Globalization

The need for global e-business solutions, defined in this case as the ability to operate anywhere in the world, is an important issue for ebXML, due in no small part to its United Nations sponsorship. The specifications note that the requirements already cite the need to simplify current methods of data exchange and harmonize the large number of options available. These steps will help build an overall business metamodel and foster the use of core components in a neutral syntax. These are two key ebXML sections that make the specifications more readily available to diverse national and multinational enterprises .

Also, as cited in its own general requirements, ebXML makes full use of existing standards and specifications, especially those that support business activities that cross national boundaries. The standards cited include the use of XML 1.0 (described in more detail in Chapter 4, "The Promise of XML"). However, the requirements list other standards that encourage multinational business.

Unicode allows for encoding most of the world's known character sets, including scientific and mathematics symbols. Exchanging data in major language groups such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Kanji (a Japanese character set) becomes feasible with Unicode.

An important standard in this group is Unicode, a specification that enables systems to represent non “Roman character sets, which is also supported by XML 1.0. The latest version of Unicode (3.0) matches up to the international standard for character sets, ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000. It uses two bytes or 16 bits per character, and provides codes for more than 65,000 characters .

As a result, Unicode allows for encoding most of the world's known character sets, including scientific and mathematics symbols. Exchanging data in major language groups such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Kanji (a Japanese character set) becomes feasible with Unicode. It also allows for the encoding of private character sets and reserves some 8,000 code points for further expansion.[22]

Unicode builds on the work done earlier by an International Organization of Standards committee on computer representation of character sets that resulted in ISO standard 10646 in 1993. The Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set, as it is called officially (abbreviated UCS ), enables the internal computer representation of these characters as well as their exchange between systems. It provides for the coding of the characters, not their complete representation as human-readable text. Unicode closely follows the ISO 10646 characters and contributes to the further development of that standard.[23]

The UN Economic Commission for Europe, the official parent organization for UN/CEFACT, recommended in 1978 to adopt ISO 4217 for representing currencies in international trade transactions.[24] With the rapid growth of international transactions over the web, more and more commercial sites are not assuming the use of one currency over another and specifying the currency in which the transactions take place. ISO 4217 provides standard currency codes for trade transactions.

Another ISO standard, ISO 3166, offers standard country names in French and English, as well as two-character codes. The idea of standard country names and codes sounds simple enough, but consider the changes in country names just in the period of 1990 to 2000, with the end of the Cold War and turmoil in Africa and Asia. Because of the quick and sometimes drastic changes, ISO established a maintenance agency for the names and codes that issues periodic updates in between the normal five-year standards cycle.[25]

ISO also has standard codes for language names, represented in its standard 639. The standard provides for both two- and three-character codes for each known human language ranging from Afar to Zuni.[26] The Internet Engineering Task Force has designated the two-character ISO 639 codes for language tags in Internet technical standards, such as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), used in ebXML messaging envelopes.[27]

In keeping with its United Nations roots, ebXML uses English as the standard language for its deliberations and documents, but will provide translations into other languages at a later point.[28]