Colin Evans of Intel, Jim Hughes of Hewlett-Packard, Christopher Kurt of Microsoft, Simon Nicholson of Sun Microsystems and Michael Weiner of IBM to Lead XML Interoperability Consortium

Boston, MA, USA; 23 July 2001--OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced the election of five new members to the organizations board of directors. Jim Hughes of Hewlett-Packard, Christopher Kurt of Microsoft Corporation, Simon Nicholson of Sun Microsystems and Michael Weiner of IBM will each serve two-year terms as OASIS directors, providing business leadership to advance the Consortium s technical work. In addition, Colin Evans of Intel was appointed to serve out the term of a former Board member, who vacated her seat earlier this year. The five new directors join current OASIS Board members, Patrick J. Gannon, Una Kearns of Documentum and Norbert H. Mikula of DataChannel.

"The next few years will mark a critical point in the development of structured information standards to continue the growth of the Internet," predicted Michael Weiner, e-business Industry Standards Liaison for IBM. "I believe that this growth will only continue through cooperation among vendors to achieve interoperability across various platforms. OASIS leads in fostering this cooperation." In addition to his roles at IBM and OASIS, Weiner serves on the XML.org Advisory Committee and recently co-led the ebXML Marketing Awareness Project Team.

"As the web expands to provide the core for business and communication, the need for open, global and independent standards organizations has never been greater. OASIS has a leadership position here, as we've demonstrated with our technical work in areas such as security, conformance, industry vocabularies and ebXML," said Simon Nicholson, Industry Initiatives Manager for Sun Microsystems. Nicholson believes that the onward development of ebXML, with the United Nations (UN/CEFACT), is a top priority for OASIS. He also continues to serve OASIS and UN/CEFACT jointly as the ebXML Marketing Awareness Project Team leader. He returns to the OASIS Board of Directors, for which he previously served as Chair.

"As the industry continues to evolve toward a rich portfolio of XML-based standards and protocols, innovation in all aspects of these solutions is a critical success factor. OASIS provides an appropriate combination of industry content and an appreciation of today's business requirements; developed upon a foundation of core XML standards," noted Christopher Kurt, Group Program Manager at Microsoft. Kurt was one of the founding members of the UDDI team and is currently acting as Program Manager for the project. He co-authored the BizTalk Framework and led XML adoption and schema development work for the Open Applications Group.

"Interest in XML-based technologies is accelerating at a tremendous pace, spanning a large number of vertical and horizontal markets," observed Jim Hughes, Director of Software Standards in Hewlett-Packard's Software Organization. "Globalization in the standards world is a reality, and OASIS, with its proven technical process and international membership, provides the level of coordination that is absolutely necessary for successful standards development." Hughes' experience in software standards organizations also includes positions on boards and architecture committees for OSF, Object Management Group (OMG) and The Open Group. He actively participates in the OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee.

"The proliferation of electronic business standards has led to increasing confusion and overlap in the marketplace. OASIS can focus on bringing convergence and clarity to the standards arena, creating synergies that accelerate the use of the Internet for business," said Colin Evans, Director of eBusiness Standards at Intel Corporation. In addition to his new position at OASIS, Evans also serves as Chairman of the Executive Board of RosettaNet.

On behalf of the OASIS membership, Laura Walker, executive director of the Consortium, expressed thanks to Eric Garcia of Sabre, Alan Hestor of Xerox, Bill Smith of Sun Microsystems and Dr. Robert Sutor of IBM for their service on the OASIS Board as their terms conclude.

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. With the United Nations, OASIS sponsors ebXML, a global framework for electronic business data exchange. OASIS operates XML.ORG, the non-commercial portal that delivers information on the use of XML in industry. The XML.ORG Registry provides as an open community clearinghouse for distributing and locating XML application schemas, vocabularies and related documents. OASIS serves as the home for industry groups interested in developing XML specifications. OASIS technical work embraces conformance, security, business transactions, repositories and other interoperability issues.

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