XML gives firms a database edge.

Companies whose databases do not share information either internally or with other businesses would face a "serious competitive disadvantage" in the coming decade, according to a data management expert.The managing director of Information Engineering Services, Clive Finkelstein, told a Melbourne data management conference last week many companies struggled with databases that were unable to communicate with one another because they had been developed for different applications. Historically, integrating databases had involved their "total redevelopment" - a move hard to justify if they performed well separately, he said. Finkelstein said extensible markup language (XML) could be a solution as it permitted organisations to tag company data according to both its form and content in existing databases for easier access within and between such systems. Business customers, for example, could be categorised in databases according to their age, gender or by organisation-specific categories. Finkelstein said this meant XML could also provide Web search engines with a meaning and context behind the database and Website text that the traditional hypertext markup language (HTML) for Web sites could not offer. This allowed more targeted searches for stored data, he said. Providing business customers with information about such tags allowed them to access databases and order goods directly online, producing operational and staffing cost savings, Finkelstein said. "XML is one of the most significant developments of the computer industry since the World Wide Web and Java ... for the next two to five years this will be one of the most important aspects of the Internet and of systems development in general," he said.