W3C Extends Reach of XML to New Devices, Applications

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Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Standard Has Dramatic Impact on Speed, Performance, Power Consumption

Testimonials

 

http://www.w3.org/ — 10 March 2011 — Today the W3C announces advances that will enable people to use widely deployed open Web standards in brand new ways. The Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) standard dramatically improves the performance, network efficiency, and power consumption of applications that use XML. EXI is a very compact representation of XML information, making it ideal for use in smart phones, devices with memory or bandwidth constraints, in performance sensitive applications such as sensor networks, in consumer electronics such as cameras, in automobiles, in real-time trading systems, and in many other scenarios.

“We’ve been providing EXI products for seven years and are amazed with what our customers have accomplished,” said John Schneider, CTO of AgileDelta and editor of the EXI specification, “They’ve achieved over 100-fold performance improvements and expanded their data networks to high speed aircraft, automobiles, mobile devices and sensor networks. At the same time, they’ve achieved dramatic cost savings by using open Web standards and off-the-shelf products in place of the custom protocols, gateways and applications previously required by these applications.”

W3C Community Resolves Fragmentation; Creates Single Interoperable Standard

XML standards are omnipresent in enterprise computing, and are part of the foundation of the Web. Because the standards are highly interoperable and affordable, people have wanted to use them in a wide variety of applications. However, in some settings — on devices with low memory or low bandwidth, or where performance is critical — experience has shown that a more efficient form of XML is required. Market demand led to the proliferation of application-specific approaches, but most were neither efficient nor general enough, and they sacrificed the interoperability that makes XML so valuable.

To address this fragmentation, W3C brought together diverse stakeholders and reviewed a broad set of use cases. The result is the EXI standard, a single, interoperable XML format that performs well consistently, across the full range of use cases. Extensive testing shows that EXI performs consistently better than previous XML formats, data compression, and even packed binary data formats. As such, it brings the full range of XML benefits to even the most demanding applications.

EXI is Exciting

EXI is already being adopted in Smart Energy Standards to support rapid communication between networks of smart meters, smart appliances and electric vehicles. EXI accelerates financial trading systems that depend on transaction speed. EXI speeds up defense applications, where rapid information flow can help save lives. EXI can make XML a more valuable data format for Web applications on mobile devices, where reduced utilization of the network and processor improves performance and extends battery life. And EXI can be used from JavaScript in desktop Web browsers for a faster user experience.

The EXI standard is the culmination of years of research, analysis and benchmarking by the W3C EXI Working Group and its predecessor, the W3C XML Binary Characterization (XBC) Working Group. The following organizations provided leadership, guidance, expertise and support for these efforts: Adobe, AgileDelta, BEA, Boeing, Canon, Chevron, DataPower, Expway, France Telecom, Fujitsu, High Performance Technologies, IBM, Intel, KDDI, MITRE, Objective Systems, Oracle, OSS Nokalva, Nokia, Siemens, Stanford University, Tarari, University of Helsinki and the Web3D Consortium. Read more in W3C Member Testimonials.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 325 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

Media Contacts

Contact Americas, Australia
Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33 6 76 86 33 41

Testimonials for Efficient XML Interchange Recommendation

Agile Delta | Canon (English) | Canon (Japanese) | FLWOR Foundation | Fujitsu (English) | Fujitsu (Japanese) | Siemens | Stanford University | Web3D Consortium

Agile Delta

AgileDelta is extremely pleased with the W3C EXI Recommendation. EXI will accelerate and expand the reach of the web, web-services and XML technologies to an unprecedented new range of applications and devices. We've been providing EXI products for over 7 years and have helped our customers deploy high-performance XML solutions to mobile devices, sensor networks, aircraft, vehicles, ships, satellite systems and performance-critical applications. Our Efficient XML 4.0 product line includes very high-performance, reliable, secure EXI processors; rapid EXI integration solutions and advanced EXI features for web-services, mobile devices, embedded systems and applications running Java, Java ME, DotNET, DotNET CF and C/C++.

