As usual, rather than write my own material, I have spent the last two years encouraging the President of Loren Data Corp, Todd Gould, to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and get busy. Todd is not only our industry’s leading communications architect, a thought leader, and a crusader for trading partner rights (as an advocate for a rational, industry-wide routing policy), he also desires to see our industry grow from both ends of the spectrum, i.e., the largest EDI based businesses as well as the smallest.
In Todd’s Grand Vision, access to the global supply chains should be available to any business of goodwill. The ability to acquire services to either transact directly with trading partners, or to build new and specialized Enterprise 2.0 Services in completely new hosting models…should never be mediated by gatekeepers or high-handed legacy “conglomerate owners” of the sector.
As we can see in his recent November update, Todd is not alone; there is a growing cadre of important enterprise software OEMs and new era ecommerce companies that have joined Loren Data Corp, not merely as client and customers, but as quiet yet firm activists in the quest for open and collegial EDI communications access without gatekeeping.
Not merely satisfied with complaining about the status quo, Todd, in addition to running a 23,000 user EDI network, has started the work to revolutionize the way we use and manage As2 connections – note that I did not say revolutionize As2….I said “the way we use and manage As2 connections” – there is a Big Difference. As2 has never had a problem as a comms protocol, its problems have always been in its management.
The amazing phenomenon that is ECGrid and its developer platform, ECGridOS, is truly starting to look impressive in capabilities as a communications platform for new era EDI based businesses. Actually, the power of ECGrid has been impressing a cadre of EDI service providers since 2001 – but until the advent of the ECGridOS API, the power was relegated to the few, specialized, pioneering B2B SAAS Companies that started SME shift a decade ago.
Now, we shall see the expanded ECGridOS API, the new ECGridAs2 SuperHub, and amazing API extensions Todd will shortly release from beta – we WILL see that the EDI Communication Industry ‘s future will assuredly NOT reside solely in the hands of one or two consolidated incumbents – rather, EDI’s fate will rest in the capable hands of innovators, developers, and entrepreneurs of the new movement called, “Enterprise and Supply Chain 2.0” !!
See all of Todd’s blog posts at http://www.ld.com/presidents-blog/
