Boston, MA, USA and Geneva, Switzerland; 28 March 2001--UN/CEFACT and OASIS today announced that all ebXML specifications have been submitted to the initiative's quality review process. These specifications are the result of more than a year's work by organizations and standards bodies around the world, which have come together to advance a common framework for global electronic business. The complete body of ebXML specifications defining business process methodology, core components, messaging, registry/repository, security, technical architecture and trading partner agreements are expected to be ratified in plenary May 2001.

"We advise everyone involved with developing electronic business solutions to become part of the ebXML process by downloading these specifications now," said Klaus-Dieter Naujok of Netfish Technologies, chair of ebXML and member of the UN/CEFACT Steering Group. "More and more vendors are coming forward to announce their plans to implement ebXML-compliant products based on these specifications."

The ebXML Messaging Services Specification integrating SOAP is among the new specifications submitted to the ebXML review process. The effort to integrate SOAP into ebXML was started just five weeks ago.

"We maintained an aggressive pace for developing ebXML, because we knew the industry needed this kind of standardized framework as soon as possible," explained Dr. Robert S. Sutor of IBM, Vice-Chair of ebXML and a member of the OASIS Board of Directors. "The specifications that are available now testify to the cooperative effort that has gone into the initiative."

Today's announcement followed the ebXML proof-of-concept demonstration by vendors at the XML One conference in London last week. Bowstreet, Btrade, Commerce One, Documentum, Fujitsu, IBM, IPNet, Killdara, Netfish/Iona, Sun Microsystems and XML Global with support from Interwoven, Cisco, NTT Communications, Savvion, Sterling Commerce, TIE, Viquity and XMLSolutions--collaborated to simulate a global, electronic business trading network using publicly available ebXML specifications. Many of these companies also issued public statements regarding their intentions to implement ebXML-compliant products in the near future.

ebXML specifications are available for public review on http://www.ebxml.org.

About ebXML
ebXML (www.ebXML.org) is an International Initiative established by UN/CEFACT and OASIS in late 1999 with a mandate to undertake an 18-month program of work to research and identify the technical basis upon which the global implementation of XML (Extensible Markup Language) can be standardized. The goal of ebXML is to facilitate open trade between organizations regardless of size by enabling XML to be used in a consistent manner to exchange electronic business data.

About UN/CEFACT
UN/CEFACT (www.uncefact.org) is the United Nations body whose mandate covers worldwide policy and technical development in the area of trade facilitation and electronic business. Headquartered in Geneva, it has developed and promoted many tools for the facilitation of global business processes including UN/EDIFACT, the international EDI standard. Its current work programme includes such topics as Simpl-edi and Object Oriented EDI and it strongly supports the development and implementation of open, interoperable global standards and specifications for electronic business.

About OASIS
OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org) is the international, not-for-profit consortium that advances electronic business by promoting open, collaborative development of interoperability specifications. OASIS serves as the home for industry groups interested in developing XML specifications. OASIS sponsors include Access360, Accenture, Adobe Systems, AND Data Solutions, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, B-Bop Associates, BEA Systems, Bentley Systems, Boeing, Bowstreet, Business Logic Corporation, Chrystal Software, Cohesia, Commerce One, Critical Path, DataChannel, Dataloom, Deutsche Post AG, Documentum, EADS Airbus, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extricity, First Call, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, icomXpress, Informix, Infoteria, Innodata, Interwoven, IPNet Solutions, ITEDO, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, Logistics Management Institute, Mediaplex, Mercator Software, Micrografx, Microsoft, Netegrity, Netfish, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, ObjectSpace, Pearson Education, Planet 7 Technologies, Popkin Software, ProNet Technology, Reuters, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, Securant Technologies, SeeBeyond, Sequoia Software, SilverStream Software, SoftQuad, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, StreamServe, Sun Microsystems, Synth-Bank, Tamalpais Group, Tata Consultancy Services, Thomas Technology Solutions, TIBCO, U.S. Defense Information Services Agency, Virtual Access Networks, Visa, Wavo, webMethods, Whitehill Technologies, Xerox, XML Global, XMLSolutions and XyEnterprise.

For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1 978.667.5115 x209

###