Members Approve DITA 1.1 as OASIS Standard

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

** Please feel free to link to this press release at
http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-08-13.php **

Members Approve Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) 1.1 as OASIS
Standard 

Avaya, Adobe, BMC Software, Boeing, Citrix Systems, Comet, Comtech Services,
IBM, Intel, JustSystems, Nokia, Oracle, PTC, Sun Microsystems, US Department of
Defense, and Others Collaborate on Open Standard for Content Reuse and
Multi-Channel Delivery

    
Boston, MA, USA; 13 August 2007 - OASIS, the international open standards
consortium, today announced that its members have approved DITA version 1.1 as
an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification.
DITA builds content reuse into the authoring process, defining an XML
architecture for designing, writing, managing, and publishing many kinds of
information in print and on the Web. 

"More organizations are turning to DITA as a way to jump start their use and
reuse of structured content-and reduce costs in the process. The enhancements
we've made in version 1.1 are a direct result of input from a user community
that is experiencing tremendous growth," noted Don Day of IBM, chair of the
OASIS DITA Technical Committee. 

DITA supports single sourcing across books, help files, training, and
multimedia. It enables modular, topic-based authoring through rich, semantic
markup. It incorporates special features for localization, accessibility, and
robust conditional processing. 

Version 1.1 of DITA provides enhanced print publishing capabilities with new
DITA Bookmap specialization, including extended book metadata. The standard
offers more indexing capabilities with new elements for "see" and "see-also"
references. It features new elements for defining structured metadata as well
as the ability to add new metadata attributes through specialization. 

"It's exciting to see the semiconductor, learning, and machine industry sectors
organize sub-committees at OASIS to advance DITA specializations," said Patrick
Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "We expect other industries to also begin
standardizing their own DITA subject-matter vocabularies."

Comtech Services, IBM, JustSystems, and PTC verified successful usage of DITA
1.1, in accordance with eligibility requirements for all OASIS Standards. DITA
was developed under the Royalty-Free on Limited Terms Mode of the OASIS
Intellectual Property Rights Policy.

Participation in the OASIS DITA Technical Committee remains open to all
companies, non-profit groups, governments, academic institutions, and
individuals. Archives of the work are accessible to both members and
non-members, and OASIS offers a mechanism for public comment. OASIS hosts DITA
XML.org, the official community gathering place and information resource for
the standard.


Support for DITA 1.1

Avaya
"Avaya is pleased to see the release of DITA 1.1 because it indicates the
continued evolution of this important standard. DITA's support for the
development of structured, reusable content is key to our goal of providing
accessible, consistent, relevant information to our users. We look forward to
its expanded adoption in the community," said Christine Troianello, Director of
Information Solutions at Avaya.

Comet
"Comet welcomes the promising trend towards DITA. Since 2003, we have been
using DITA to successfully implement my proven class concept in both industry
projects and in an academic setting. The experience we have gained through a
variety of DITA projects proves that a productive documentation environment for
DITA can be set up in just a few months. Not only is DITA easy to implement,
authors can be effectively trained in the topic-based principle, which leads to
better documentation in terms of its simplicity, consistency, and reusability,"
said Professor Sissi Closs, Comet. 

Comtech
"Comtech Services applauds the positive commitment that the OASIS community has
made to the DITA 1.1 specification. The Technical Committee members have worked
hard to add robust new features to the DITA standard, further enabling its
adoption by organizations worldwide. At Comtech, we continue to support DITA
adoption by assisting organizations to understand the architecture, apply it to
their own information models, and deliver the appropriate content to their
users," said JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD, President, Comtech Services, Inc.

IBM	
"DITA provides the common denominator for an enterprise-wide content strategy,
acting as an integration point for Web 2.0 collaboration and enterprise
processes. IBM's use of DITA has expanded from hardware and software
documentation to marketing, training, and design documents. The DITA 1.1
standard supports IBM's expanding usage and creates new opportunities for
infrastructure integration and content collaboration," said Bernice Casey, IBM
Corporation Distinguished Engineer, Corporate Strategist for Information User
Experience.

JustSystems
"The release of DITA 1.1 reflects the success of DITA as the standard for
creating, publishing, and delivering XML-based documentation. We continue to
support DITA in our software, as the standard continues to make strong headway
in technical documentation and other areas of content publishing," said Bruce
Sharpe, President, Vancouver Technology Center, JustSystems.


Additional information:

  OASIS DITA Technical Committee
  http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita/

  DITA XML.org
  http://dita.xml.org/

  Cover Pages Technology Report
  http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html


About OASIS:
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the
global information society. A not-for-profit consortium, OASIS advances
standards for SOA, security, Web services, documents, e-commerce, government
and law, localisation, supply chains, XML processing, and other areas of need
identified by its members. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower
cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free
choice of technology. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants
representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries.  
http://www.oasis-open.org


Press contact:
Carol Geyer
OASIS Director of Communications
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209 (office)
+1.941.284.0403 (mobile)