The alternatives I might consider among the Republicans are eliminated as the group, as a whole, can only be described as a “Clown College“. Rick Perry? The man is mentally damaged. Santorum? His sole  s  credentials are based in some type of white-boy, right-boy, social issues. Santorum as President is a film score for f-ed up right-wing version of the movie Blade Runner. Gingrich? That’s one angry and pissed-off ideologue. Whew! Ron Paul – I so do want a libertarian society and the downsizing of the Federal Pawprint on this nation, but not with him at the helm.

Anyone else? Got rid of the Lunatic Bachman, narrowly avoided Herman Cain (again, whew!), and….now, Mitt Romney, my former Governor,  the man without a vision. Romney is all the manager you can ask for, experienced in capital markets, and totally unsuited to be President. Shudder.

If I have missed anyone, it’s because I hardly give a listen to the Republican blather – not because I am not interested or very concerned, because I am. However, I am a sensitive soul, and I can only take so much disingenuousness until I get migraines.

Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, Perry – nausea. Jon Huntsman……… (got rid of the H in the edit)/

Here, in Jon Huntsman, we have a plainspoken, erudite, Global thinker, an expert on Chinese-American relations (speaks Mandarin Chinese), who does not give this democrat a headache.

Jon Huntsman is a Republican wildcard, endorsed by the Boston Glob (not sure how I feel about that), that actually engenders in me less revulsion than Barack Obama. Wow.

I will not be voting for Obama again – he betrayed me. I might vote for Jon Huntsman. If any other one of the Republican potential nominees are seated as President of our Fair Land in this  Wretched year of our  L-rd 2012………..I will enter a medically induced coma for the duration of the Presidential Term.

We can compare Tandberg, Bang and Olufsen, and Ferrari, as well as others unnamed – none of these saw the future of technology and grasped it with both hands and spirit – bringing high concepts down to the earthly market for all to enjoy. His most memorable statements regarding the ethos of design:

Paraphrasing – ” …combining the best of technology and liberal arts”, “

“…now we have a phone that encompasses the best design, it feels substantial and its beautiful, similar to a Leica camera”.

My most fervent hope is that the organization he has built and left in good hands, will continue to even push beyond its boundaries of Consumer Electronics, and take upon itself missions that will change the very foundation of the USA manufacturing economy.

I have no doubt that goal is achievable under the hands of Steve Job’s General Staff of leaders, now firmly in a position to expand Apple’s mission.

What do we Pledge to the memory of Bill McGowan, the Long Distance Warrior who broke AT&T’s monopoly? I personally pledge never to let a corporate bully take advantage of Private Equity to disadvantage a smaller innovator. Just as MCI breaking AT&T opened our era to so many new opportunities such as fiber optics, cell phones and the Internet, in our arcane but important word of supply chain EDI communications (ignored by a torpid FCC, however, the Agency will be roused via our filings),  I pledge, in the memory of Bill McGowan, my hero next to Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, that I will not rest until the following is accomplished:

1. GXS is taken to task for causing anguish to a fine and dignified engineer and his company,

2. That agencies and courts alike see correctly,  that Loren Data v. GXS Inc  is an exact replay of MCI v. AT&T

3. That if collusion is uncovered, or if there is executive culpability discovered at GXS in denying Loren Data Corp an Interconnect, then I will make it my last act on earth to air these to the proper authorities well after I am released from any minor advisory obligations to Loren Data Corp.

This is my fight now!  Edwin Armstrong v. RCA and David Sarnoff, Philo Farnsworth v. RCA and GE, and now, Todd Gould and Loren Data v. GXS, already a decade of striving while innovating and operating one of the best EDI networks on the planet – and the only Web Services API for EDI network management, while fighting tooth and nail for what GXS gives gratis (???Gives??? –  F—- that…GXS takes transit from all of the other VANs and ECGrid, and GEIS/GXS/inovis/IBM-IE were all built upon the foundations of free traffic exchange settlements – misnamed VAN interconnects) to every EDI communications network in the industry.

