With its ease of use, what will it take to make XML the solution for web inter-application communication that will lead companies to want to do business with each other via B2B, C2B, B2C, and A2A using XML?

It's been stated that the real pay-off is the ability to exchange a greater variety of information that is made possible by the extensibility of XML (supplemented at times with file attachments), and the ability to add real-time collaboration to the mix.

Finding an interchange format that can be used for transfer of data between databases of different vendors and different operating systems was always difficult. That interchange is one of the major applications of XML.

Thus, companies are increasingly turning to XML to address the issue of a common data exchange and/or document standard. XML has been instrumental in jump-starting a number of e-commerce and Web-based applications.