, VP Product Technology, RIA, USA
Someone once said "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!" It seems that the acceptance of XML is a very good thing for most businesses, but it has created a huge demand for knowledgeable, skilled people that companies are now more than ever competing across vertical markets in their recruiting efforts. Many internet companies are well funded and very aggressive in their recruiting. The end result is huge pressure on compensation packages being offered. The World Wide Web and XML have also radically changed the way applications are created, which in turn demands that developers have different skills and strengths. In this presentation, Dale will describe personal observations having lead a large development team in New York City through the SGML evolution and XML revolution. Dale will also provide some industry trends and examples of the changes in the skills and types of people employers seek to meet the challenges of XML on the Web. Attendees can use this information to better prepare their recruiting and retention plans in this competitive marketplace.

0900 - 1230
XML & eBusiness: application architectures & platforms
(For: business implementers)

Chair: Nick Arnold, Director of Strategic Business Consulting, iMediation, USA

What are the essential building blocks for robust, extensible and scalable architectures and platforms? How do you integrate your specific applications? In this track, our speakers bring their real world experience to the table.

Bridging the gap between document publishing and eBusiness
Amy Krane, Director Product Marketing, Enigma, Inc, USA
The uses of XML are generally categorized today as falling into either of two categories: document publishing or exchange of data. This dichotomy does not need to hold true. By extending the uses of document content, it too can be part of data exchange and eCommerce.

eBusiness through EIP and XML
Norbert Mikula, Chief Technology Officer, DataChannel, USA
Following an inside out approach, this paper provides a blueprint on how to make best use of new and converging technologies such as XML and Enterprise Information Portals. Topics covered include applications integration, Intranet/Extranet applications and eBusiness.

An XML-based eBusiness information server
Jean-Jacques Dubray, Chief Architect, eXcelon Corp, Inc, USA
Applications of XML are most often limited to messaging and data exchange between systems across corporation boundaries. Persistent XML-based data models can greatly simplify the design, implementation and evolution of highly distributed eBusiness systems because they are semantically accessible and extensible. This kind of data model is also a key enabler of a business-process centric approach to building dynamic eBusiness platforms.

Insure yourself with XML!
Philippe Fontaine, Project Manager, SGML Technologies Group, Belgium
In eBusiness applications, the project manager is used to being confronted with the problem of modelling his business and structuring the data exchanged within his application. This presentation focuses on the ability to use XML in three ways to solve his problems: to exchange structured data, to specify the business components in a standard way, and to preserve the investments made in the architecture.

0900 - 1230
XML & the world of finance
(For: business implementers)

Chair: Nathan Sowatskey, Director, JSIG, UK

The session will feature speakers on the emerging standards for XML in the fields of accountancy and Capital Markets. Also featured will be an implementation study of XML in a Capital Markets financial software system.

The design of the XFRML accounting vocabulary
David vun Kannon, Manager, KPMG LLP, USA
Vocabulary design is driven by several factors, including business requirements, available technology and politics. XFRML, as the leading vocabulary for the global accounting industry, has been strongly influenced by each of those factors. The adoption and implementation of XFRML will enable great changes in many financial processes.

XML in Capital Markets
Alan Coleman, Business Consultant, Macalla Software Limited, Ireland
Capital Markets are shifting and evolving faster than ever. Technology is one of the main drivers of these changes and XML based solutions represent the future for re-shaping the business models, the participants themselves and the market as a whole.

FPML
Brian Lynn, Vice President, Derivatives Architect, J P Morgan, USA; Adam Greissman, Director, Financial Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers, USA
Originally released by J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, now guided by an organization of key derivatives industry participants, FpML(tm) (Financial Products Markup Language) is a new protocol for Internet-based electronic dealing and information sharing of financial derivatives, initially handling interest rate and foreign exchange products. This presentation reviews the history of FpML; discusses the process of creating a new standard, lessons learned, success factors and the differences between dot com and dot org; and explores how changes in technology will create eService opportunities for derivatives processing in the wholesale capital markets theory.

