President's Message to OASIS Members - October 2004

["Patrick Gannon" <patrick.gannon@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Members,

I'm happy to report that in October, OASIS launched its first annual
Adoption Forum in Europe. The Brussels event brought together users,
vendors, government officials, and members of academia to discuss issues
surrounding "Implementing e-Business Open Standards for End Users and Public
Administration."  For those of you unable to attend, it was an exciting day
and a welcome opportunity for me and other OASIS Board and staff members to
articulate our role as part of the European standards community.

We were pleased to have Mr. Alejandro Moya, the European Commission's Head
of Sector, Directorate General Information Society, deliver the keynote.
Mr. Moya provided insight into the Commission's plans for the adoption of
ICT standards beyond the current e-Europe 2005 program.

Much of the rest of the day was filled with presentations detailing the
adoption of OASIS Standards and specifications. From the Australian BizDex
initiative, http://www.bizdex.com.au, which implements multiple OASIS Web
services, ebXML and security specifications to the US GSA's e-Authentication
program on conformance testing for SAML OASIS Standard products and the
Danish government's adoption of UBL -over and over, speakers from around the
world offered evidence of global support for our open standards efforts.  

The day concluded with a spirited panel discussion with representatives from
the European Commission Program for Interchange of Data between
Administrations (IDA), CEN/ISSS, FEDICT, and myself.  Our debate, into which
attendees were drawn, turned to the ROI on adopting open standards. Some of
the benefits offered included:

For software vendors:
-	Open standards create a bigger market for our products that
implement these open standards.

For end users:
-	We have a larger selection of vendors from which to select solutions
-	We have a broader choice of software platforms and accessibility to
more services
-	We get global interoperability
-	We get technical neutrality
-	We get a broader contribution of knowledge to address our business
needs
-	Open Standards help to manage our risk in adopting new technologies;
	o	Future proofs our applications
	o	Provides liquidity of our investment in the software
technologies
	o	Reduces our reputational risk
-	Open Standards increase our agility
	o	Its difficult to predict the next new technology, so if we
build on open standards, it is more likely that the next new technology will
be more receptive to integrate with or interface with and extend the
existing open standards.

Thanks to all who participated by making these outstanding presentations and
to all who attended and gained valuable insights.  If you were unable to
attend the OASIS Adoption Forum this year, I highly recommend reviewing the
presentation slides posted at:
http://www.oasis-open.org/events/adoption_forum/program.php. 
The Consortium plans to hold a similar event next year in Europe.  Also, be
sure to mark your calendars for the week of events around the OASIS
Symposium in New Orleans, Louisiana  USA  24-29 April 2005.

The OASIS Board of Directors also met in Brussels following the Adoption
Forum. We approved the revised Membership Agreement draft and the Technical
Committee Process policy draft.  I urge all members to review these drafts
and provide us with your comments. (See http://www.oasis-open.org/members/
for links.) 

It seems November will be the month of the OASIS InterOps--we are making
arrangements for no less than seven public demonstrations of our
specifications. The UDDI OASIS Standard will be showcased at the Gartner
Application Integration and Web Services Summit in Orlando, Florida.  CAP,
ebXML IIC, ebXML Registry, WS-CAF, WS-Reliability, and WSRP will each be
featured in multiple OASIS InterOp sessions at XML 2004 in Washington, DC. I
applaud the OASIS members and staff who are hard at work on the planning and
execution of these InterOp Demos. The technical, logistical, and promotional
effort required to properly stage a demonstration like this is huge, but the
pay-off in terms of raising awareness of OASIS work and encouraging adoption
is tremendous. I hope to see you all at one or more of these exciting
venues.


Best regards,

Patrick Gannon
President and CEO
OASIS
+1.978.667.5115 x201
www.oasis-open.org