[announce] E-Business Standards Developers Move Ahead to AdvanceCollaboration at Second Interoperability Summit

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

E-Business Standards Developers Move Ahead to Advance Collaboration at
Second Interoperability Summit

HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL Host Event

Boston, MA, USA; 17 May 2002 -- The Interoperability Summit Series gains
momentum as standards developers from around the world make plans to
gather in Orlando, Florida, 27-28 June 2002 and advance their mission of
collaboration. Hosted by HR-XML, OASIS, OMG (tm), and XBRL, the
Interoperability Summit brings industry groups, consortia and their
members together in an ongoing initiative to coordinate development of
electronic business specifications.

Building on core issues identified at the first Summit meeting last
December, the June event will focus on removing barriers to
interoperability and managing against duplication of effort. Several
tactics for encouraging real collaboration between e-business standards
groups were targeted in the first meeting, and Interoperability Summit
participants now plan to actively move forward to implement solutions.

"The multi-lateral, neutral forum provided by the Interoperability
Summit offers a great opportunity for standards bodies and industry
consortia to share information, explore synergies and zero in on areas
where convergence makes sense," said program co-chair, Karl Best,
director of technical operations for OASIS. Best is spearheading the
Interoperability Summit's effort to create a set of common metadata for
use in standards registries around the world. Agreeing on metadata to
describe completed standards, as well as specifications in-progress,
will make it easier for developers to recognize and avoid potentially
duplicative efforts.

The June Interoperability Summit will also focus on the various
initiatives underway to define core vocabularies and related best
practices for enabling e-business, including:
* UN/CEFACT's eBusiness Transition Working Group (eBTWG)
* ASC X12's E-Business Cross-Industry XML architecture
* OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee
* Open Applications Group Integration Specification
* OMG's Model Driven Architecture Initiative

"We appreciate that it is not realistic to define one best approach or a
single library of business documents that will meet everyone's needs,"
explained Interoperability Summit co-chair, Karen Larkowski, executive
vice president of The Standish Group. "The output of these initiatives
affects the entire e-business standards community, however, and
clarifying the goals, timelines, and scope connected with each project
will benefit us all."

As an outcome of the first Summit, organizers, HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and
XBRL, have created the Interoperability Pledge, which recognizes the
need to identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical
standards and promote acceptance of common models and approaches. Any
organization interested in advancing interoperability between standards
is invited to join in this Pledge at
http://www.omg.org/interoperability_pledge.htm.

Program and registration details for the Interoperability Summit are
posted at http://www.omg.org/interop/program.htm.

About HR-XML
HR-XML (http://www.hr-xml.org) is a global, independent, non-profit
consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange
of human resources (HR) data worldwide. The work of the Consortium
centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML
vocabularies for HR. HR-XML's current efforts are focused on standards
for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and
work force management. HR-XML is represented by its membership in 17
countries.

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

About OMG
With well-established standards covering software from design, through
development, to deployment and maintenance, the Object Management Group
(OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration.
Based on the established Object Management Architecture (OMA) and
emerging Model Driven Architecture (MDA), OMG's standards cover
application design and implementation. OMG's Modeling standards include
the UML (Unified Modeling Language) and CWM (Common Warehouse
Metamodel). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is
OMG's standard open platform. OMG also issues the CORBAservices and a
rapidly growing set of industry-specific standards in vertical markets
including healthcare, telecommunications, biotechnology, transportation
and a dozen other areas. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA,
with an office in Tokyo, Japan as well as international marketing
offices in the UK and Germany, along with a U.S. government
representative in Washington, DC.

About XBRL
XBRL (www.xbrl.org) is an international group developing the
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), an XML-based framework
for the preparation and exchange of business reports and data. The
initial goal of XBRL is to provide an XML-based framework that the
global business information supply chain will use to create, exchange,
and analyze financial reporting information including, but not limited
to, regulatory filings such as annual and quarterly financial
statements, general ledger information, and audit schedules.

For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.941.284.0403