Press Release

E-Business Standards Developers Move Ahead to Advance Collaboration at Second Interoperability Summit

HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL Host Event

Boston, MA, USA; 17 May 2002 — The Interoperability Summit Series gains momentum as standards developers from around the world make plans to gather in Orlando, Florida, 27-28 June 2002 and advance their mission of collaboration. Hosted by HR-XML, OASIS, OMG ™, and XBRL, the Interoperability Summit brings industry groups, consortia and their members together in an ongoing initiative to coordinate development of electronic business specifications. Building on core issues identified at the first Summit meeting last December, the June event will focus on removing barriers to interoperability and managing against duplication of effort. Several tactics for encouraging real collaboration between e-business standards groups were targeted in the first meeting, and Interoperability Summit participants now plan to actively move forward to implement solutions. “The multi-lateral, neutral forum provided by the Interoperability Summit offers a great opportunity for standards bodies and industry consortia to share information, explore synergies and zero in on areas where convergence makes sense,” said program co-chair, Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. Best is spearheading the Interoperability Summit’s effort to create a set of common metadata for use in standards registries around the world. Agreeing on metadata to describe completed standards, as well as specifications in-progress, will make it easier for developers to recognize and avoid potentially duplicative efforts. The June Interoperability Summit will also focus on the various initiatives underway to define core vocabularies and related best practices for enabling e-business, including: * UN/CEFACT’s eBusiness Transition Working Group (eBTWG) * ASC X12’s E-Business Cross-Industry XML architecture * OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee * Open Applications Group Integration Specification * OMG’s Model Driven Architecture Initiative “We appreciate that it is not realistic to define one best approach or a single library of business documents that will meet everyone’s needs,” explained Interoperability Summit co-chair, Karen Larkowski, executive vice president of The Standish Group. “The output of these initiatives affects the entire e-business standards community, however, and clarifying the goals, timelines, and scope connected with each project will benefit us all.” As an outcome of the first Summit, organizers, HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL, have created the Interoperability Pledge, which recognizes the need to identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical standards and promote acceptance of common models and approaches. Any organization interested in advancing interoperability between standards is invited to join in this Pledge at http://www.omg.org/interoperability_pledge.htm. Program and registration details for the Interoperability Summit are posted at http://www.omg.org/interop/program.htm. About HR-XML HR-XML (http://www.hr-xml.org) is a global, independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange of human resources (HR) data worldwide. The work of the Consortium centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML vocabularies for HR. HR-XML’s current efforts are focused on standards for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and work force management. HR-XML is represented by its membership in 17 countries. About OASIS OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org) is a not-for-profit, global 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. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces. About OMG With well-established standards covering software from design, through development, to deployment and maintenance, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration. Based on the established Object Management Architecture (OMA) and emerging Model Driven Architecture (MDA), OMG’s standards cover application design and implementation. OMG’s Modeling standards include the UML (Unified Modeling Language) and CWM (Common Warehouse Metamodel). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG’s standard open platform. OMG also issues the CORBAservices and a rapidly growing set of industry-specific standards in vertical markets including healthcare, telecommunications, biotechnology, transportation and a dozen other areas. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with an office in Tokyo, Japan as well as international marketing offices in the UK and Germany, along with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC. About XBRL XBRL (www.xbrl.org) is an international group developing the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), an XML-based framework for the preparation and exchange of business reports and data. The initial goal of XBRL is to provide an XML-based framework that the global business information supply chain will use to create, exchange, and analyze financial reporting information including, but not limited to, regulatory filings such as annual and quarterly financial statements, general ledger information, and audit schedules. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.941.284.0403