Rational Software and Commerce One, Inc. announced a UML (Unified Modeling Language) for XML schema mapping specification. The Rational Software and Commerce One joint collaboration provides a standard method to dramatically reduce the development time and increase the quality of schema-based, XML e-commerce applications. UML is poised to become the industry-standard language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting software systems. XML schema is emerging as a W3C recommendation for the definition of XML and is believed to provide a safer and more reliable way to define XML messages for use in e-commerce systems. By adding mechanisms for strong data validation, inheritance and other object-oriented structures not present in the DTD, developers can have a more efficient way to visually model e-business solutions. The UML profile announced today would provide developers with a systematic, graphical methodology for creating XML schemas. The UML for XML Schema Mapping Specification is available at Commerce One’s Web site at www.commerceone.com/xml/sox/index.html and Rational’s Web site at www.rational.com/uml/index.jtmpl