cXML describes a request/response process for the exchange of transaction information. These business processes include purchase orders, change orders, acknowledgements, status updates, ship notifications, and payment transactions. cXML is a set of lightweight XML DTDs -- based on the World Wide Web Consortium's XML standard -- with their associated request/response processes. . . cXML defines a request/response process for the exchange of transaction information.

These business processes include purchase orders, change orders, acknowledgments, status updates, ship notifications and payment transactions. The contributors to the cXML initiative are focused on achieving reference implementations through creation and rapid iteration of cXML. The cXML specification, including reference production implementations and associated implementation knowledge, will be submitted to the appropriate standards organizations. The cXML initiative is therefore complementary to existing XML initiatives led by CommerceNet, RosettaNet, Information & Content Exchange (ICE) and Open Buying on the Internet (OBI).

Commerce XML (cXML) is set to relegate to extinction a significant impediment in the growth of business-to-business E-commerce. . . A significant impediment in the growth of business-to-business E-commerce is on its way to extinction. cXML is an explicit meta-language to describe the characteristics of items available for sale. It enables the development of 'intelligent shopping agents' that help to do the dirty work of corporate purchasing. By programming the characteristics you're seeking into request messages and releasing them to the network, your request will return exactly what you're seeking or nothing at all - which in itself is sometimes important to know. Think of cXML loosely in terms of 'bar coding' for the Web, but with a far richer set of attributes to uniquely identify and describe products, and can be incorporated into computer programs."