Oh, Loren Data is appealing, yes. Yes, I am going to Washington with our regulatory council, and yes, I am not coming back until we a) get on the docket for an administrative law rule making, b) get one of the Bureau Chiefs to take peremptory actions and investigate GXS as a hybrid message switching service subject to tariff.

Meanwhile, enjoy this trailer to “Long Distance Warrior” If you can’t find Long Distance Warrior on your local PBS station, email me for a link to the on-line version.

It’s good to reflect on what could have happened had AT&T won the right to maintain its monopoly over telecom services in the US market,  as well as the other North American markets and other franchises they had a grip on, such as transatlantic submarine cables: We would never have seen a whiff of the innovations that we take for granted. We would all undoubtedly be paying huge rates for intrastate calls, to say nothing of interstate and international calling rates. AT&T had become so powerful, with reserve cash balances exceeding the US Treasury. So many cases against AT&T fell into place once the national and legal consciousness got up to speed after the divestiture, and the seminal case of equipment attachment in Carterfone.

In the VAN world, the real interconnection problems are not about interconnections at all – these are party to party, reciprocal traffic routing exchanges that are not VAN business per se, but are routing agreements for the benefit of the users. Cooperative traffic services built the market for GEIS/GSX/Inovis/IBM Advantis before they were rolled-up, and the entire cohort of “legacy” VANs partake in these traffic routing agreements, thus insuring EDI users are not forced into sitting on one dominant VAN. Interconnections are the ultimate market lubricant, not mere technical agreements used to convey message traffic. Think on this.

The present difficulties between Loren Data Corp ECGrid and GXS TGMS is based on two forces being exploited by GXS: Traffic transfers between trading partners of unequal influence (large retail hubs are a must have route for the suppliers), and the primitive, outmoded architecture of VAN to VAN routing. Let me explain first:

The world of EDI networks will need some type of Transit Police if fair rules for InterVAN message transit cannot be established. Without such tariffs or FCC involvement, we will have more cases of routing arbitrage like Loren Data v. GXS . What has worked up until now, the agreements between collegial EDI networks, has been broken at a fundamental level. So, even when networks cooperate, the methods used to add, drop, move, and update Network ID’s and subscriber information is just a mess. The small VANs might have <5K network Id;s, the largest have well over 40,000. Loren Data Corp ECGrid is growing fast – moving up from a stable cohort of 19,000, and then busting out with the introduction of the ECGridOS API – ECGrid now is closing in on 22,000 ID’s, and is looking at a potential 30,000 if all of the current agreements are realized. If the EDI industry could just get its act together on directory services and ID portability, we would be halfway there to a fairer, flatter VAN market where any decent, competent network could connect to any one of several competitive pure transit providers, and thereby be connected to all of the VANs and hubs. That’s how things work on the Internet with Pure peering and paid transit. We could also expect more functional and innovative network level services that the current community of service providers and VANs could build new products and features upon.

So the first exploitation on GXS’s plate has been stifling the entry of new VANs and Service providers into the market, by not participating in cleaning up routing and directory services (network level services), as befits the largest EDI network in the industry – a leader, a steward of fair practices, a company that competes on its merits – we do not find this in the current corporate persona of GXS.

ECGrid, as an independent innovator, is not permitted  to interconnect with or route traffic in a native manner to TGMS, whereas the entire cohort of approximately 40 North American VANS plus a dozen or so European EDI networks do have such reciprocal agreements with GXS-TGMS. Therefore the prospects for Loren Data Corp competing in the market is diminished, as ECGrid is technically and financially disadvantaged compared to other networks that interconnect to GXS-TGMS.

