Boston, MA, USA; 7 January 2002 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, issued an open invitation for public input on the creation of its XSLT/XPath Conformance Test Suite. XSLT and XPath are W3C Recommendations that provide the ability to define a set of rules to transform XML data into a variety of presentation styles, such as human readable reports (HTML) or other XML vocabularies. Organizations and individuals that have created test files for XSLT processors are encouraged to submit their work to the OASIS XSLT/XPath Conformance Technical Committee, which plans to corroborate submissions and publish an amalgam test suite for public use. Formal submissions from both IBM/Lotus and Microsoft have already been received by the OASIS XSLT Technical Committee. “As the number of XSLT processors continues to increase, the need for interoperability and conformance becomes absolutely critical,” observed G. Ken Holman of Crane Softwrights Ltd., chair of the OASIS XSLT/XPath Conformance Technical Committee. “We’re opening our conformance work to the entire industry, so we can be sure our test suite incorporates all the valid work that’s being done in this area. Our goal is to integrate disparate test-set contributions from companies and individuals around the world into a comprehensive XSLT/XPath Conformance Test Suite.” “By increasing the probability of successful interoperability, conformance tests provide developers and users with higher levels of confidence in product quality. Although conformance tests are not a guarantee for interoperability, they are an essential step towards achieving the goal,” said Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. “The work of the OASIS XSLT/XPath Conformance Technical Committee brings the industry together through an open process in an effort to produce one global test suite for the community at-large.” Benefits of the OASIS XSLT/XPath Conformance work extend beyond XSLT and XPath. Holman explained, “Throughout the development of our catalogue, submission and validation process, the OASIS XSLT/XPath Conformance Technical Committee worked to abstract aspects of XSLT and XPath away from the base modules. This resulted in the creation of a generic framework for accepting and validating submissions and building collections of test files. We anticipate our work being of use to developers of other conformance tests –both inside and outside OASIS.” To conform to the OASIS framework, submitters must catalogue their test file collections according to OASIS published document models, and they must employ available validation processes that utilize XSLT and XPath. Complete submission guidelines are posted on http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/xslt/. The OASIS XSLT/XPath Technical Committee adheres to the W3C interpretation of ambiguous or unclear areas of the specifications and does not compete with the W3C in any way on matters pertaining to interpretation of the specifications. About OASIS OASIS (www.oasis-open.org), a not-for-profit, global consortium, 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 is the home for XML conformance, Web services, security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and other interoperability specifications development. OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a global framework for e-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. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 19 December 2001–The trend to consolidate XML standards development strengthened in 2001 as independent industry groups and vendors alike chose to migrate their work to OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium. Citing the need for wider adoption and international participation, the groups and companies expressed confidence that the open OASIS technical process offered the strongest potential for advancing their specifications. In Web services, independent efforts from WSUI.Org and WSXL from IBM joined to advance the OASIS Web Services Component Model specification. In the security space, AuthXML and S2ML combined their efforts to produce one universally accepted OASIS standard, SAML. BEA Systems chose to submit their XOCP specification to the consortium and help start the OASIS Business Transaction Protocol (BTP) Technical Committee. XML schema languages, TREX and RELAX, combined their work into RELAX NG at OASIS. Commerce One submitted its xCBL XML business document library to OASIS as a starting point for work on the Universal Business Language. MSI Solutions contributed their CRML customer relationship specification to the OASIS Customer Information Quality Technical Committee. TopicMaps.Org moved development of its ISO standard for navigating information to OASIS. The new OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee is evaluating contributions from the XRPM Working Group, the ADpr Initiative and developers of ITML. “We realize it is difficult for most companies to track–let alone fund participation–in all the relevant standards work that’s happening,” said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “By pursuing convergence and offering a home for advancing standards created externally, OASIS gives companies the opportunity to contribute to the broadest possible range of significant work through one membership in OASIS.” “By bringing specifications to OASIS, industry groups significantly broaden global support for their work,” added Colin Evans of Intel Corporation, chair of the OASIS Board of Directors. “The real increase in the breadth and depth of technical committees shows that OASIS is rapidly becoming the central location for XML convergence planning.” Many developers choose to work within OASIS in order to take advantage of close liaison activities with the consortium’s other technical committees. “Having separate groups for security information exchange and for security policy definition allows the two distinct, but overlapping communities of interest to focus their efforts on a managable set of concerns,” explained Carlisle Adams of Entrust and Hal Lockhart of Entegrity, co-chairs of the OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Technical Committee. “Because both technical committees are at OASIS, we are better able to coordinate our efforts, employ common terminology and make use of each other’s work.” OASIS’ connection with other major standards bodies also attracts developers. Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee and organizer of the working group that created XML, said, “The OASIS technical process gives us the open and democratic standards framework needed for credibility among businesses large and small, and its close working relationship with UN/CEFACT, maintainers of the international EDIFACT standard for EDI, makes OASIS the obvious choice for UBL.” “One significant advantage of migrating development to OASIS is the consortium’s reputation and international standing. The OASIS technical process is widely regarded as an open, reliable, proven method of development in which everyone has a voice,” said Ed Anuff of Epicentric, a founder of WSUI.Org, which contributed its Web Services User Interface standard to the OASIS Web Services Component Model (WSCM) Technical Committee. “A specification that has been developed within OASIS has a much greater chance of achieving widespread adoption.” In addition to accepting submissions of externally produced specifications, OASIS offers other avenues of consortia cooperation, including joint development, fast-tracked specification approval and shared resources. About OASIS OASIS, a not-for-profit, global consortium, 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 is the home for XML conformance, Web services, security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and other interoperability specifications development. OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a global framework for e-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. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 17 December 2001 — The OASIS Customer Information Quality (CIQ) Technical Committee announced that it has accepted the submission of CRML, the XML vocabulary specification that defines customer relationships. Originally developed by MSI Business Solutions Pty. Ltd., CRML provides an open, application- and vendor-independent method for describing any type of customer relationship. The OASIS CIQ Technical Committee plans to adopt CRML into its family of customer information specifications including xCIL and xNAL, which define unique customer characteristics. “Up until now, the OASIS CIQ Technical Committee has concentrated on defining standards to describe characteristics of a customer, such as name, address, phone number, email, etc. Now with CRML, we are able to describe relationships between customers from a business and personal point of view,” said Ram Kumar of MSI, chair of the OASIS CIQ Technical Committee. “Because CRML uses xCIL and xNAL as the basis for its vocabulary, it provides the third and final specification needed to identify all aspects of customer information.” Under the CRML standard, a customer can be a person or an organization. CRML accommodates complex customer relationships including person-to-person, person-to-business, and business-to-business. “The rapid adoption of e-business has created a new world of interoperability between organizations, systems, processes, platforms, tools and, most importantly, data, ” commented George Langley, director and founder of MSI Business Solutions Pty. Ltd., a sponsor member of OASIS. “To ensure reliability and success, it is necessary to define standards that enable interoperability of data before we even start to think about how other entities can interoperate. A standard way of defining customer relationships and customer information is essential for interoperability to occur. CRML is a major step towards achieving this, and we are confident that migrating its development to OASIS will result in the widest possible adoption of the standard.” “OASIS welcomes this submission from MSI, ” noted Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. “We applaud the growing trend for vendors and industry groups to transfer their XML development efforts to OASIS. We offer a centralized, vendor-neutral forum where developers can collaborate and reach consensus on the use of standards through an open process.” Industry Support for CRML “CRML extends the capabilities of the OASIS CIQ Technical Committee beyond standardizing the description of a customer’s characteristics to include their business and personal relationships. By enabling the capture of non-address customer data, such as communication devices, email, personal details, etc., CRML may enhance the value of ebXML as a robust standard, ” says Marcus Goncalves, CTO of Virtual Access Networks. “As a member of this OASIS technical committee, I’m pleased with the results we achieved. CRML not only helps improve the interoperability of XML-based data and applications–mainly eCRM and Web services–it can also enhance UDDI’s directory services functionality by providing a global standard for name and address data.” David R.R. Webber of XML Global, another member of the OASIS CIQ Technical Committee agreed, adding, “We intend to keep CRML as a separate but related standard to xCIL and xNAL. By doing this, we see CRML fitting into ebXML and possibly other areas such as UDDI and W3C work.” 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 has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. 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. