EDI
EDI is a set of standards for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses, organizations, government entities and other groups.
The standards describe structures that emulate documents, for example purchase orders to automate purchasing.
The term EDI is also used to refer to the implementation and operation of systems and processes for creating, transmitting, and receiving EDI documents.
Despite being relatively unheralded, in this era of technologies such as XML services, the Internet and the World Wide Web, EDI is still the data format used by the vast majority of electronic commerce transactions in the world.