Let’s face it, GXS took a lot of money from Francisco Partners and Golden Gate Capital, and used that capital to purchase IBM-IE, Inovis, and a plethora of supporting EDI properties. By gaining such clients via these acquisitions, (many are major retailers and manufacturers with large, diverse down-line trading partner networks) GXS has used the power of these TGMS homed clients to leverage Loren Data Corp who serves the EDI service providers who, in turn, service those parties who trade with GXS clients – get it? These are parties who are bound by a relationship to do business, well outside of any consideration of GXS, and have chosen a Service Provider, who has chosen ECGrid as a preferred EDI transit network, and…GXS has not permitted the data belonging to these parties to be conveyed to its natural destination. If  FedEx, UPS, USPS, (or any provider that takes the bailment of a customer’s messages or property) played such games, there would be hell to pay at the FTC. VANs, living under the FCC’s radar, existed prior to the 1996 telecom reform act, but they were providers of wireline conveyed services before the advent of the Internet. Maybe VANs of a certain size should be tariffed?

GXS grants reciprocal traffic exchange to just about every major and minor VAN, even their arch rival IBM-Sterling Commerce, and refuses to exchange traffic in alike manner with ECGrid – so we need EDI Transit Police. 

Loren Data Corp, under the direction of its intrepid President Todd Gould, has sought relief in the Antitrust laws, and has struggled somewhat to properly answer the well-funded GXS and its hired legal guns – and now the company is bound for the FCC’s administrative rule-making process. After all, in the words (Paraphrased) of Bill  McGowan, the Chairman of MCI who took AT&T to task, “ Are we just going to let these huge companies dictate who can compete? We just want a chance to bring a new idea (Competitive Long Distance) to market, just a chance to try a new thing.”

Well, that’s what Loren Data Corp wants to do: trying for the last ten years to bring a new type of EDI Communications to market with open APIs, pure transit, and better network management tools. Granting managed peer level access to its clients, as opposed to mailboxes, where any company or service provider-developer can become its own network commander. But when a network the size of GXS singles out a company 1/500th its size by every measure, using the leverage of its routing borders, then we have a problem. Whether the courts or agencies can see it, we all can see the injustice, I can see it, and anyone with a sense of decency and a respect for fair competition can see it.

As the standards of review for antitrust violation under the Sherman act, both sections one and two, are very high, and being a legal specialty, Loren Data Corp finds itself in the august company of many, many innovative competitors that have fallen on the sharp blades of the legal system. I will not recount the cases, but as to the validity of Loren  Data Corp’s claims, anyone in this business with a shred of common sense and fair play, knows that GXS exchanges message traffic with dozen’s of VANs, collects not a dime, and has singled out Loren Data for discriminatory treatment that is damaging to Loren Data Corp.    It’s a no-brainer, and an adverse motion outcome is not a final act in the drama.

I have always stated, and shall state again, that the courts are a blunt instrument for getting relief, and that the regulators, while not much better, are at least familiar with the issues of networked markets, and we shall take our bundle of facts to a formal process of rule making at  FCC. After all, it is the trading parties that are truly being disparaged here, although Loren Data is being manhandled on their behalf -   and more to the point, it is the market for unbundled EDI Communications and the service provider model that is being hurt – 1) by GXS itself by acting in an anticompetitive manner, and 2) by the relative lack of sophistication of the district courts, that misunderstood the subject matter items,  totally.

The expense of mounting an appeal is not a trivial act for a tiny company 1/500th the size of a GXS, but the President of Loren Data Corp has been somewhat gratified  to have parties with aligned interests reach out to help – we shall see if that help becomes corporeal and palpable.

On the “big picture front” the issues exposed in the pleadings and forty page decision of Her Honor D.K, Cashanow, are a signpost and a roadmap for all parties with similar issues to study and make use of. Loren Data Corp has access to both a new, experienced Antitrust legal counsel, and an appellate atty.  The issues now remaining are costs, the maintenance of existing traffic between ECGrid and GXS in their current transit agreements, and the further interactions with DOJ, if any, and FCC, which are coming along, not without some difficulty, but the company does see a clear path through the administrative maze.