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 3 December 2001–OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, released RELAX NG 1.0 as a Committee Specification for validating XML-based languages. RELAX NG offers a complementary alternative to the W3C XML Schema Recommendation, providing an option for developers who value ease-of-use and a middle ground for those adopting multiple schema languages. In support of the new specification, the OASIS technical committee also released the RELAX NG tutorial and RELAX NG DTD compatibility. “The key to RELAX NG’s simplicity lies in the fact that it does not have any mechanisms specific to particular XML applications. Instead, RELAX NG concentrates on the syntax of XML documents. This opens RELAX NG to as wide a variety of applications as XML itself,” explained James Clark, chair of the OASIS RELAX NG Technical Committee. Clark, who has contributed to a wide body of open source software including Linux and XML, is regarded as one of the most prolific developers in the field of structured information standards. “RELAX NG is an outstanding example of how convergence can benefit and accelerate the development of standards,” said Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. “RELAX NG combines what were once two overlapping specifications–TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML) and RELAX (REgular LAnguage description for XML). By bringing these two efforts together, OASIS succeeded in avoiding duplication, confusion and fragmentation. The consolidation resulted in a better use of resources and a faster delivery time for RELAX NG.” Clark agreed, “I am very pleased with how the OASIS standards process has worked. The technical committee has completed the specification in a timely way; it has produced a high-quality specification which substantially improves on the languages that were the basis for RELAX NG (TREX and RELAX) without being more complicated than them.” “Wide adoption of RELAX NG will have a very positive impact on the progress of XML,” predicted MURATA Makoto of Japan’s Information Technology Research and Standardization Centre (INSTAC), one of the original developers of RELAX. “RELAX NG’s simplicity and consistency enable the creation of data binding tools, which significantly ease programming in modern object-oriented languages such as Java and C#. RELAX NG is particularly attractive for those users who want to minimize the learning cost of schema languages while taking advantage of free-and-reliable validators.” Publication of XML 1.0 and RELAX NG as JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) is under consideration, and INSTAC plans to prepare the draft. 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, BetweenMarkets, The Boeing Company, Bowstreet, Business Layers, 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, Reed Elsevier, Republica, Reuters Limited, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, Securant, SeeBeyond, Silverstream, SoftQuad Software, Software AG, Sonic Software, 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

Boston, MA, USA; 20 November 2001 — Major standards groups and consortia from around the world will collaborate at the Interoperability Summit in Orlando, Florida, 6-7 December 2001. HR-XML, OASIS, OMG ™, UN/CEFACT and XBRL.org will host the Interoperability Summit as the first in a series of meetings aimed at identifying common ground and coordinating development of electronic business specifications. “This is not simply another meeting opportunity,” explained Ray Walker Chair of UN/CEFACT’s Steering Group–the United Nations body for trade facilitation and electronic business–and a member of the Management Group that coordinates, through an MoU, the activities of the four global dejure standards organizations in e-Business (ISO, IEC, ITU and UNECE). “The Interoperability Summit Series will begin to identify concrete intersections between major horizontal and vertical standards in order to promote acceptance of common models and approaches. The MoU members look forward to reviewing the outcome of Orlando and to working more closely together with the consortia in the future.” Registration for the Interoperability Summit currently includes attendees from Asia, Europe and North America, with representatives from industry groups, ACORD, AIIM, Air Transport Association, ANSI, HR-XML, IDEAlliance, IMS Global Learning Consortium, Interoperability Clearinghouse, OASIS, OMG, Open Applications Group, The Open Group, UN/CEFACT and XBRL.org. In addition, government agencies such as the United Kingdom Office of the e-Envoy and the United States Department of Defense, and global corporations, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Oracle, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Reuters, Rockwell, Sun Microsystems, and others will contribute their perspectives to the Summit. Registration remains open at http://www.omg.org/interop/. “The response has been overwhelming,” said Dr. Richard Soley, chairman and chief executive officer of the OMG. “As standards groups proliferate, everyone recognizes the waste and confusion caused by duplication of efforts. The Interoperability Summit will identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical standards in order to promote acceptance of common models and approaches.” One item on the agenda will be the creation of a Standards Metadata Registry, where common metadata can be stored for standards efforts, promoting interoperability of specifications across different consortia. “A Standards Metadata Registry will allow groups to publicize their specifications and discover what other organizations are doing,” explained Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. “This will lead to better communication between the various standards bodies, resulting in less overlap of efforts and interoperability of completed work.” The first day of the December summit will be devoted to targeting obstacles and opportunities, driving XML-based standards convergence and facilitating interoperability strategies amongst all the attendees. The second day will focus on Human Resources specifications that cross many industry sectors. “HR issues like competencies and personal identifiers are fundamental to most business processes,” said Chuck Allen, director of HR-XML Consortium. “We look forward to the opportunity to share what we’re doing and explore how related work by other standards groups can fit.” The outcome of the first Interoperability Summit will be presented in a special session at the XML 2001 conference in Orlando on Tuesday, 11 December 2001. “HR is the first modeling topic we’ve targeted. Future Interoperability Summits will address other wide-reaching, horizontal business functions,” noted Louis Matherne, co-chair of the XBRL.org steering committee. “We’re already planning a Summit focused on Procurement for early 2002.” 