OASIS Members Form New Committee to Promote Global Adoption of DITA Document Standard
IBM, Boeing, Citrix, Comtech, JustSystems, Oracle, PTC, and Others Collaborate to Advance Use of Open Standard for Authoring, Managing, and Publishing Information
Boston, MA, USA; 8 August 2008 — Members of OASIS, the international open standards consortium, are collaborating to expand global adoption of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). A royalty-free OASIS Standard, DITA builds content reuse into the authoring process, defining an XML architecture for writing, managing, and publishing many kinds of information in print and on the Web. The work of the new OASIS DITA Adoption Committee will increase the demand for DITA-conforming products, resulting in a greater choice of tools and platforms and expanding the DITA community of users, suppliers, and consultants.
"We’re mobilizing the significant DITA support that exists today into a cohesive, global effort that will concentrate on fostering DITA adoption in new industries, new areas of content creation, and new organizations," noted JoAnn Hackos, Ph.D., of Comtech, convenor of the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee. "We’re particularly interested in broadening support in Europe and Asia, where many companies are still unaware of DITA’s benefits."
The DITA specification itself is developed and maintained by the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, which has been in operation since April 2004. Members of the new DITA Adoption Committee intend to work closely with the technical committee to align market-based requirements and provide input for future enhancements to the standard.
Other activities of the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee include the creation of best practice guidelines, white papers, and case studies. The group plans to organize vendor-neutral webinars, workshops, and conference tracks on DITA. It will also assume editorial oversight for DITA XML.org, the official web site of the DITA community that incorporates a wiki knowledgebase, directories of products and services, news, events, forums, and blogs.
"By promoting DITA awareness and education through this new committee, participants maximize their collective resources within the security of the OASIS open process. Authors, publishers, developers, product and service providers—they are all coming together here to fuel the DITA momentum that continues to build," explained James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS.
The DITA Adoption Committee and the XML Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF) Technical Committee will collaborate on two webinars, ‘DITA to XLIFF and Back: Reducing the Costs and Risks of Translating XML Content’. The first webinar, held on 18 September, will have a business focus; the second, on 23 September, will be presented from a technical perspective. See http://www.oasis-open.org/events/webinars/ for details.
Support for DITA Adoption
Citrix "Information developers at Citrix are excited about our adoption of DITA. We are thrilled to be a part of the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee so we can be a part of helping others recognize how adopting DITA puts our groups in the best position to meet today’s business challenges head-on," said Brenda Oakley, Information Architect, Citrix Systems.
Comtech "Comtech Services, Inc. supports the potential of the DITA Adoption Committee for enhancing the understanding of the DITA standard by the worldwide community of technical communicators. Comtech has long supported the implementation of the DITA standard in global organizations by providing education, conferences, webinars, publications, and consulting services," said JoAnn Hackos, Ph.D., President, Comtech.
IBM "IBM has realized tremendous business value through our adoption of DITA as the centerpiece of our global technical publishing operation. We see the DITA Adoption Technical Committee as a valuable means of advancing the use and deployment of DITA across even more industries and clients, in a world in which DITA truly represents a common currency," said Bernice Casey, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Information Strategy.
JustSystems "In just a short time, DITA has emerged to become the prevailing approach for component-based content authoring. I am pleased to be involved in this unique committee, which will help to better articulate the business case for DITA, continuing its market momentum and raising its profile with the lines of business," said Peter Hrabinsky, Marketing Manager, Solutions, JustSystems.
PTC "PTC has supported the DITA standard since its inception in 2004 and has continued to work closely with OASIS to drive the adoption of DITA across organizations that want to simplify XML-based technical document publishing. We are proud to have a PTC team member on the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee and look forward to continue the great work that OASIS does," said Peter Velikin, Director, Product and Market Strategy, PTC.
Additional information:
OASIS DITA Adoption Committee DITA XML.org
About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the global information society. A not-for-profit consortium, OASIS advances standards for SOA, security, Web services, documents, e-commerce, government and law, localisation, supply chains, XML processing, and other areas of need identified by its members. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org
Press contact: Carol Geyer OASIS Director of Communications carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209 (office) +1.941.284.0403 (mobile)