Enterprise Information Integration ? XML to the Rescue!

The database field has been struggling with the data integration problem since the early 1980’s. We’ve named and renamed the problem – heterogeneous distributed databases, multi-databases, federated databases, mediator systems, and now enterprise information integration systems – but we haven’t actually solved the problem. Along the way, we’ve tried data model after data model– functional, relational, object-oriented, logical, semi-structured, you name it, we’ve tried it – and query language after query language to go with them – but we still haven’t solved the problem. A number of startups have died trying, and no major software vendor has managed to hit a home run in this area. What’s going on? Is the problem too hard? Should we just declare it impossible and give up?