[announce] OASIS to Advance Open XML Format for Office Applications

[Carol Geyer <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Members Collaborate to Advance Open XML Format for Office
Applications

Arbortext, Boeing, Corel, Drake Certivo, Sun Microsystems, and Others
Develop Open Office Standard at Global Consortium

Boston, MA, USA; 20 November 2002 -- Members of the OASIS standards
consortium have formed a technical committee to advance an open,
XML-based file format specification for office applications. The new
OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee brings together
representatives throughout the industry committed to establishing
standard data interoperability for office applications. Their work will
be suitable for documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and
graphs and will retain high-level information for editing.

Although the initial work of the technical committee will focus on
standardizing data for content creation and management applications,
subsequent phases will address simplifying the exchange of data between
any application that utilizes XML, which may include business processes,
Web services, databases, search engines, and other applications.

"Our goal is to achieve consensus on an open standard that will protect
content--whether it is a 800-page airplane specification or a legal
contract--from being locked into a proprietary file format," explained
Michael Brauer of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS Open Office XML
Format Technical Committee. "A standard method for processing and
interchanging office documents will enable companies to own their data
and freely choose tools to view and edit information long after
originating applications have come and gone."

Sun Microsystems intends to contribute the XML file format specification
utilized in the OpenOffice.org 1.0 project to the new OASIS Technical
Committee under reciprocal Royalty Free terms. OpenOffice.org is an Open
Source full-featured office productivity suite that works transparently
with a variety of file formats to enable users of varying office suites
to exchange documents freely with one another.

Participation in the OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee
remains open to all organizations and individuals. In keeping with the
OASIS intellectual property policy that allows both Royalty-Free (RF)
and Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) licensing, the OASIS Open
Office XML Format Technical Committee will accept contributions only if
they are granted to all under perpetual, royalty free,
non-discriminatory terms. OASIS will host an open mail list for public
comment, and completed work will be freely available to the public
without licensing or other fees. Information on joining OASIS can be
found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join.


Industry Support for OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee

"Arbortext is pleased to participate in the OASIS Open Office XML Format
Technical Committee to advance the acceptance of open source development
tools.  When complete, this specification will provide writers and
programmers the ability to share office documents containing text,
spreadsheets and graphics for processing and interchange.  Arbortext
intends to support the OASIS process of defining specifications as well
as to incorporate support for those specifications in our product
suite," said Paul Grosso, Vice President of Research at Arbortext.

"Boeing strongly supports the creation and adoption of open data formats
in order to preserve the long-term integrity of our data.  This
committee focuses on the creation of such a specification for common
office applications, which is generally the greatest source of content
creation and sharing in any organization," said Doug Alberg, Sr.
Manager, Advanced Authoring & Publishing System Development, The Boeing
Company.

"Office documents are an essential tool for maintaining and leveraging
corporate knowledge. When based on XML, the power and reach of these
documents is greatly enhanced," said Dr. Bruce Sharpe, executive vice
president of XML content solutions for Corel Corporation. "Corel is
pleased to be working with other software vendors to design an open
standard XML format for office documents that will bring enhanced
compatibility and longevity to customers' intellectual property."

"By leading the initiative to help advance office productivity using
open, XML formats, Sun further underscores its commitment to open
standards, open source technology and open file formats," said Curtis
Sasaki, vice president, Sun Microsystems, Desktop Solutions. "As an
active member of the open source community, Sun continuously contributes
to the OpenOffice.org project, most notably through the donation of
StarOffice source code and most recently the XML file format
specification, which is used in Sun's StarOffice 6.0 product."


About OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org)

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards) is a not-for-profit, global consortium that drives the
development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members
themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open
process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite
disparate efforts. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web
services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing,
topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces. OASIS
has more than 500 corporate and individual members in 100 countries
around the world.

For more information:

Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS (www.oasis-open.org)
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209