Analysts specializing in the competitive dynamics of networked products and services are not surprised by the Loren v.  GXS kerfuffle; it’s a fact of life that when inter-network connections create the actual market, the big boys who may be losing their edge will often use the leverage of interconnections to squelch the innovators. Such innovative companies often eat the lunch  of the behemoths when the playing field is leveled by mandated interconnections, common carrier type connections.

So, I will continue to assist the intrepid and righteous warriors, while playing my part to help the agencies see how vital the EDI communications sector is to our economy, and why they should apply a light hand to restore an orderly and open competitive EDI market.   I will also act to find allies with aligned interests to help Loren Data Corp, and finally, educate the industry as to the toxic behaviors that are the product of mishandling the interconnections (traffic exchange without-settlements) to one’s competition. We can always hope that some feeling of stewardship and a responsibility towards the trading partners (at both end of the relationship) will someday enter the actions and consciousness of the leadership at GXS Inc.

Alan D. Wilensky, Analyst, bizQuirk Product Strategies

Interconnections are special. They are more than essential features of networked marketplaces – Interconnections create a connected industry’s total value. The profundity of this revelation is not new, nor are the issues related to the abuse of interconnections, transforming such sublime virtual pathways into implements of leverage in order to limit competition. These strategies have always been unmasked as being extremely shortsighted, limiting, and uninformed. Limiting a subscriber’s reach across competitive networks via interconnection subterfuge destabilizes end-user pricing, and limits the sum total scale of the  market for both incumbents and new entrants alike. Fresh competition brings diversity of services, equitable access, and keeps the incumbents on their toes. Losing the independent innovators who advance the state of the art  has always been a downer – we saw this in the AT&T era before the divestiture.

Interconnection abuses led to AT&T’s multi-decade monopoly – an era of artificially constrained services delivered in a  stultifying atmosphere of scarcity. A similar mindset marks current B2B IT services which some companies view as a pond stocked with a finite number of fish, and to others as a limitless ocean of whale-sized opportunities.

The missing element that distinguishes these two industry perspectives is innovation – an asset and attribute of a corporate persona that is unattainable by wielding the ostentatious power of Private Equity alone. Innovations is where the worldview of perceived scarcity, or conversely, that of abundance and limitless opportunities, diverge.

Even the most prestigious VAN clients can seem like unwitting captives held hostage behind a network’s routing border. Such artificial borders are created by executives who are far, far removed from their industry and the professionals they deign to serve.

This type of scarcity-based thinking is outmoded in our era of ubiquitous connectivity, where the costs of transporting data packets is becoming vanishingly inexpensive.

The best antidote to the malady of interconnections abuses, or routes arbitrage, is the establishment and strengthening of easily implemented and equitable interconnection standards applied and adopted by all VANs and specialty EDI networks. The collegial corps of EDI networks and B2B communications system operators who specialize in EDI will all benefit for what tomorrow’s analyst’s may call by the name, “e-commerce cloud communications’.

So, what are the issues at stake?

1) Refusals to carry EDI messages between consenting trading partners located on selected EDI networks’ (in the present instance, a refusal to interconnect the TGMS VAN with ECGrid®) on the same terms granted to other commerce networks, fundamentally distorts the e-commerce market.

2) Applying selective, uneven transit settlements to specific network providers dishonors a trading partner’s right to choose a provider freely among the EDI networks or service providers, as they see fit. Interconnection denials by any one influential network (grown by PE, not smarts) created an enduring legacy of limited consumer choices and delayed innovation during the AT&T era – we now have an identical situation at GXS holding the keys to the EDI Communications market.

3) Dishonoring the intrinsic importance of every EDI transaction. Each message traversing the supply chain is as important, regardless of network destination or origin, to buyers and sellers. Eventually, someone at the FCC will see the competition crippling actions perpetuated by GXS on the VAN market, and take action (we’ll keep briefing FCC Bureau Chiefs, Commissioners, and staff until they GET IT).