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 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 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. 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 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 XBRL.org XBRL.org (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

Boston, MA, USA; 6 November 2001–OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, announced that its members have formed the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee to define an XML-based framework for exchanging user, resource, and service provisioning information. The new OASIS Technical Committee will collaborate to develop the Provisioning Services Markup Language (PSML), an end-to-end specification for the automation of user or system access and entitlement rights to electronic services. “PSML will provide the framework for standards-based interoperability in the provisioning market,” explained Darran Rolls of Waveset Technologies, chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee. “Today, provisioning vendors and enterprise systems resource vendors use proprietary APIs and data models for security administration. Our goal at OASIS is to open the interfaces between multiple provisioning systems–as well as between the provisioning system and the resources being managed.” “Provisioning is a key component of Web services,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “Whether you’re talking about provisioning accounts into a partners’ extranet, an outsourced application, an Application Service Provider (ASP), or a trading exchange, ultimately all these areas are going to be offered as Web services. Without a standardized approach, provisioning will add a significant administrative burden to Web services. The OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee will provide a fundamental benefit to enable Web services as a practical business tool.” In keeping with the consortium’s mission to promote convergence and unite disparate efforts, the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee will consider contributions of related work from other groups and companies. The XRPM (eXtensible Resource Provisioning Management) Working Group, the Active Digital Profile (ADpr) Initiative and developers of the Information Technology Markup Language (ITML) all plan to submit specifications to the new OASIS technical committee. “Provisioning systems are an integral part of the identity and access management infrastructure for both large enterprises and trading communities. The OASIS initiative to develop a new XML-based standard for provisioning systems to interoperate with each other removes a major obstacle to the deployment of effective account management strategies that span applications, platforms, and corporate boundaries,” said Phil Schacter, VP & Director of the Burton Group. “It’s only through broadly supported collaboration that we can achieve convergence on a single standard, which the industry can leverage to deliver truly effective solutions to customer provisioning problems.” Organizations collaborating on the OASIS Provisioning Technical Committee include Access360, Business Layers, Jamcracker, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, and other OASIS Contributors and Individual members. Participation is open to all OASIS members; interested parties will find information on joining OASIS at http://www.oasis-open.org/join. OASIS will host an open mail list, pstc-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on Provisioning Services. Completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing or other fees. Industry Support for PSTC “We are glad to have so many corporations come together in support of developing a standard for open provisioning interfaces for this industry. As a founder of the XRPM working group, Access360 is gratified to see our predecessor work in XRPM being considered as part of the PSTC,” said Jeff Curie, director of enterprise strategy for Access360. “We look forward to actively contributing to the efforts of the PSTC to define standards for provisioning systems to interoperate between each other and with managed resources.” “Having introduced the concept of eProvisioning to the marketplace, and as the first company to push for a standardized technology framework for eProvisioning solutions, Business Layers is excited to be a part of an OASIS standards initiative that will ultimately increase the value of the technology for our clients,” stated Adrian Viego, CTO of Business Layers. “As enterprises around the world continue to embrace eProvisioning as a critical component of their IT infrastructure, the PSML specification will help our entire sector deliver solutions in a timely, effective and vendor-neutral manner. We heartily endorse the standardization efforts of OASIS and look forward to adding our expertise to the process.” “Automated provisioning is one of the key success factors to the rapid delivery of web services. Through the ability to have automated provisioning of distributed services, users will be able to rapidly access new services as they need them and IT will be relieved of the complex challenge of manual provisioning, subsequently reducing costs and optimizing time-to-service,” said Bruce Hartsough, Vice President of Engineering, Jamcracker. “Jamcracker is excited to apply its extensive experience in