I worked for a company a few years back that pushed lots of resources and money and time into developing an XML supply chain solution. Because XML was a hot buzz word, they planned that adopting this would make integrations with new partners fast and easy, and that they would be a more attractive trading partner. (kind of sounds like my teenager)

Well we spend the time and the money, and for a long time we had only one adopter of the XML. (of course they adopted the XML and then converted it back into EDI for their internal system to use.) And they were the most problematic of our partners. After only supporting them for three years, we finally started to see a trickle of new XML integrations. All of them small players that had new processes that came with XML.

The moral of this story is in support of your opening paragraph that states, “The misuse of XML is particularly prevalent when it comes to Business-To-Business (B2B) eCommerce.” I have certainly seen this first hand.

When you have to use XML, it is important to start with the basics. I have a post about the basics at http://www.theintegrationengineer.com/what-is-xml/ if you are looking for a place to start understanding what XML is all about.