Will AS4 be as successful as AS2?
AS4 is developed by Oasis, focusing on the functionality of AS2, ebMS 3.0 and a "just-enough-design" principle.
The just-enough-design ensures that the protocol is easy to implement in small and midsize organizations.
The new protocol has two profiles, a full implementation that supports both incoming and outgoing messages and a profile which enables the sending and retrieving of messages. The latter profile is therefore without incoming HTTP sessions and without a fixed IP address. AS4 has all the makings of becoming a broad-based B2B standard. Cisco has already implemented AS4 widely, who follows?
(See the appendix for more background information on AS4).