delivering services over the Internet and be a direct part of this groundbreaking effort to define a standards approach to interoperable and automated provisioning.” said Bruce Hartsough, vice president of Jamcracker’s Engineering. “Novell’s one Net vision is founded upon a commitment to open standards, and so we’re very pleased to see the cooperation of industry leaders to develop a standard approach to provisioning,” said Winston Bumpus, director of standards for Novell. “Today eProvisioning solutions from Novell are helping many customers lower costs and increase security by automating business processes. The creation of a provisioning standard will no doubt enhance the scope of those solutions–and bring greater value to customers–by enabling improved interoperability among businesses, their clients and partners.” “Interoperability is a key part of empowering businesses in today’s fast changing, diverse network environment. OASIS has always encouraged collaboration among industry leaders to make better progress toward interoperability and thus, we are fully supportive of this new OASIS Provisioning Technical Committee,” says Enrique Salem, senior vice president of products and technology, Oblix. About OASIS OASIS 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, Bowstree t, Business Layers, 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, Reed Elsevier, 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

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

Boston, MA, USA; 22 October 2001 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS Web Services Component Model (WSCM) Technical Committee to create a Web services standard for interactive application access. WSCM will provide a coordinated set of XML vocabularies and Web services interfaces that allow companies to deliver Web applications to end users through a variety of channels–directly to a browser, indirectly through a portal or embedded into a third party Web application. “Right now, there is no industry standard mechanism for packaging the display component of a Web service,” explained Charles Wiecha of IBM, chair of the new OASIS WSCM Technical Committee. “WSCM will enable any Web application–a package tracker, a calendar application, a stock quote, anything–to be delivered and displayed to an end user as a Web service, regardless of the underlying Web platform, vendor-specific application format or display device.” With WSCM, companies will be free to syndicate their applications across different portals and Web site platforms without being limited by proprietary products. They will be able to dynamically share Web services without the time and labor of creating multiple vendor-specific connectors written to different Web languages such as Java, COM/.Net and Perl. Wiecha emphasized that WSCM will be developed in light of standards and specifications issued by OASIS, UN/CEFACT, ISO, W3C and other relevant standards bodies. “We aren’t trying to reinvent the Web presentation layer. Our goal is to harmonize WSCM as far as practical with existing Web application programming models (e.g., Portals), the work of the W3C (e.g., XForms, DOM, XML Events, XPath, XLink, XML Component API task force), emerging Web services standards (e.g., SOAP, WSDL, WSFL) and with the work of other appropriate business information bodies.” In the interest of convergence, the OASIS WSCM Technical Committee will consider contributions of related work from other groups and companies. The Web Services User Interface (WSUI), an initiative proposed by a working group of software providers earlier this year, plans to submit their specification to the new OASIS technical committee. “From WSUI’s inception, the goal was to submit our work to a major standards body,” said Ed Anuff, chief strategy officer of Epicentric, one of the major WUSI contributors. “We chose OASIS because its members include some of the largest, most influential developers in the industry. That level of support is critical for widespread adoption.” “The nascent stage of Web services requires nurturing not just in terms of commercial credibility but also in terms of usable standards,” said Tyler McDaniel, Director of Application Strategies at Hurwitz Group. “This concerted effort by OASIS, leveraging the work of WSUI.Org, will help the market address a key issue of presenting Web services throughout the Internet ecosystem. With strong vendor leadership, focused through OASIS, enterprises should get the benefit of a thorough specification.” IBM intends to contribute Web Services Experience Language (WSXL), a Web services-centric component model for interactive Web applications, as work to be considered in the OASIS WSCM Technical Committee. The WSXL reference document can be found on IBM’s developerWorks site at http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-wsxl/index.html. “IBM is pleased to contribute WSXL to be considered as part of WSCM,” said Bob Sutor, director of e-business standards strategy at IBM. “As an XML and Web services-centric component model for interactive Web applications, WSCM will enable businesses to more easily distribute those interactive Web applications through multiple channels. It will also help create new ones by leveraging existing resources across the Web. IBM is a longtime supporter of OASIS, and we’re very happy to have the opportunity to chair the OASIS WSCM Technical Committee.” “Much of the work around Web services is focused on giving developers tools to access remote application functions over the Internet,” noted Karl Best, OASIS director of technical operations. “The OASIS WSCM Technical Committee aims to make those services accessible to the end user. We invite all who would be affected by this standard to participate in our work.” Initial members of the OASIS WSCM Technical Committee include Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Documentum, Epicentric, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Logistics Management Institute, Macromedia, Sterling