Boston, MA, USA, 30 October 2001--OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, added 10 new Sponsors to its membership of organizations and individuals dedicated to collaborating on new XML applications standards. Drawn by the opportunity to contribute to OASIS work such as ebXML and the SAML security specification, as well as the formation of new OASIS technical committees, these companies expressed their common commitment to interoperability.

The roster of new sponsors brings international IT corporations, including Fujitsu and Oracle, together with new economy companies, including Altova, Epicentric, eXcelon, NeoCore, Republica, Sybase, Verticalnet and Vitria. In addition to these, 25 new Contributors and 51 new Individual members joined OASIS within the last three months.

"OASIS offers a neutral ground where organizations--large and small--can contribute to the convergence and adoption of open specifications for structured information exchange. The variety of new sponsors joining OASIS is a testament to our ability to bring industries together to advance consensus and unite disparate efforts," stated Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "The quality of our new sponsors, combined with the direction of our technical growth, is very exciting."

"Unlike other standards bodies that operate under central authorities which dictate direction, OASIS offers a technical agenda set by members themselves," noted Karl Best, director of technical operations at OASIS. "We look forward to the contributions these new members will make to the OASIS standards portfolio and applaud their commitment to interoperability." The new sponsors join more than 400 OASIS corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world.

Sponsors Support OASIS

"Altova seeks to realize XML's promise of application interoperability through participation in the standardization efforts of open technical committees like OASIS," said Alexander Falk, President and CEO, Altova Inc. "We remain committed to providing the highest quality software development and content creation tools to support the newest XML vocabularies, thus promoting their widespread adoption."

"eXcelon is fully committed to defining the standards that enable new levels of interoperability and represent the future success of e-business. We're enthusiastic about the opportunity to join OASIS in its collective effort, offering our expertise as a leading provider of XML data management, business process management and XML development tools," said Larry Alston, CTO and EVP of Product Management, eXcelon Corporation.

"Fujitsu is a leading provider of Internet-focused information technology solutions for the global marketplace. We regard XML as the most important technology for our goal. In particular, we've been committing to ebXML, which will play a major role in Web Services, and look forward to contributing in the OASIS technical works including ebXML," said Seigo Hirosue, General Manager, PROJECT-A XML, Fujitsu Limited.

"OASIS is making tremendous strides in standardizing XML as a worldwide language for business. NeoCore is focused on providing effective and efficient native XML information-management solutions to organizations," said Ellen Rome, Vice President of Marketing at NeoCore. "We hope to bring some of our own technological vision to the consortium and make ongoing contributions toward standardization across all industry segments."

"In line with its longtime support to OASIS, Oracle is very excited to have the opportunity to actively contribute to ebXML and more specifically to its work on Web services," said Thomas Kurian, Vice President, Oracle9i Application Server Development. "Oracle's dual experience with core J2EE/XML technology and e-business application suite is essential to help ebXML define complex Web services standards that will lead to a more pragmatic and practical adoption of this new way to expose and publish applications."

"OASIS continues to gain broad industry support. It provides a unique forum where years of effort in vertical industries to establish vocabularies and standards for electronic interactions can be leveraged," said John Evdemon, Vitria's CTO, XML/Director of Engineering. "Vitria looks forward to being a key technology contributor and sharing its deep expertise in electronic commerce and collaboration for multiple industries."

About OASIS

OASIS (www.oasis-open.org) is the XML interoperability consortium, advancing collaboration, convergence and adoption of open specifications for structured information exchange. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, web services, security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and other interoperability specifications development.

OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a global framework for electronic business data exchange. OASIS operates XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas, vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards.

OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. OASIS sponsors include Accenture, Access360, Adobe Systems, Agital, Altova, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Bentley Systems, The Boeing Company, Bowstreet, Business Logic Corporation, Chrystal Software, Cincom Systems, Citrix Systems, Cohesia, Commerce One, Critical Path, CrossLogix, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Divine, Documentum, EADS Airbus SA, EDS, election.com, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Epicentric, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extricity, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Identrus, Infoteria, Innodata, Intel, Interwoven, IONA, IPNet Solutions, ITEDO, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, Logistics Management Institute, Macromedia, Mercator, Microsoft, Neocore, Netegrity, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, Oracle, Pearson Education, Popkin Software, Republica, Reuters Limited, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, Securant, SeeBeyond, Silverstream, SoftQuad Software, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, StreamServe, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Tata Consultancy Services, The Tamalpais Group, Thomas Technology Solutions, Tibco, Unisys, US Defense Information Systems Agency, Verticalnet, Virtual Access Networks, Vitria, webMethods, Whitehill Technologies, Xerox, XML Global and Xyvision Enterprise Solutions.

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