Project Phoenix Review

Primarily funded by HKSARG Innovation and Technology Fund, Project Phoenix was completed in March. With two years' effort put in establishing an ebXML software infrastructure in Hong Kong, four software deliverables were developed. They are ebMail, Hermes, ebXML Registry/Repository (ebXMLrr) and TranXnet. CECID has donated the source code of ebMail and Hermes to the ebXML development community, FreebXML. Over several thousands of downloads from more than 60 regions have been recorded since their release. These deliverables have been deployed in five pilot as well as two consulting projects. Among all, ebMail and Hermes are the two most active development products in CECID. Our support and deployment for our ebXML products and FreebXML will continue beyond the completion of Project Phoenix.

The deployment case highlights for ebMail include, weather forecast information collection for the Hong Kong Observatory, Notifiable Infectious Disease Information Messaging System and Import and Export License Application for Pharmaceutical Product and Medicines for Department of Health HKSARG; and Vessal Information System (VIS) for Dagang Net Technologies Sdn Bhd (DNT) of Malaysian customs.

For Hermes, it has successfully demonstrated interoperability with 15 other Asian ebXML Messaging Service products. Some highlights of the deployment of Hermes include: an e-invoicing system between MTR Corporation Ltd and Saggio Company Ltd; an e-procurement system between HMV Hong Kong Ltd and Sony Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Ltd; and a dangerous goods manifest processing system between Marine Department HKSARG, APL Co. Pte. Ltd, and Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL). It is worth mentioning MTRC, HMV HK and Marine Department are all extending their Hermes systems in production to other business partners of theirs or outside Hong Kong.

CECID Logo Revamp

The logo for CECID has been revamped. The color scheme of the logo is blue and orange to reflect CECID is a reliable but at the same time an energetic organization. The icon is composed of the characters "E" and "C" which stand for e-commerce. The design concept embedded in the logo is that the orange dot symbolizes the core of e-commerce, and CECID is leading e-commerce to a new direction.

"Open Source, Open Standards". It is of no surprise that you come across these terms from time to time. Yet, many people seem to think that open-source software offers the same advantages as open standards. According to an article from CNET Networks, open standards is in fact more critical than open source, which helps ensure compatibility and choice.

Open standards are documents that outline agreed-upon conventions to enable different programs to work together, along with some means to ensure that they actually do--a process or set of tests. With open standards, your company can pick and choose among competing vendors and not be locked in to any one of them. For open source, it simply means that the underlying software code is available for inspection and modification. The best open-source projects are the ones that actually amplify a standard, increasing its acceptance in the marketplace and enhancing cross-platform compatibility. You can have people and companies contributing code, but that code doesn't necessarily become part of the mainstream. It may simply end up in the individual company's products. Making the source code open and available is good, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everything the community produces will be compatible. This is why open standards is important.

Spherion Technology Uses Hermes with Large Australian Telco

CECID is pleased to announce that our open source ebXML message service handler, Hermes, has been deployed in a B2B e-procurement system by Spherion Technology Solution (STS), a large business and technology consulting firm in Australia. STS adopted Hermes (based on ebMS v2) to implement an e-procurement system for a division of Spherion Asia Pacific, Spherion Education Solutions, and a large Australian telecommunications company. The system is in production and Spherion Education Solutions, an education/training service provider, can now provide reliable and secure training course procurement service to her telecom client cost-effectively.

With the new e-procurement system using ebXML messaging service, the telecom company exchanges purchase orders, invoices and remittance advice with Spherion ducation Solutions. Besides exploiting the features of Hermes to achieve reliable electronic document exchange, the PKI capacity of Hermes is being utilized in this project to enhance transaction security and provide non-repudiation support of the messages transacted.

Both STS and the telecom company are satisfied with the ebXML production environment. The telecom company is now planning to phase out the existing EDI e-procurement system to the new ebXML-enabled system to handle all education service procurement. With the surge of interest in open source software and ebXML technology, STS expects Hermes to be engaged in more B2B system development projects.

David Wong, Business Consultant, is in charge of the commercialization activities of CECID. He supervises a team of technology consultants to provide knowledge-intensive and cutting-edge technology services to customers in both private and public sectors. David has extensive experience in the information technology for a wide range of industries, from banking operations, e-commerce application development, payment technology research and development to even horse racing operations.

David is a talkative person and loves to mix with people of different character and background. "Knowledgeable persons are everywhere! Yet, only when we interact with them, we can learn something from them." sums up his "inter-personal communication" philosophy. After all, continuous growth is the driving force for such philosophy.

David is a soccer fan. His favorite team is Arsenal. He is also fond of reading, basketball and table tennis.