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So how will XML impact your IR website?
XML and its sub-language XBRL have the potential to completely alter how companies design, structure and maintain their investor relations websites.

Even if you choose not to harness the full power of XML, it's likely that you will soon feel the pressure to at least begin reporting your financials in XBRL. Smaller companies which move fast stand to benefit the most from switching to XBRL since it will improve their chances of being included in analysts' research.

At the same time, the process of preparing financial statements will be quicker and easier, especially if all your internal systems are XML based. Website users whose software can read XBRL will find the format more convenient, while people using existing browsers won't notice any real change.

However, the big question is not whether you will convert your financial statements to XBRL, but whether you will shift your entire IR website to XML. This is the crucial issue that now confronts every public company, and one which lies at the heart of the fracas between Shareholder.com and it's mightier rival CCBN.

XML gives IR websites greater flexibility
Since XML gives you greater flexibility over how you extract, display and manipulate information, it obviously presents IR website owners with powerful new opportunities for how they design their sites.

Content provided by third-party vendors, such as stock quotes, charts and analyst estimates has traditionally been served up to IR websites in predefined formats that don't always fit the design of the site or the needs of the user. With XML, however, the data is separated from display and can therefore be reconstructed in any way you wish.

The inflexibility of existing technologies has been an issue for companies that use aggregator and hosting services such as CCBN, Shareholder.com, Investis, Merrill IREdge and others. Since these services serve up preformatted pages, the result is that subscriber sites tend to look and function the same way, a major issue when your objective is to distinguish your company from its peers.

In North America, Shareholder.com used the cookie-cutter site issue to its advantage by offering greater flexibility to customize hosted pages. As a result, it quickly attracted business from companies that were frustrated by the inflexibility of larger aggregators.

Taking its strategy to the logical next level, Shareholder.com has now developed an XML-based language called irXML to serve up data elements rather than whole pages to its clients' websites. This gives clients greater control over the design and functionality of their sites.

CCBN also has developed an XML product. However, it has been upstaged by Shareholder.com, which has developed a tool that allows site developers to quickly convert HTML pages to XML. (You can see a demonstration of the tool at www.irxml.com.) This was a smart move since many developers are not up to speed on XML. As such, they are likely to prefer the Shareholder.com solution over CCBN's.

Of course, XML is a boon for website developers and designers. Existing aggregator products largely cut them out of the action on IR websites since hosted pages are preformatted. XML, however, most often requires companies to have their own web development team, so it goes without saying that the website development community will be a strong advocate of the irXML product.

What are the benefits of switching to XML?
XML improves upon existing technologies and therefore obviously provides benefits to anyone who would use it.

• Greater control over your site. The IR portion of many corporate websites is often the only part of the site not hosted on the company's own servers. XML allows companies to bring the IR site in-house, therefore providing greater control over issues such as security and privacy.
  
  
• Flexibility of site design. With XML, you can display data in any way you wish, subject to any conditions of the owner. This allows IR site owners to integrate the design with that of the rest of their corporate site and thereby ensure the integrity of the company's brand.
  
  
• Ability to improve usability. Aggregator service hosted pages suffer from many usability flaws. XML gives you the opportunity to improve upon them by more easily structuring your site and individual pages to fit your users' needs, as we explain in How to structure your site to work for your investors.
  
  
• More choice. XML makes it easier to source data from multiple vendors. It also makes it more feasible to bypass aggregators and go directly to their data suppliers, although the added administration of doing so may be a deterrent to most IR departments.
  
  
• It is platform independent. Hosted solutions restrict companies' ability to use their preferred technology platforms. However, XML can be integrated with any plaform, including Flash and shopping cart technologies.
  
  
• Readies you for other XML technologies. Since XML is destined to alter how businesses gather and share data, moving your IR website to XML will ensure that you are ready to extend the benefits of other XML-based applications to your website.