4) Allowing the creation and sustaining of a lopsided and harmful (to innovation) market dynamic via the transformation of VAN interconnections into instruments of competitive leverage, by exploiting the relationship between the big bad VAN’s, its  large corporate clients, and the trading partners who have freely chosen to transact on a service provider on Loren Data ECGrid. GXS does not want these service providers in the market, and they are attacking them through the proxy of Loren Data Corp’s connectivity. If this were a tariffed market as it should be for the larger VANs, this would not even be an issue, as interconnects (more accurately reciprocal traffic exchange agreements) would be sacrosanct and mandated.

To Loren Data Staff, and to its President, Todd Gould, the interconnection is just about sacred, and we have freely interconnected with many networks that had the minimum bona fides. The policy has worked well.

All of the foregoing are urgent in their own right, but the keystone issue remains Interconnection Denial, aka routing interference, i.e., using the prestige of one’s  network tenants (the big trading partners on TGMS) to influence and disadvantage an innovative competitor. Not good. Immoral in this author’s opinion, and also proven in the long-run (in numerous historical examples) to be counter productive to the interconnection arbitrageur, i.e., GXS. They (GXS) will eventually, if we are diligent and virtuous, draw the attention and ire of the DOJ back upon them, and the FCC and FTC will come back and realize that the supply chain communications business is a vital economic force and a piece of our national communications infrastructure, and these agencies will eventually act.

And, after all the weeping and gnashing of teeth over granting (I hate that word), lets say rather cooperating with Loren Data Corp to enable the exchange of trading partner transactions between TGMS and ECGrid? What will the world look like? It will be same world, just as GXS-TGMS reciprocally routes with Sterling and Easylink, they will route with Loren data Corps ECGrid – and GXS revenues will actually be positively impacted by this change in routing configuration.

GXS’ Epitaph as the largest B2B place sitter? “They attained rank with the purchasing power of others, and harbored no pride in the stewardship gained by a default. In an industry with unlimited potential,  no leadership was provided, nor a will to compete on their own merits”.

Loren Data Corp, 1/450th the size of GXS in all measures, yet in possession of a portfolio of technological firsts and distinguished engineering feats that have been placed in the service of the EDI Communications industry. “if only there were ten more like us”, says Todd Gould referring to his vision of a truly competitive EDI transit market – Todd is willing to license and otherwise enable his colleagues with ECGrid technology – because he knows that the innovations he is cooking up in the lab build atop his platform oriented architecture. Who ese, again, has an EDI Network management Web Services API? Who you say.,.,….not GXS that’s for sure.

GXS does not permit ECGrid message traffic to cross their boundary, in spite of the fact that the trading counter parties have chosen to be served by….. Service Providers on ECGrid. Well Over One Thousand Trading Partners, and a great deal of data, is being subjected to GXS  arbitrage, due to its management’s lack of industry stewardship. This does not speak well of the leadership of GXS Inc.. The Troubled TGMS VAN, subject to so much negative sentiment on Yahoo EDI-L, could be modernized overnight if GXS contracted Loren Data to run its EDI transit communications and interconnects like a professional communications company – Loren Data Corp’s handful of professional netops engineers are far more adept than GXS 3rd line support, who continually underperform analyst’s expectations since the Inovis acquisition.

What happened guys? I know what happened – profits have not scaled with the acquisitions and GXS cannot bring new thinking to market – whereas Loren Data Corp’s owner writes his own code, and innovates and delivers, at the speed he can code and debug. See a future article for the kind of partners Todd Gould is attracting to ECGrid and ECGridOS - though-leaders all in EDI Tools and Software are flocking to work with Loren Data Corp.

For when an enterprise is no longer enterprising, when it is out of ideas, and its purchases – its acquisitions, fail to gel within the structure of an overheated and unwieldy organization, then the next step is often to resort to the less imaginative means of manipulating a networked marketplace.

In other words, blocking or cutting network pathways that are host to two mutually contracted trading parties is the action of a desperate and fearful, but over-sized actor, one who has run out of ideas, including the ideas of what to do next with the unspent Sovereign Capital of its Financiers.

