While there is broad-based recognition that the ‘Cloud’ is fundamentally impacting how computing power and business applications are delivered and consumed, it is now becoming clear to a growing number of enlightened corporate decision-makers that today’s rapidly evolving Cloud capabilities can also significantly improve their business intelligence (BI) and analytics capabilities as well.

As ecommerce continues its upward growth, more and more merchants are considering and leveraging drop shipping, in which manufacturers or distributors handle and ship orders directly to the end customer. The benefits are clear: there are lower inventory costs and less risk, since retailers don’t have to stockpile inventory that might not sell.

XML and EDI are two distinct, widely-used technologies with separate and occasionally-complementary uses. Writers in ec-bp.com and elsewhere have already tabulated at length the advantages and disadvantages of each. To the best of my knowledge, though, no one has published an accessible, accurate explanation of XML grammar definition, and how you can use this low-level programming tool to make the most of XML's strengths.

RFID (radio-frequency identification) has most often been advertised to retailers as a way to reduce shrinkage, labor costs at point-of-sale (POS) and distribution center (DC), out-of-stock conditions, and inventory. What's the point, though, for commerce between businesses, where so much of the logistics is already digitized and/or outsourced?