Commerce, U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and other OASIS Contributors and Individual members. Participation is open to all OASIS members; interested parties will find information on joining OASIS at http://www.oasis-open.org/join. OASIS will host an open mail list, wscm-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on WSCM. Completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing or other fees. Industry Support for WSCM “DataChannel has been a leader in advancing XML-based technologies since our company’s inception in 1996,” said Norbert Mikula, Chief Technology Strategist of DataChannel and Vice Chairman of the Oasis Board of Directors. “In 1998 we submitted WebBroker to the W3C, followed by a co-submission of the WSDL specification. DataChannel also co-authored the technical architecture for ebXML and UDDI, just to name a few. Today’s announcement underscores our commitment to providing our customers with the best technology innovations to enable wide-scale collaboration across the Interactive Enterprise™. We look forward to working with IBM and other members of the OASIS WSCM to advance this important technology specification that will have a significant impact on the Internet and the enterprise portal market.” “Web services are integral to Documentum’s vision of the next generation of content management,” said Una Kearns, XML architect for Documentum and member of the board of directors for OASIS. “They will enable Documentum to incorporate content management capabilities across applications and deliver them through a variety of channels – reducing the total cost and time necessary to integrate and deploy web and portal infrastructures. Standardizing the packaging and delivery of Web services is essential, and we are delighted to work with our partners and other industry leaders, under OASIS, to complete this important area of work.” “The interoperability and portability of XML-enabled software solutions is critical in customer environments,” said Jack Walicki, general manager, Web services operations for HP. “HP is pleased to join with other OASIS members in creating a component model for interactive web applications that can be used by the ever-growing XML community. HP’s Netaction software suite, including the HP Netaction Internet Operating Environment, will be able to provide an even more flexible interface through the WSCM specifications.” “As Web services become increasingly more relevant to the Web development community, Macromedia looks forward to contributing our knowlege in these areas to help build the most compelling and re-usable user interfaces online,” said Simeon Simeonov, Chief Architect, Macromedia. “Macromedia has a long history of supporting Web standards, and that continues with our support of WSCM as an open and presentation-independent standard.” “Sabre sees XML and Web services as critical components in the future of online travel services and is committed to open interoperability standards and a services-based application architecture.” said Eric Garcia, a vice president for Strategic Architecture at Sabre. “We look forward to the results of this technical committee and anticipate that their enabling and harmonization efforts will promote the rapid implementation of value added Web services.” “OASIS is well-positioned to make substantive contributions to this significant area of Web and electronic business technology. This should facilitate the development and use of standards, based on XML, that enhance interoperability,” said Jerry Smith, U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). About OASIS OASIS (http://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 web services, XML conformance, 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

Boston, MA, USA; 17 October 2001 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee to define a common XML business document library. UBL will provide a set of XML building blocks and a framework that will enable trading partners to unambiguously identify and exchange business documents in specific contexts. Uniting disparate efforts underway by companies and standards groups around the world, the OASIS UBL Technical Committee intends to enhance and harmonize overlapping XML business libraries and similar technologies to advance consensus on an international standard. “Agreement on a common set of XML business-to-business document standards is essential for successful electronic commerce,” said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee and organizer of the working group that created XML. “Our goal in creating UBL is to quickly develop a synthesis of existing XML business libraries using the OASIS open collaborative process.” “Anything that supports convergence and reusability of the wildly proliferating -MLs in every business domain is absolutely critical to realizing XML’s promise,” said Rita Knox, analyst, Gartner. “Custom XML-defined transactions in every line of business perpetuates proprietary solutions. Vocabulary-level clearinghouses and repositories are essential to interoperability and an approach end-users are beginning to understand and are ready to adopt and support.” “Commerce One is pleased to submit xCBL 3.0, our open, free XML component and business document library, to the OASIS UBL Technical Committee as a starting point for this work,” said Dr. Mary Loomis, senior vice president of engineering for Commerce One. “The Commerce One company vision and products are based on open XML specifications to enable interoperability between business services, enterprises and e-marketplaces. Commerce One is pleased to support this effort to develop a common industry standard and is confident that OASIS is the appropriate place to commence development of the UBL standard, because of the consortium’s broad industry representation and international focus.” Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS, emphasized, “The consortium urges all organizations that have developed XML business documents to join this important effort. Our aim is to encourage the widest possible range of participation in UBL.” Initial members of the OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee include Arbortext, Boeing, Commerce One, SAP, SoftQuad Software, Sun Microsystems, VerticalNet, Vitria, XML Global and other OASIS Contributors and Individual members. Information on joining OASIS can be found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join. OASIS will host an open mail list, ubl-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on UBL. Completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing or other fees. Industry Support for UBL “Sun is very supportive of the Universal Business Language (UBL) being developed at OASIS,” said Bill Smith, Director, XML Technology Center, Sun Microsystems. “UBL will provide a much needed set of common XML based semantics for business communications. We see this work as a complementary and very important component of the XML standards framework being defined by the industry now for electronic business.” “We are pleased to be a part of the OASIS UBL initiative,” said Hugo Daley, Vice President of Technology Strategy for Verticalnet. “As a premier provider of software for business process visibility and event management across enterprise networks, Verticalnet is committed to advancing open standards that promote business interoperability. The success of UBL should radically reduce the cost of deploying our next generation software for extended enterprise management.” “XML Global is a committed and active supporter of the OASIS UBL initiative,” said Duane Nickull, CTO of XML Global Technologies, Inc. “With our company’s leading edge ebXML work, and experience with registries and business component taxonomies, I am pleased to be able to offer my services and insights to the UBL TC with the objective of seeing this initiative evolve into a workable and effective business solution.” About OASIS OASIS 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, Airbus, Altova, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, B-Bop Associates, 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, Dataloom, Deutsche Post AG, Documentum, election.com, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Epicentric, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extricity Software, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Identrus, Informix, Infoteria, Innodata, Intel, Interwoven, IONA, IPNet Solutions, ITEDO Software, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, Logistics Management Institute, Mediaplex, Mercator Software, Microsoft, Neocore, Netegrity, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, ObjectSpace, 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, XMLSolutions and Xyvision Enterprise Solutions. For more information: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 2 October 2001 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, added support for the XML Topics Maps (XTM) specification to its technical agenda, as industry group, TopicMaps.Org, announced its decision to continue development within the OASIS Technical Process. XTM (ISO/IEC 13250:2000), which provides a model for organizing, retrieving and navigating information resources, will be advanced by a series of newly formed OASIS technical committees. Topic maps provide a ‘knowledge layer’–independent of the information resources themselves–to capture and manage corporate memory, improve indexing and enable the integration of information that spans multiple, disparate repositories. Applications include the semantic web, distributed ontologies, business processes, workflow, search and retrieval tools, knowledge management, diplomatic communication, cultural dialogue and various other disciplines and functions. “Topic maps help people find the information they need quickly and easily. They serve, in effect, as a GPS for the Web,” explained Charles F. Goldfarb, the father of markup languages and inventor of SGML. “By extending the power of XML to make information self-describing, topic maps offer the potential to create a new generation of search engines.” “As XTM moves to becoming part of the ISO standard, OASIS is the logical forum to advance its acceptance in the marketplace,” said Eric Freese of ISOGEN International, chair of TopicMaps.Org. “Participation and support from the OASIS membership will help XTM realize its enormous potential to improve the manageability of information.” Steven R. Newcomb, one of the three co-editors of the ISO Topic Maps standard, agreed, “Topic Maps offers a simple and extraordinarily scalable way to control ‘infoglut’ and amalgamate sets of knowledge-bearing assertions from disparate sources. To derive maximum benefit from Topic Maps, communities and industries should establish sets of ‘published subjects’ and other best practices. The combination of the OASIS technical development process and the vision and dedication of the TopicMaps.Org contributors should yield good results for participating communities and industries–and everyone else, too.” To advance XTM, the OASIS Topic Maps Published Subjects Technical Committee has been formed, and the consortium expects to announce additional OASIS topic maps technical committees over the next 30 days. “Many current OASIS technical committees advance development work that began outside the Consortium,” said Karl Best, director of technical operations at OASIS. “Increasingly, independent industry groups are realizing the benefits of working within the open OASIS technical process, where they gain access to OASIS infrastructure, resources and expertise. OASIS broadens participation and lets groups focus on their technical work, rather than the administrative details of running a member association. Topic Maps is an exciting addition to the OASIS technical agenda.” Organizations contributing to the OASIS Topic Maps Technical Committees include Boeing, DataChannel, empolis, Reuters, Sun Microsystems and other OASIS Contributors and Individual members. Information on joining OASIS can be found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join. OASIS will host an open mail list, topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on XTM. Completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing or other fees. 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 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