This post is now superseded by the later post, “The Central Issues of EDI Communications Industry Advocacy, the Truth behind GXS’ facade, and the true meaning of developments in Loren Data Corp v. GXS Inc.”  But for those who hate reading long form posts, there are three issues plaguing the EDI Comms Industry, most of which can be traced to GXS (only three, yes, three main issues discussed in the next article). Even companies that are satisfied clients of GXS TradingGrid, and who are perfectly happy with GXS services, should be aware of the central issues that have been surfaced in the GXS defense of the Loren Data Corp Antitrust case. For the unsatisfied, those who are somehow bound, or who feel captive to GXS, your gentle cohort is honored here. For those experts and analysts that watch the B2B IT industry, and who care about the evolution of services in the Enterprise 2.0 model (Cheaper, ubiquitous, easy, open),  we who are not captured in an analyst bureau that is bought and paid for, know that most of the ills plaguing the EDI industry, are traceable in part to the dynamics arising from the Private Equity investment of Francisco Partners in GEIS, the buyout of the IBM IE VAN, and the subsequent purchase of Inovis. The newly birthed entity of GXS Inc., from  top to bottom, has damaged the long-term prospects of the B2Bi industry and attenuated prospects for vigorous innovation. I have been covering the B2B sector independently since the late 1990′s as a general analyst, and since 2004 specifically as an analyst specializing in product advocacy.

Ignoring the boilerplate “hallelujahs’, of Gartner / Forrester, and focusing instead the issues relating to EDI communications and internetwork policy, GXS’ buy-a-lotsa-VANs-roll up has been an unmitigated disaster, with Loren Data Corp featured as the opening gambit, an initial casualty and test case of what awaits the industry, once GXS gets past the DOJ’s short-term memory, or other legal challenges, and commences to crush under their PE funded boot-heel the remaining EDI providers that they can’t buy.

I am sure that GXS excels in many areas related to large scale systems management and deployments; they are a big dog. They are not without any value whatsoever! But the GXS brand image, at least looking at the sentiment analysis of the Yahoo EDI list – is tarnished. Posts and reviews by former and current GXS employees on GlassDoor.com reveals some pretty ragged insights about the corporate soul of GXS, all from insiders with something to get off their chest.

Take GlassDoor reviews for what they are – but there is a remarkably consistent darkness surrounding  the opinion of these ostensible GXS insiders. More importantly, and to the point, is GXS the industry steward, sector leader, and corporate citizen that we would voluntarily choose? The company and its executives are in a remarkable position to do good in the EDI industry, and would not lose one dime by growing a corporate conscience.

I am going to expose my personal opinions of what Loren Data v GXS case represents, why antitrust law is ill-suited to the current problems that arise from GXS’ hegemony of the EDI Communications market, and how this mirrors  other communications monopolies that took years and decades to topple. As an industry, we should be more agile and proactive in addressing  the ills that are centered around message routing and internetwork relations. Courts and regulators should be better briefed on these issues, and not be so susceptible to blatant misinformation hiding as legal technicalities and fancy lawyering. The regulators should really give EDI Communications the pride of place it deserves – and with a light touch, help the advocates of open EDI Communications steer the sector towards its most laudable goals:

1) Open access for any trading partner, from any trading partner, to any trading partner, without gatekeepers or permissions, in the globally routed system of VANs, Specialist EDI networks, and service providers

2) The Free Choice of Communications and Services Providers by any business with a legitimate need to participate in their partner’s supply chain operations

3) Lower rates with better services based on innovation and competition in a free market.

Those preceding attributes are utter anathema to today’s GXS – but such attributes sound to me like the best values of Today’s Internet, to me. Its E2.0 Baby, its ECGridOS!

