XML USE ON THE RISE

2 October 2001

by Tom Bragg

A recent survey by Cutter Consortium's Distributed Computing Architecture practice shows that more than three-quarters of companies surveyed are using XML, and a quarter of those are using it in a major project.

How is your organization currently exploring XML?

Studying XML                            33%
Have used XML in a test project         24%
Using XML in a major project            26%
Committed to extensive use of XML       17%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"We subdivided these responses by company size and location to see if that made a difference. Our results show that smaller companies (annual revenues less than US $100 million) are much more likely to use XML in a test project while large companies (annual revenues greater than US $1 billion) are more likely to use XML in a major project," says Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Paul Harmon. "We also found North American and Asian companies were more likely to move faster, while European companies are more likely to study the new technology longer. Similarly, some large companies are more willing to take risks and try new technology early in hopes of obtaining a competitive edge."

How satisfied are you with XML?

Completely satisfied            28%
Satisfied                       24%
Somewhat satisfied              19%
Somewhat unsatisfied            14%
Unsatisfied                     10%
Completely unsatisfied           5%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"For many companies, XML is still more promise than reality. I believe that XML is going to play a major role in Internet and distributed systems in the years ahead and urge those who experienced difficulty not to give up," says Harmon. "The interesting thing is that it is as widely used and accepted as it is -- and it's about to become much more useful as new extensions and languages become available in the course of this year."

--Cutter Consortium

[These statistics were taken from Cutter Consortium's Distributed Computing Architecture/e-Business Service. For more information, please contact Dennis Crowley at +1 781 641 5125 or +1 800 964 5125 or e-mail dcrowley@cutter.com or visit http://www.cutter.com/consortium/index_trends.html.]