10.00 am - noon, Friday 25^th August 2000

Phone link between the Tradegate ECA, Sydney and Melbourne offices together with Robert Dakin, George Szuty & Garry Grant (Canberra), Chris Tsilomanis (Adelaide) and Tim McGrath (Fremantle).

In the Sydney Office: Keith Finkelde (BT Financial Group, chair), John Pemberton (Diskray, Secretariat), Jordi Robert-Riles (C&W Optus), Margaret Pemberton (Diskray), Chris Madden (NUIX), Nader Behman (C&W Optus), Stephen Gould (OIC), Kelvin Lai (BT Financial Group).

In the Melbourne Office: Barry Keogh (Tradegate ECA), David Botherway (Coles Myer), Cathy Thawley (Tradegate ECA).

Apologies: Brian Garner (Deakin University), Wavell Cole (GEIS), Steven Periera (EAN), Donald de Foe (ORICA), Andrew Blair (BT Financial Services), David Dobbing (Data Logistics), Margaret Turner (DSTC), Ian Russell (Super Reality).

Keith Finkelde welcomed all present.

The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted.

TMcG reported (attached Report no.ebXML6 had been distributed to the ebXML - AWP mailing list) that meeting delegates were frustrated by the small number of technical documents produced prior to the San Jose meeting. However, the meeting generated much fruitful discussion and produced significant changes to the Initiative management and the composition and direction of the Project Teams. As a consequence of the meeting, the delegates where far better informed on the objectives and potential products of the ebXML Initiative.

Tim reported that all of the major Ecommerce companies were present at San Jose with the exception of Microsoft. He feels that an outcome of the Initiative must be an interoperable agreement between all of the user parties and that there will be a need for incremental compliance as the feasible parts of the Initiative products are developed.

Major items of interest from the meeting included:

• the establishment of 4 new Project Teams (Trading Partner Agreement, Project Management, Delivery & Quality Review) formed by a combination of renaming some of the previous Teams, amalgamation of other Teams and introduction of new Teams. Some of these Teams report directly to the Executive Committee (two representatives of each of OASIS & UN/CEFACT). Tim is the editor of the newly formed Quality Review Team.

• the imminent updating of the current Requirements document.
• current Project Team status and information is available from each Team's Web page (linked to the Initiative page www.ebxml.org).
• the Proof of Concept demonstration by the Transport, Routing & Packaging Team.
• the GCI presentation involving production of DTD's from UML models.
• the presentation by the Joint Business Processing and Core Components Team on how the ebXML framework can provide more versatile data exchange.

The next ebXML Initiative meeting will be held in Tokyo from 6^th to 11^th November. BK has invited chair Klaus Naujok and 4 Project Team leaders to participate in Seminars in Sydney (Monday 13^th November) and Melbourne (Tuesday 14^th November) at venues to be arranged. JRR noted that Optus' North Sydney facilities were available and will inform BK of the costs.

The seminars will aim to inform the e-business community on the ebXML Initiative and the outcomes from the Initiative meetings. All members noted the considerable interest in ebXML from Ecommerce users at all levels and the need to inform all potential interest groups (government & large companies down to medium & small scale software developers) of the latest developments as well as the basic methodology & infrastructure behind the Initiative. It was suggested that the morning session could involve a more general ebXML education/overview and that the afternoon session could outline the activities of the Initiative Project Teams as well as current local industry case studies involving ebXML. DB suggested one such study should be the GCI Consortium XML pilot in Australia and David will contact Steven Periera (EAN) about his thoughts and availability.

KF highlighted the need for Australia to establish its own Ecommerce architecture for all industries using the recent overseas ebXML initiatives. It is very important to target senior management at large companies and Government bodies involved in Ecommerce and stress both the unifying nature of ebXML for standards definitions over all industries and the importance of Australia's proactive role in developing the knowledge economy on the international market which involves adopting the new international Ecommerce architecture.

The meeting formed a committee of KF, TMcG & BK to produce the agenda/program for the Seminars. The agenda will be sent to AR for approval.

The meeting confirmed that outcomes from the ebXML Initiative will establish a interoperable framework/architecture only and that ebXML was never intended to produce DTD's, MIG's, schema's etc.

Interested parties are reminded that definitions, background and Initiative objectives are available on the ebXML Web site.

It was confirmed that the member organisations of the ACMC (including Coles Myer; EAN Australia; BHP; Data Logistics; Diskray; NOIE; TECA Board; Standards Australia) confirmed their strong support for the seminars.

1. The next meeting of the ebXML - AWP group is scheduled for Friday 20^th October at 9.30 am to 11.00 am with meetings in the Tradegate ECA offices in Sydney and Melbourne with requested phone links. This meeting will be followed by the ACMC meeting from 11.00 am to 12.30 pm.

2. KF noted that Duane Nicholl will be speaking at the XML Asia Pacific Conference in Sydney from 30^th October to 2^nd November. The Conference program can be viewed at allette.com.au/xml. Keith noted that Duane would be available to speak to other interested groups if required.

Keith Finkelde

Chair