When someone decided to create ASCII, they mapped a single character to one number. If one were to ask the same of a business integration analyst, they would not only map a number to every word in the dictionary, they would map a different number to same word, once for each word's meaning. The problem with today's business document standards is that they try to come up with a "one size fits all" standard. The problem with this is that there is no flexibility to adapt to newer business processes. There was a time that all one needed for a purchase orders was a part number, a quantity and a date. But many items cannot be ordered with a single part number (like a car). Many times you'll get a transaction of a sale or a current inventory number and are expected to replenish the right amount at the right time (as with Vendor Mangaged Inventory). The problem is that not all orders come in on purchase orders. The standardization should come in smaller pieces of information. Let the application people put the pieces together as they see fit. ebXML was a giant leap forward as it actually dealt with other issues besides document format, like routing.
What integration needs is a standard interface like SQL or ODBC to really make it all possible. It would be great if an application was certified to an interface. Another application that was certified to the same interface should be able to communicate. Not just document content mind you, but to behaviors that solve common interface problems (cross reference issues, quantity conversions, data structure reconciliation, etc.) Every standards organization is trying to solve every problem and it seems less and less likely that a seemless solution will ever happen this way. We need to think out of the box and I hope Oasis builds on ebXML to move in this direction.
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