XML uses documents as the transfer mechanism for data. XML is text.

• Creates large, standardized collections of data that can be processed by simple text tools
• Creates an infrastructure in which human beings are still part of the process
  • Troubleshooting
  • Generation of human-readable deliverables (e.g., catalogues)
  • Integration into existing social institutions
• Promotes a message-oriented view of electronic commerce that isolates business transactions from differences in software, hardware, system architectures, and application programming languages