The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 is accelerating its processes, expanding its reach to include XML and object oriented electronic data interchange (OO-EDI) and collaborating with related standards development initiatives. ASC X12’s collaborative efforts with e-commerce organizations will help support the requirements of a broad base of users by bringing together the EDI foundation with XML development. To accomplish these objectives, the committee focused at its recent ASC X12 meeting on refining the goals of the newly created XML Task Group, which is charged with providing X12 input into complementary XML initiatives. This group covers the breadth of XML technical work and facilitates a forum for industry experts to address similar initiatives. In a parallel move, the X12 Committee actively participates in and formally endorses the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative, which is working to provide an open XML-based infrastructure enabling the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all involved parties. ASC X12 will pursue its XML development efforts within the framework being defined by ebXML. Furthermore, the committee encourages XML education and the development of emerging business requirements. By offering its expertise on “Procurement Using a Purchasing Card as Payment Method,” the committee completed work on the OO-EDI standards pilot project, demonstrating a next generation of EDI utilizing unified modeling language methodology. The committee will continue to research and develop core components for plug-and-play solutions that utilize OO-EDI, XML, and other emerging syntaxes. www.x12.org