XML Unleashed

An EDI Primer

Exactly what is EDI? As an acronym for "Electronic Data Interchange," it can be confusing. The name is very broad in scope, but the real meaning of EDI is far more specific than that. EDI is generally used by large organizations to manage their supplier relationships, and it's designed to address only those very particular kinds of business-to-business relationships. It leaves untouched whole categories of relationships that can leverage an EDI framework. Because of the potential confusion, most people use different terms (such as the very general "electronic commerce") when talking about other applications that involve the interchange of data over electronic communications networks.

This is the first lesson about EDI and XML: ...