The core issues plaguing the EDI Comms sector, mentioned earlier, are as follows: (and then I will stop and work on my longer briefing)

• The need to establish a value free, non-discriminatory, routing agnostic system among commerce network operators.
• The emergence of a toxic Choke Point, or hegemony granted to one network (GXS), this franchise coming via both the purchasing power of Private Equity, and a lack of industry unity, or an unwillingness to act.
• GXS has compiled a long list of influential supply cain clients; without the consent of these clients, GXS has used their “must route to” status to muscle their trading partners onto VANs that GXS has blessed, or onto TGMS itself. (these clients will not be so blissfully naive much longer).
•  The total lack of trading partner advocacy whatsoever in the industry, and a total absence of control over their own data communications.
•  The stagnation of the EDI Communications market among a few providers that have contributed virtually nothing to the state of the communications art. If you have stopped innovating,  then at least participate in the higher values and aspirations of the market, and contribute by getting out-of-the-way, taking a stand, or doing something for the trading partners who are your clients (maybe stop making them sign multi-year locked-in agreements – a sure sign of weakness).
• The creation by GXS of a small, disadvantaged class of otherwise respected and august EDI system operators. We know the Loren Data Corp has struggled to obtain the right to route to GXS, and this reasonable, collegial request has netted nothing. The author would remind all concerned parties that what are called VAN interconnects, are really misnamed – the truth is that VAN interconnects are really “message exchange and forwarding agreements” – and are controlled by a body of laws governing the bailment of messages between contractual parties.
• It would be well to recall, that the loss of a forward-thinking (API for EDI Network Ops), independent EDI network operator, such as Loren Data Corp, would be a tragedy for the users and even other VANs – as having an independent operator operating in the ECGrid model (no end-users, no Value Added services such as mapping), as a conduit to most service providers, brings EDI to new trading partners, which in turn drives traffic to all of the VANs with minimal support overhead.
• For the rest of industry sitting on Laurels: enjoy, for now, your GXS interconnect, look and notice well, as a distinguished colleague and EDI expert, Todd Gould, Loren Data Corp’s founder and CTO, fights in virtual isolation. This is a sad, sad commentary to witness:  blatant ass-covering, hiding behind yo momma’s skirts –  why not pick up your phone and have a frank conversation with Todd about where the industry is heading, what will be the impact of a badly behaved MegaVAN#1, and what you can do, either technically or financially, to put the scales back in balance. This goes for the trading partners too, especially those GXS clients with trading partners on ECGrid – you are being unwittingly exploited.

So stay tuned for the big monograph covering these issues, especially the impact of the latest motions in the LD vs. GXS, and what it all means in the greater context. (GXS was granted a motion to dismiss the Federal Antitrust charges, while certain claims stood, and Loren Data counsel says they will petition for leave to amend and address the technical deficiencies in the original complaint and answer to the Motion to dismiss. As the Judge’s order did not contain the words, “granted with prejudice”, Loren Data counsel sees that there is a way forward. Still, it shows what excellent legal defense a corporation can buy – Chadbourne and Parke’s motion was a tour de force, and it walked the Judge down a road that defense counsel designed for Her Honor – which is what you want in defending the alleged monopolist /antitrust violations in a Federal Case. Loren Data Corp will avail of corrective measures in amending the complaint, will pursue an alternative legal strategy invoking the laws pertaining to the conveyance of message traffic between contractual parties. I also hope to be in front of an FCC bureau or a panel of Commissioners and Administrative Law Judges before the end of the year.)

All of the opinions on this blog are my own.

My friend swims in the pool and sometimes drinks the water,

I tell him he shouldn’t

as we are parting ways

just when I needed his help in upcoming battles

we reluctantly say, good-bye.

I used to walk him in the park, past the swings,

as we live and die in Colorado Springs

I lead an army of the part-time and semi-retired

into  war against a morally bankrupt empire,

I sing the battle songs that Quincy loved so

when I’d whistle, call his name, and sing,

swearing to triumph in his honor

or lose, maybe even dying

we shall swear and drink,

telling stories, all the while lying.

for fate is what the future rightly brings

as we live and die,

in Colorado, Springs….

