OASIS to Advance Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Standards

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

OASIS Members Form Committee to Advance Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Standards

Actional, Adobe, BEA Systems, Cast Iron Systems, DataPower, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, IONA, Microsoft, Oracle, Reactivity, Ricoh, SAP,
SOA Software, Sonic Software, Systinet, TIBCO, webMethods, and Others Collaborate on Extensible Framework for Developing
Coordination Protocols

BOSTON, MA, USA; 12 OCTOBER 2005 - Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to define a set of
protocols for coordinating the outcome of distributed application actions. The new OASIS Web Services Transaction 
(WS-TX) Technical Committee brings together users and vendors in an open process to refine and finalize a set of specifications
based on three initial contributions, Web Services Coordination (WS-Coordination), Atomic Transaction 
(WS-AtomicTransaction), and Business Activity Framework (WS-BusinessActivity). Other contributions and changes to these input
documents will be accepted for consideration without prejudice or restriction and evaluated based on technical merit.

"The ability to conduct secure, reliable transactions using protocols rather than a dependence on shared technology is a powerful
concept, " said Lawrence Wilkes, Principal Analyst, CBDi. "WS-TX is the final piece of that jigsaw and with broad industry backing,
it sets the direction that users are looking for."

"The interoperability of the contributed specifications has already been demonstrated by several vendors," noted Eric Newcomer of
IONA, proposed co-chair of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee. "Our objective at OASIS will be to receive the broadest possible
industry feedback and use that input to refine and build on what exists today."

The Committee plans to begin its work by focusing on the underlying specification, WS-Coordination. It will then proceed to advance
WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-BusinessActivity. 

"When you look at the industry today, a requirement to satisfy two common transaction patterns-atomic and compensating business
activities-emerges," said Ian Robinson of IBM, proposed co-chair of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee. "By concentrating our
initial efforts on WS-Coordination, we intend to distill the common features and provide a basis for extensibility, so that future
transaction models can be supported as well."

"Our community's understanding of the nature of transactional functions in a service-oriented system has improved considerably over
the past few years," observed James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS. "This new committee provides a very
clear set of components for those functions.  We are delighted to see the work brought into open standardization, which will help
make its usefulness and connections to other methods obvious. "

The OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee will operate under Royalty Free on RAND Terms, as defined by the OASIS Intellectual Property
Rights Policy. The Committee's first meeting will be held on 16-17 November, and participation remains open to all companies,
non-profit groups, and individuals. As with all OASIS projects, archives of the Committee's work will be accessible to both members
and non-members, and OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment.

Support for WS-TX
Actional
"The long term success of Web services and SOA is directly affected by their ability to be used for mission critical solutions in
the enterprise, " said Dan Foody, CTO of Actional. "Because many mission critical applications require transactional integrity,
Actional is pleased to support WS-TX. WS-TX will enable these applications to be successfully built and deployed using web services
without sacrificing multi-vendor interoperability."
 
Hitachi 
"From its earliest days as a supplier of information technology, Hitachi has deployed demanding transactional systems to both
private and public sectors.  Since these early days, both Hitachi and technology have evolved together.  The WS-TX specifications
move that evolution one step further and prepare the industry for the next generation of transactional systems.  We are grateful to
be part of the team," said Takao Nakamura, Executive General Manager, Software Division, Hitachi.

Microsoft
"Microsoft is committed to working with the industry on developing Web services specifications that meet the needs of our customers
and partners," said Ari Bixhorn, Director of Web Services Strategy for Microsoft. "The transaction specifications submitted to OASIS
will enable customers to more effectively manage complex business tasks across disparate applications and incorporate transactional
Web services into enterprise-critical systems."

Oracle
"Oracle is excited to be a key participant in the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee," said Vice President, Standards Strategy and
Architecture at Oracle, Donald Deutsch. "As a long-time advocate of open standards, Oracle is committed to working within standards
setting organizations to ensure that customers can leverage the large-scale benefits that Web services can provide."

SAP
"As a charter member of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee, we look forward to collaborating with other industry leaders to create
a specification that will lead towards standardization of Web services consensus protocols," said Michael Bechauf, Vice President of
Industry Standards, SAP. "This specification is critical to the Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) because it makes it easier
for our customers to use services to compose innovative B2B solutions that run on SAP NetWeaver. In our capacity as a leading
provider of integration solutions, we are well positioned to provide use cases that can be leveraged to help establish the
applicability and the optimization potential of the WS-TX protocols."

SOA Software
"WS-TX represents the next major step for Web services and SOA," said Alistair Farquharson, CTO at SOA Software. "Adding the ability
to support distributed transactions allows Web services and SOA to become a core part of the high-value value business transaction
processing that makes up the bulk of most large enterprise systems. Essentially, WS-TX promotes SOA and Web services to the major
leagues."

TIBCO
"As a leading Service-Oriented Architecture and Web services provider, our vision is to help customers implement SOA across
heterogeneous IT resources, " said Matt Quinn, vice president, product strategy, TIBCO Software. "Standards-based Web services
transactions will provide enterprises with the transactional integrity and interoperability across diverse assets to help develop
and manage mission critical applications. TIBCO currently provides transaction support with its TIBCO BusinessWorks technology, and
as a member of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee, we will help drive the standardization of transaction technologies." 
 
webMethods
"We are pleased to co-propose the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee and bring this important set of specifications to an open
consortium," said Kristin Weller Muhlner, executive vice president, Product Development, webMethods.  "The WS-Coordination,
WS-AtomicTransaction, and WS-BusinessActivity specifications work is an important step forward in adding standards-based
coordination and transaction management capabilities to Web services. This will enable the creation of next generation transactional
Application Integration and Business Process Automation solutions in a services-oriented architecture."


About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces
open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific
markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100
countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry,
OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, and XCBF. http://www.oasis-open.org


Additional information:

OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ws-tx

Cover Pages Technology Report on
Messaging and Transaction Coordination: 
http://xml.coverpages.org/coordination.html


Press contact:

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