B2B standard comes out late but with more support

In September, Ariba, Microsoft and IBM vowed they would spark the development of a business-to-business Internet directory standard that could greatly simplify completing transactions over the Web.

The trio of high profile vendors said the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) project would kick off with a beta version of the protocol appearing last month. While these plans failed to materialize on time, the vendors Thursday said that the first implementation of the effort is now ready.

With UDDI, the companies hope to create a simpler way for businesses to search for partners and customers than currently exists on the Internet. Ariba spearheaded the project in order to create a unified way of coding what a business does and where it is located into a centralized directory. When a vendor goes looking for a particular service, it can find information on what a given company's operations are, the types of technology that company uses, and the transaction protocols the company can accept and process.

As Internet search engines often confound a user with a myriad of information beyond what one is actually looking for, the UDDI project attempts to use a specific set of codes to point companies in the exact direction they hope to go.

The project was developed as an open-standard and remains open to any vendors wishing to post their company information into the UDDI database. During the September announcement of the project, American Express, Compaq, SAP AG, Dell, Nortel Networks, Andersen Consulting and almost 30 other companies said they also would aid the development of the fledgling project, helping to work out bugs and provide consulting services. Thursday's announcement said another 47 companies joined the effort.

Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft will initially maintain the servers that contain the directory's information but have said all the data will be turned over to a standards body in about 18 months. At the moment, the UDDI system contains three types of information, divided into what the vendors refer to as white, yellow and green pages.

The White Pages will contain business names, descriptions of the type of business, and other information regarding what kinds of services a vendor uses and also what technology they can respond to. The Yellow Pages section adopts current government codes for tagging types of business operations as well as international and technology-based naming protocols. In addition, the Yellow Pages arranges companies by geographical location. The Green Pages should provide more specific information on what types of documents a company can receive, the entry points for transactions, and the technology they currently interact with and support.

Over the next 18 months, the partners said they hope to expand the number of categories and add more complete features to help smooth the searching capabilities of the business-to-business effort. Suggestions include customizing the categorization features and accommodating the needs of large corporations with a variety of business units focused on different goals. In addition, a number of vendors expressed interest in building upon the standard as it progresses and developing registries with customized features that lie on top of UDDI.

The companies involved stressed that the project will remain open to corporations across the globe and hope to incite increasing support. At the time of the its release, the main triumvirate of vendors pushing the project said it can only work if it receives wide participation.

"We don't want to compete on standards," said Larry Mueller, president and chief operating officer for Ariba, when the project was first announced.

IBM in Armonk, N.Y., can be reached at 914-499-1900 or www.ibm.com/. Ariba, in Mountain View, Calif., can be reached at 650-930-6200, or at www.ariba.com/. Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., can be reached at 425-882-8080 or at www.microsoft.com/.