Alan D. Wilensky, The Analyst Prince
bizQuirk Technology Strategists, LLC

A disturbing set of behaviors sparked by the VAN mergers has percolated throughout the EDI industry. Many of these behaviors existed before, in a minor, putative form, and most savvy network operators dealt with them in stride. But, the climate has turned somewhat dark in the industry of late. It could only be more perfect if this were the ides of March.
Are these tribulations due solely to the recent mergers? The answer is complex, but the root of the problem lies in the EDI Industry’s architecture, or rather, the lack of a good routing architecture.

What are these supposed malignant behaviors? Well, a previously settled culture of administrative and network operations is starting to fray. Generally, services done at a client’s request in order to conduct business or change providers is considered an inherent right. However, recent events have transpired to impede the rights of end-users, and the B2B application service providers that they have selected according to their rights and their unique needs.

This indigestion has even infected some of the mid-tier competition. They seem to be clawing for survival, testing their peers, seeing what they can ‘get away with’.

Et Tu, Brute? They very colleagues that should be assembling in unity are drawing forth long blades against their brethren, while the Shogun (Dath Vader, whatever pleasing metaphor you choose) dines and laughs heartily at the bloodshed.

Interconnections and ‘right to migrate’ issues are not novel, having been tested and settled in many industries, including telecom, mobile telephone, and parcel delivery services. There is ample case law emanating in regulatory, state, and federal fora whose outcomes all trend in favor of independent business and competitive providers. That we have to drag out the litigators and beat the horse again in the EDI industry is unfortunate, but the alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.
The regulators are not stupid, they have fought AT&T, Worldcom, MCI, and a host of once powerful cellular carriers who once had the public by the scruff, and who now are all but forgotten, lost in the footnotes of history. The business of EDI third party communications has flown under the radar. The agencies who manage wire-line competition are eager to see what has transpired since the mergers, as they now understand that EDI business is vital to our economy, and that monopolistic practices should not be tolerated.

DOJ reluctantly passed MegaVAN #1 under the HSR test for monopolies, and did so reluctantly and with a dire warning: “thou shalt not abuse thy market position”.
We are not sure what the geekier MegaVAN #2 will do as a newly formed pod. The WebSphere division has always been a tough place to call your home. Just ask Eugene.

My personal opinion, (this has nothing to do with my clients in the EDI business), “If MegaVAN #1 does not start acting more responsible and respectful towards its competitors, those who dearly value competition on merit, we are going to see a fully fledged Title II and Sherman Act case developing in 2011-2012”.

Such practices provoked by overweight conglomerates to moderate competition are the primary cause of an unstable operations climate, and it evinces a shocking lack of forethought as to the long-term health of the industry. It takes a lot of Chutzpah to deny another major EDI provider interconnect rights as a non-settlement peer.
Severe legal exposure is a consequence of not playing nicely in an interconnected world,, the results being unhealthy for the industry,damaging honest and capable competitors, placing them at temporal disadvantage. To fight these battles, one company at a time, is not a well considered course of action. Therefore, organizations of affinity seem a likely next step. The power of a consortium will magnify the potential for successful redress (to gain fair access across all routes).

The combination is persuasive, strong, synergistic, and a natural construct of these demanding times. It is wise for all service providers to recall some of these verities:

➜ We are not dealing with thought leaders, philosophers or keen observers of the history of our industry, nor are they leaders in the true sense. We are simply dealing with profiteers who have not considered the outcome of their actions on an industry.

➜ Relying on the megaVANs for communications is not a sustainable strategy.
➜ The recent proliferation of closed trading hubs is a reaction to the poor state of affairs of EDI service policies of the large VANs. Major retailers and logistics operations are creating these closed hubs out of sheer frustration. They have no pecuniary interest in such hobbies, their trading partners would much rather use routed and ubiquitous connections if the industry would simply act like adults.