New technology is being previewed by Japan's Justsystem, a leading PC manufacturer, which increases XML's interoperability, using the company's xfy platform - which handles mixed XML vocabularies as one.

xfy is designed for creating, integrating, and expressing XML-based applications. Even though Justsystem has only provided a preview, the technology is being lauded by some highly influential members of the XML community, including Tim Bray. 

Kazunori Ukigawa, Justsystem's CEO, issued a broad statement about the impact XML will have. "We regard the widespread adoption of the XML standard as the most important parading shift in the information era," he said, adding, "Our xfy technology will enable organizations to maximize the value of their documents and information."

What is revolutionary about the platform has to do with xfy's ability to work with many different types of XML documents. XML compatibility issues are something many industries are grappling with. This is one clear benefit xfy brings.

A user or developer can tweak the application environment, allowing developers to run applications using features best suited for it. Tim Bray, who co-invented XML, said, "xfy is interesting because of its unique approach to handling mixed XML vocabularies, because it uses Java to combine high-performance interactivity with portability. I predict a bright future for this technology."

The technology, it has been said, may very well lead to a change in document handling paradigms. xfy introduces intension-oriented document handling, in which functional modules can be reused among applications.

A true semantic basis for XML results through xfy's use of mapping functions, whereby a direct relationship between source and presentation vocabularies is supported. xfy's Vocabulary Connection technology is the engine driving these processes. The new technology also removes the need to develop application specific modules to XML interpretation, by supporting plug-ins that streamlines application development.

About xfy's plug-in architecture, Robert Glushko, a professor at Berkeley in California, said, "xfy's plug-in architecture is an innovative approach to solving the critical problem of editing compound documents with multiple XML schema." Glushko commented that support for XHTML and SVG is very smooth. He rounded off his thoughts on xfy by saying, "xfy's capabilities for supporting new vocabularies with Vocabulary Connection, a kind of enhanced XSLT, look very promising. We look forward to using xfy for teaching and research."

The preview version may be downloaded at http://www.xfytec.com