Stories by: Beth Stackpole

You may have heard of HTML (hypertext markup language), one of the building blocks of websites that tells browsers how data should be laid out cosmetically onscreen. Extensible markup language (XML) goes beyond that, telling systems how information should be rendered and, more important, specifying exactly what kind of information it is.

There are thousands of internet entrepreneurs who would like to be wearing Phillip Merrick's shoes. Merrick's company, WebMethods Inc., which makes software that facilitates business-to-business e-commerce, launched its initial public offering on Feb. 11, going out at US$35 a share. Weeks later, the Fairfax, Virginia-based company's stock price shot up to over $300, and the company, which had revenues of $15 million in 1999, at one point had a market capitalization somewhere in the $9 billion range. In March its stock price was trading in the low $230s.

When ClubComputer.com started selling computer products on the web in November 1998, it relied on a rather quaint back-end fulfillment system. The startup company e-mailed orders to suppliers, who manually entered the data into their own systems before processing and shipping merchandise to customers. CEO Dennis Tracz knew the system was far from cutting edge for a web-based business, but it seemed to hold up to ClubComputer.com's daily intake of 100 orders. Then last July the company hit it big following a stint as a featured merchant on the CNet Shopper site. Volume went from $200,000 a month to $1 million in 10 days, burying the e-mail ordering system.