Visualizing a "Universal Transformation Layer"

It's not just me who sees the advent of XML and the adoption of OpenDocument as a world-changing sequence of events...part of the plumbing of Web 2.0.

Gary Edwards is the uniquely articulate member of OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee ("TC") who has been sketching out the future of systems interoperability for us less imaginative members of the open standards trade.

OpenDocument is already in heavy use as a universal transformation layer at Boeing and with things like the ORACLE Collaboration Suite. I expect that Massachusetts, and everyone else for that matter who has an SOA effort underway, will make similar use of the OpenDocument Format. As organizations make the transition to SOA, greatly leveraging the value of their legacy systems, the sooner they can get XML layers of universal interoperability implemented, the better. Metadata may be quickest way for SOA directed efforts to work with systems vendors to perfect a near term value that seems rather extraordinary to me. But that's just me.

The reason Massachusetts' OpenDocument migration is so important is that it represents the baby steps of an SOA ("Service Oriented Architecture") transition, and everyone around the world is watching not only to see how MassGov handles the political stickywickets but also the technical banana peels as well as those unpredictable human factors.

Seems rather extraordinary to me, too, Gary.