Finalists for the XML Application Awards 2002

Kronberg -- August 20, 2002. LogOn Technology Transfer today announces the finalists of the first international XML Application Awards 2002. The winners will be honored in a special ceremony as part of the XML Day Munich 2002 (http://www.ltt.de/xml-days.2002/munich.shtml). The XML Application Awards Program 2002 recognizes the most outstanding XML application.

The Award for the winner will be given in the category for the best XML-based Application. The Awards Program is designed to honour innovative developers and companies, whose applications demonstrate major progress for the information technology.

The following applications were chosen as finalists in this year's program:

"Intermodal Route Travel Planner based on XML Data Exchange" (IRTP-XML): Based on a data model for the data exchange in the transportation field, a multi-modal and intermodal Internet application supporting a service for "door to door travel advice" was built. IRTP-XML is based on object oriented technology and connects servers and databases of different transport mode operators throughout Belgium. ITRP-XML delivers door to door travel information on request (bus, train, tram, metro). IRTP-XML has a graphical interface and is accessible via Internet. A generic user can create an XML request for an itinerary for the public transport. After validation this request is sent to a server for processing. As response the server will send back an XML itinerary. In practice, a generic user/client provides the necessary data input via an Internet browser: an origin, a destination and different travel options.
The application was submitted by TRITEL N.V., a consultant company based in Brussels. The application was developed for the Ministry for the Flemish Community in Belgium.

"Intrastat Data Entry Package/eight-digit combined nomenclature" (IDEP/CN8): More than 400,000 companies importing and exporting goods within the European Community have to send Intrastat declarations - the Intra-community declaration on trading goods. The form for the Intrastat declaration has been developed as an electronic form in order to facilitate the way the declaration can be submitted by the clients. By using IDEP/CN 8, electronic
Intrastat declarations can be compiled and then sent to the competent national administration on diskette or by e-mail. Intrastat declarations are produced in EDIFACT or XML format. INSTAT/XML, the XML output message, has been developed in close cooperation with the EU member states and the offical standardisation bodies active in this area. "IDEP/CN8" helps trading enterprises within the EU to complete and submit their monthly Intrastat declarations, but administrations also benefit from the application: data is validated and is thus less error-prone, the data format is harmonised and data does not have to be re-processed since it arrives in electronic form. The application was submitted by Eurostat (European Commission) in Brussels. Eurostat is the Statistics Office of the European Commission.

"Tullverkets Internet Deklaration" (TID) is an electronic form for a customs declaration implemented by Swedish Customs.
The Swedish government has set the aim that all government institutions shall deliver service on a 24x7x52 basis.
Also the Swedish Customs have for many years strived to reduce the handling of paper documents. For the major flow of customs declarations (big companies), this was achieved 10 years ago with EDIFACT.
TID is based on an EDIFACT application that was ported to Unix. For the message format XML was used because of ist good tool support and its ability to do transforms with XSLT. One goal that had to be met was that it should be an online application. When the user submits the form, he should know immediately if it was correctly filled in and would be accepted for treatment by Swedish Customs.
Benefits of the application are the savings on handling customs declarations on paper and more convenience for the clients to hand in customs declarations.
The application was submitted by the IT Department of Swedish Customs based in Luleå.

Note to the editors:

Further information on the Awards projects can be obtained from LogOn Technology Transfer. Press registrations for the XML Day Munich can be sent to Milos Gedosev at LogOn (gedosev@ltt.de).

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