- John Schneider, CTO, AgileDelta, Inc.

Canon (English)

While XML has widely been used for data exchange among Web services and devices, the use of XML on resource constrained devices has always been an issue due to its processing overhead. Canon is very pleased by the release of W3C EXI Format 1.0 Recommendation as a standard interoperable compact form of XML. We expect EXI will enable us to provide compelling Web services on consumer devices like printers and digital cameras.

- Shigeki Shibayama, Deputy Group Executive of Digital Platform Technology Development Headquarters, Canon Inc Inc.

Canon (Japanese)

XMLはこれまでWebサービスと機器間のデータ交換に広く使われてきましたが、 XMLの処理オーバーヘッドはリソースの制限された機器では常に問題になってき ました。キヤノンはW3C EXI Format 1.0勧告が相互運用可能なコンパクトなXML の標準形式としてリリースされたことを心より歓迎するとともに、EXIによって プリンタやカメラなどのコンシューマ機器において魅力的なWebサービスを提供 できるようになることを期待しています。

- 柴山茂樹、デジタルプラットフォーム開発本部副本部長、キヤノン株式会社

Fujitsu (English)

EXI is a key technology that brings unparalleled efficiency to XML data exchanges. This is a monumental achievement for W3C. Fujitsu believes EXI will serve to greatly accelerate efforts underway across industries to convert legacy business documents into XML without loss of efficiency. We intend to embrace EXI in our Interstage product line to empower users with the full potential of XML technology that EXI unleashes. Finally, EXI is here to become the lingua franca of efficient exchanges of business XML data. We are very excited to work in this direction.

— Masato Nitta, President of Middleware Business Unit, Fujitsu Limited

Fujitsu (Japanese)

EXIは、XMLデータの転送効率を飛躍的に向上させるものであり、 W3Cにとって記念すべき成功の一つです。この技術の普及により、 さまざまな業界で既存ビジネス文書のXML化がより一層推進される ことでしょう。当社は、お客様がXMLの特長を最大限に活用できる ように、当社製品InterstageにEXIを取り込んでいきたいと考えております。 今後、EXIがXMLデータの効率的な交換技術のリンガ・フランカと なることを期待するとともに、当社がこのような技術の発展に 貢献できることをうれしく思います。

— 新田将人、ミドルウェア事業本部本部長、富士通株式会社

FLWOR Foundation

EXI is particularly important for client software and mobile platforms, that require compressed data transfers and rapid parsing.

— Daniela Florescu, FLWOR Foundation

Siemens

Siemens is committed to support the broad adoption of EXI, and launched for that purpose the open EXIficient implementation in addition to contributing to the standardisation process. We believe that the Efficient XML Interchange format will open the scope of XML to restricted domains such as embedded networks of micro controllers and brings the key attributes of XML such as openness, flexibility and continuity to the embedded domain. By means of EXI embedded controller networks will become a new citizen of the Web.

— Jörg Heuer, Program Manager, Corporate Technology, GTF Communication and Control Networks, Siemens AG

Stanford University

EXI will be important in big physics projects (like those undertaken by SLAC and other laboratories at Stanford) for two main reasons. First, increasingly the scientific data that large instruments deal in, is structured. Second, we are beginning to integrate scientific services like mathematical modelling, instrument configuration control, historical archive data, and various control optimization systems like global feedback, into the basic controls platforms. That means the high-level structured data, must also be communicated very quickly. This specification facilitates such exchange.

- Natasha Noy, Stanford University

Web3d Consortium

Web3D Consortium enthusiastically supports the advancement of EXI to W3C Recommendation. We have contributed since the beginning of this effort and applaud the working group for an exceptionally thorough effort. EXI has demonstrated, through thousands of examples and multiple implementations, that it meets the original requirements set by W3C. This includes the compression and performance requirements relating to 3D graphics. Web3D Consortium members intend to integrate EXI in the next version of the X3D Compressed Binary Encoding specification. We look forward to EXI further helping grow the scope of the Web.

- Don Brutzman, Web3D Consortium

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