Fw: UBL ratified as OASIS Standard

[jon.bosak@sun.com]

From: "Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>
To: <announce@lists.oasis-open.org>, <pubrel@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:33:37 -0500
Subject: [announce] UBL Ratified As OASIS Standard

Universal Business Language (UBL) Ratified As OASIS Standard

Royalty-Free, International Standard for XML-Based Electronic
Business Documents Approved

Boston, MA, USA; 8 November 2004 -- The OASIS international
standards consortium today announced that its members have
approved the Universal Business Language (UBL) version 1.0 as an
OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of
ratification.  Developed through an open process, UBL defines a
common XML library of business documents, such as purchase orders
and invoices, as well as reusable data components from which an
unlimited number of other documents can be constructed. UBL is the
first standard implementation of the ebXML Core Components
Technical Specification.

"Agreement on a common set of business-to-business document
standards is essential for successful electronic commerce,"
explained Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS UBL
Technical Committee and organizer of the working group that
created XML. "UBL provides the world with standard electronic
versions of traditional business documents designed to integrate
with established commercial and legal practices. Using UBL,
businesses of all sizes can enjoy the benefits of electronic
commerce."

Joanne Friedman, CEO of business-technology advisory, ConneKted
Minds Inc., observed, "The combination of a fixed tag set for
electronic business (UBL) together with a transport protocol
designed for the same purpose (ebXML messaging) is analogous to
the foundations which built the World Wide Web. Where HTML
provides consumers with information ubiquity, and HTTP a transfer
protocol designed for the same purpose provides universal access,
the UBL/ebXML combination will bring industry the boundary-less,
barrier-free information needed to catalyze economic growth and
foster inter-industry global trade. E-business didn't die, it just
(quietly) got smarter."

"With XML came a proliferation of industry-specific vocabularies
for business documents. Unfortunately, no company does business in
isolation. The very nature of the supply chain requires
meaningful, cross-industry communication," noted Mark Crawford of
LMI Government Consulting, vice-chair of the OASIS UBL Technical
Committee. "Instead of being optimized for a particular vertical
industry or application domain, UBL is designed for real-world
businesses that work with partners across multiple industries."

UBL was developed in harmony with ebXML OASIS Standards and in
light of recommendations and standards issued by ISO, IEC, ITU,
UNECE, W3C, IETF, and other relevant standards bodies and
organizations. Industry groups including ACORD (insurance), ARTS
(retail sales), CompTIA EIDX Leadership Group (electronics), HL7
(health care), NACS (convenience stores), RosettaNet (supply
chain), UIG (utilities), VCA (prescription eyewear), and XBRL
(accounting) all provided input on UBL.

"The key to UBL is that it was built on consensus and
collaboration," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS.
"The new OASIS Standard is an exciting example of the benefit of
bringing together users, vendors, industry associations and
government agencies. By actively involving all parties affected by
cross-industry standards in the requirements and development
phases, the usability of UBL across a variety of trading contexts
is assured. We congratulate OASIS UBL Technical Committee members
on their achievement and encourage other organizations to join
them in advancing this work."

To promote global adoption of the new OASIS Standard, members of
the OASIS UBL Localization Subcommittees have produced draft
translations of UBL 1.0 data definitions into Chinese, Japanese,
Korean, and Spanish. Together with the original English
definitions, these translations will make UBL usable to
approximately two-thirds of the world's current online population.

UBL contributors include representatives of Accountis plc, ACORD,
Asociación Nacional de Fabricantes Autoridad de
Certificació, The Boeing Company, Center for Document
Engineering, Denmark Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation,
East Asia Electronic Commerce Association, Infocomm Development
Authority of Singapore, Korea CALS/EC Association, LMI Government
Consulting, NEC, NIST, Oracle, PISCES Ltd, PSLX Consortium,
SeeBeyond, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, University of Hong
Kong, US Dept of the Navy, U.S.  General Services Administration,
and others.

Participation in the OASIS UBL Technical Committee remains open to
all organizations and individuals; OASIS hosts an open mail list
for public comment and the ubl-dev mailing list for exchanging
information on implementing the standard. UBL is provided on a
royalty-free basis, available to all without licensing or other
fees.

Industry Support for UBL OASIS Standard:

"The UBL 1.0 release represents a significant advancement in the
process of using international open standards to conduct business
modeling, data analysis, and XML schema deployment. It provides an
"out of the box" solution for document-based transactions as well
as a library of reusable business data components," said Marion
A. Royal, Senior Policy Advisor with the Office of Governmentwide
Policy at U.S. General Services Administration.

"As a proponent of open standards-based integration, SeeBeyond is
pleased to have participated in the development of UBL 1.0, and
welcomes its approval as an OASIS Standard in the payload domain
of XML-based B2B frameworks," said Alex Andrianopoulos, Vice
President of Product Management for SeeBeyond. "Working with a
broad range of businesses across all major industries, we see such
a standard playing a key role to enabling global ecommerce
interoperability as it promotes the integration of small-to-mid
range businesses into broader electronic data exchange-based
supply chains."

"Sun is committed to open standards development and is proud to
have organized and led the UBL initiative that defines the
standard XML payload format for Electronic Procurement," said Mark
Bauhaus, vice president of Java Web Services at Sun
Microsystems. "Sun is investing in developing UBL because we
believe it will play an important role in providing an entry point
into SOAs for small and medium sized businesses, where there is a
significant need for standardized vocabularies to truly enable
electronic business."

Additional information:

OASIS UBL Technical Committee
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl

UBL FAQ
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/faq.php

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
3,500 participants representing over 600 organizations and
individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards
include AVDL, CAP, DocBook, DSML, ebXML, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI,
WSRP, WSS, XACML, and XCBF.

http://www.oasis-open.org

Press contact:

Carol Geyer
OASIS Director of Communications
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x290