0900 - 1230
Graphics on the Web
(For: business implementers & technical implementers)

Chair: Chris Lilley, Graphics Activity Lead, W3C, France; Dieter Weidenbrück, CEO, ITEDO Software, Germany

WebCGM and SVG are the new web standards for web graphics. This track provides in-depth information about both formats, including a technical comparison and case studies. You should attend this track if you are interested in graphics, hotspots on graphics, or links between graphics and text.

WebCGM and SVG: a comparison
Chris Lilley, Graphics Activity Lead, W3C, France; Dieter Weidenbrück, CEO, ITEDO Software, Germany
WebCGM and SVG have been discussed for some time as the upcoming standards for vector graphics on the Web. Although products are not yet available for these formats, users want to know about the differences between them. This session compares the formats technically and shows the benefits of either format. It also serves as an introduction to the graphics track, which will provide more information about WebCGM and SVG.

Intelligent graphics – WebCGM applications and the ATA CGM Profiles
Dave Cruikshank, Associate Technical Fellow, The Boeing Company, USA; Andre DeWild, Supervisor, Wiring Diagram and System Schematic Production, United Airlines, USA
By using XML in conjunction with WebCGM, XML tools can be developed to work closely with WebCGM applications.

XML-based text and graphics integration
Christian Märtin, Industrial Engineer Manager, Siemens AG, Information and Communication Networks, Central Organization, Information Processing, Germany; Jürgen Krüger, Business Consultant, Siemens Business Services, Structured Document Processing, Germany
The decision to use XML is to be seen as an evolution. This presentation shows how new XML-based methods should be implemented carefully, but consistently. The advantages of using XML-based graphics provide new aspects for designing your information systems.

Comparing the Java 2D API and SVG
Vincent J Hardy, Senior Staff Engineer, Software, Sun Microsystems Inc, USA
The presentation will discuss both Java 2D and SVG graphic concepts and rendering model, compare them and discuss how they complement each other. In particular, the presentation will show how SVG specifies static or dynamic graphical data, wherease the Java 2D API is a rendering engine. As an illustration, the presentation will discuss how SVG content can be generated on the Java platform and how SVG content can be viewed on the Java platform.

0900 - 1230
Building solutions
(For: technical implementers)

Chair: John Chelsom, Managing Director, CSW Informatics Ltd, UK

This session for technical experts looks at a range of technologies for building industrial strength solutions today.

Constructing distributed applications using Xbeans
Bruce Martin, Software Guru, jGuru, USA
Dr. Martin will talk about Xbeans.org, an open-source project that is creating a repository of Xbeans. He will illustrate how Xbeans can be easily composed into XML-based distributed applications, including data exchange, business to business, work flow and web channel applications.

Internet Electronic Data Interchange with XML and JAVA
Karl Füerst, University Assistant, Institute of Flexible Automation, Vienna University of Technology, Austria; Thomas Schmidt, Research Assistant, Institute of Flexible Automation, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is well known in the area of logistics and supply chain management. But for small and medium enterprises (SME) the costs for the implementation of traditional EDI are too high. Therefore the proposed approach is based on XML and is realized with the programming language Java.

Application integration using XML
Bryan Caporlette, Vice President, Product Management, Sequoia Software Corporation, USA
This presentation utilizes XML and XSLT to extract, transform, and trasmit information between disparate applications. It uses BizTalk to define a reusable transport schema to route information between applications. The presentation culminates with a demonstration to extract information from a contact database and insert a new record into a sales force automation system.

SWIGing for fun and profit
Marc Hadley, Solutions Architect, Chrystal Software, UK
SWIG (simplified wrapper and interface generator) is a freely available tool for generating multiple language bindings for existing C/C++ code. This presentation discusses the use of SWIG to generate language bindings for Python, Perl and Java and shows how to embed code written in these languages into existing C/C++ applications. Examples include using a Java XML parser and XSLT processor from C++, using Python to process SAX events generated by C++ and enabling Perl scripting of a large C++ class library.

