Sqribe embraces XML, joins Web Consortium

Sqribe Technologies has joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as part of a broad technology initiative to embrace XML (extensible markup language) for open exchange of enterprise reports and corporate data. Sqribe is the first major enterprise reporting vendor to incorporate XML into its technology direction, having earler incorporated XML in its recently introduced Sqribe Enterprise software to support open standards interoperability with third-party applications.

XML-enabled reporting solutions allow companies to manage content and integrate data from disparate sources - including ERP systems, data warehouses, desktop applications, and legacy systems - by providing a vendor-independent data interchange format. The ability to transport information seamlessly across enterprise systems is a critical feature for Web-based reporting applications that exchange complex data between systems and use different forms of data representation.

"Open standards-based reporting solutions are the only hope for companies struggling to generate a unified view of business operations from a myriad of corporate data sources," says John Schroeder, Sqribe senior VP R&D. "We see XML as the best way to transform the process of managing vast amounts of dynamic content into a highly automated, integrated reporting infrastructure."

Originally created as a tag language to describe and encode information for the Web, XML is emerging as a flexible way of exchanging data between different applications and databases while allowing for different forms of data presentation. Unlike HTML, XML is extensible, providing more flexibility for defining customised attributes or tags that can semantically qualify data. XML is also ideal for supporting complex structures such as database schemas and hierarchies. This allows consuming applications, such as reporting solutions, to check data for structural validity before information is imported, ensuring data integrity.

Sqribe Enterprise reports serve a broad range of operational decision support requirements, whether report consumers simply need to look up information or drill into and analyse business performance indicators. With built-in XML support, Sqribe Enterprise uses a non-proprietary mechanism for communicating data attributes, hierarchies, and presentation information, allowing for maximum interoperability.

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the US, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France, and Keio University in Japan. The consortium has 280 members.

Sqribe products are distributed in South Africa by Abraxas Software.