The government is looking to establish a common IT purchasing language to help it deal with any supplier, regardless of size.
If XML trials being conducted by Whitehall buying arm the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) prove successful, the way the government operates will fundamentally change. 'If we can get this right it will absolutely transform the way government does business,' an OGC spokesman told Computing.
The OGC is working with the Business Applications Software Developers Association (Basda) on trials of an ebusiness XML communications standard, which are expected to last until the end of the year.
The government is hoping that the end result will be a piece of technology that will allow businesses and government to communicate, regardless of what systems they are using, encouraging businesses of all sizes to tender for government contracts.
'There's a perception that the big guys take the lion's share of business,' the spokesman said. 'We want to get away from the perception that unless you're Computacenter or EDS you're not in with a shout. We need to say "yes, you have a shout and this is a level playing field".'
If the trials are a success, the government will end up with a piece of XML-based software that will sit between suppliers and government departments. When systems are incompatible, the 'translator' will take the data and turn it into a readable language, and vice versa.
Eventually, the government hopes that the XML schema could be built into commercial off the shelf eprocurement applications.
'At last we are going forward to get some kind of commonality across the IT sector,' the spokesman said.
Any schema that proves successful will be part of the Office of the eEnvoy's eGovernment interoperability framework (e-GIF), becoming part of standard government systems.
Quelle: Computing