0900 - 1230
Topic Maps: the technical end (cont'd)
(For: technical implementers)

Chair: Steve Pepper, Senior Information Architect, STEP Infotek, Norway; Steven R Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc, USA

The Topic Maps paradigm is both simple and subtle. Well-used, it can greatly increase the findability of information in our increasingly complex and information-flooded world. This session focuses on the challenges and lore of using the Topic Maps paradigm well.

Making topic maps more colourful
Hans Holger Rath, Director Consulting, STEP Electronic Publishing Solutions GmbH, Germany
The new ISO standard ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps defines a model and architecture for the semantic structuring of link networks. The model is a well-considered and implementable set of concepts, but first practical applications show that there are a number of issues that are not covered by the standard. The talk will motivate, present, and discuss several technical issues that are of great interest when applying topic maps to real world applications and that make topic maps more powerful and colourful.

Schemas for topic maps?
Geir Ove Grønmo, Information Architect, STEP Infotek A S, Norway
A topic map, like a database or XML document, provides a way of structuring information and as such requires methods for specifying the rules that describe the allowed structures -- especially in the editorial process. This presentation looks at existing constraint mechanisms, such as database schema languages, SGML architectures, XML Schema, the Express modelling language, and topic map templates, and assesses their adequacy for expressing the rules required for topic map authoring and maintenance.

Information management - Topic Maps visualization
Benedicte Le Grand, PhD student, Laboratoire d Informatique de Paris 6, France
Complex information systems are very difficult to represent and users often have problems finding relevant information. This presentation shows how XML, the DOM and Virtual Reality can be used for information visualization, in particular topic maps representation.

Topic Maps for repositories
Kal Ahmed, Solutions Architect, Chrystal Software Inc, UK
Topic Maps are a powerful tool for creating complex, associative indexes of a data-set. This presentation shows how Topic Maps can be used to generate a collection of indices useful to both data producers and data consumers. This presentation emphasises the potential role for Topic Maps in helping to organise a collaborative authoring environment.

1430 - 1540
Plenary for all delegates
Interim plenary: the role of standards in application development
(For: all delegates)

Chair: Pamela Gennusa, Conference Chair, UK

This session sets the stage for the vendor panel that follows. Speakers discuss the need for software to support standards, both from the vendors' perspective and from the users'.

Standards based software development and services
Norbert Mikula, Chief Technology Officer, DataChannel, USA
Standards have changed the world of the Internet. The growth and popularity of XML would not have been possible without the enormous value consumers have started to put on solutions (product or services) that are provided using open standards. Norbert Mikula presents the role and impact of providing standards based solutions, from a vendor's perspective, in the context of experiences with customer engagements and product development. Lessons learned, benefits gained and pitfalls to be avoided will be covered as well as a (standards based) vision for the future.

Standards and eCommerce: travel on the Web
Eric P Garcia, Vice President, Strategic Architecture/Planning & Communications, Sabre, Inc, USA
Sabre is the third largest e-commerce site and the largest travel provider on the Internet, travel being the largest single business segment on the Internet today. This presentation will provide an overview of Sabre's e-commerce experiences and lessons learned, including the business challenges of implementing a standards based approach, the technical obstacles encountered and Sabre's approach to addressing them.

1610 - 1720
Standards & the vendor - a panel
(For: all delegates)

Moderator: Mike Maziarka, Director, Cap Ventures, Inc., USA

Panel members:

Mark Colan, XML Technologist, IBM Corporation, USA
David Turner , Microsoft Corp, USA
Bill Smith, Manager, XML Technology Center, Sun Microsystems, USA

To leverage the power of XML, we will need software tools and platforms that inherently support the standards. This panel brings together leading providers to answer questions gathered through the website prior to the conference and from the audience.

Click here to pose questions to panel members

---

WELCOME	CONFERENCE PROGRAMME	WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
TUTORIALS	SCHEDULE	GENERAL INFORMATION
EXPOSITION	REGISTRATION INFORMATION	HOTEL INFORMATION