Boston, MA, USA; 21 August 2001 — OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS HumanMarkup Technical Committee (TC) to develop and promote a specification for conveying human characteristics through XML. The Human Markup Language (HumanML) will embed contextual human characteristics (cultural, social, kinesic, psychological and intentional features) within information. Applications include artificial intelligence, virtual reality, conflict resolution, psychotherapy, art, workflow, advertising, cultural dialogue, agent systems, diplomacy and business negotiation. “HumanML offers the potential to reduce misinterpretation and allows people to express themselves more deeply,” explained Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga, chair of the OASIS HumanMarkup TC. “Employing the same infrastructure and technology used in business-to-business transactions, HumanML lets us define and elucidate the various subtle, complex human processes involved in communication. Using HumanML, we can substantially reduce interpersonal and intersocietal conflicts associated with the inadequate conveyance of human traits and expression.” Other efforts within the scope of the OASIS HumanMarkup TC will include messaging, style, alternate schemas, constraint mechanisms, object models, and repository systems, which address overall concerns of representing and amalgamating human information within data. “HumanML is an exciting example of the breadth of technical work being undertaken by OASIS members. Unlike standards bodies that dictate direction through a central authority, OASIS offers an open technical agenda that is set by our members themselves,” commented Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. “HumanML extends the use of XML into totally new arenas and offers the potential to affect the way we communicate with one another.” Participation in the OASIS HumanMarkup TC is open to all employees of OASIS member companies and all OASIS individual members. Information on joining OASIS can be found on http://www.oasis-open.org/join. OASIS will host an open mail list, humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on HumanML. 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 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

Boston, MA, USA; 14 August 2001 — Standards groups and consortia from around the world will gather in Orlando, Florida, 6-7 December 2001 for the Interoperability Summit, the first in a series of inter-consortia meetings aimed at identifying common ground and coordinating development of electronic business specifications. Hosted by HR-XML, OASIS, Object Management Group (OMG), UN/CEFACT and XBRL.org, the Interoperability Summit Series will identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical groups in order to promote acceptance of common models and approaches. “Duplication of effort and overlap of specifications are major deterrents to interoperability,” said Patrick Gannon, president and chief executive officer of OASIS. “We believe that if everyone communicates and collaborates on common issues, we’ll all be more productive in achieving our own specific goals. The summit series will provide a forum to identify and coordinate the work that affects us all.” “Interoperability across platforms, languages and deployment technologies is of critical importance to CIOs today,” said Dr. Richard Soley, chairman and chief executive officer of the OMG. “OMG’s Model Driven Architecture™ is specifically designed to attain that goal, and lack of agreement on vertical-market models is the major roadblock to achieving the goal. OMG is proud to be one of the sponsors of the Interoperability Summit event and to act as one of the hosts for this first meeting.” Each Summit in the series will focus on a specific modeling topic or business domain. The first meeting will target Human Resources (HR) management, with future summits dedicated to other wide-reaching, horizontal business functions. A second Summit on Procurement is planned for 2002. “Human resources is an excellent starting point for the Interoperability Summit Series, since HR shares many common components and has many external interaction points and dependencies with other standards efforts,” said Chuck Allen, director of HR-XML Consortium. Allen cited an example of kind of overlap the Summit is targeting. “Recently, the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM) decided to create an XML specification for the procurement of temporary staffing. That very same week, HR-XML announced a draft of our specification for temporary staffing. While it’s clear both groups need to create specifications based on the unique needs of their applications, it is also obvious some of the objects, processes and models involved could be common to both. The Interoperability Summit will help us all identify this kind of overlap, so we can devote our resources to solving domain-specific requirements.” Capt. Valerie Carpenter, USN program manager of the DIMHRS project (a Department of Defense-wide military personnel system) agreed. “The lack of cross domain standards has long been an obstacle to meaningful interoperability.” The Interoperability Summit is open to all industry groups, standards bodies and consortia that have a vested interest in the modeling topic. In addition to HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, UN/CEFACT and XBRL.org, the Orlando meeting is expected to attract representatives from ACORD, BASDA, Health Level Seven, IDEAlliance, IFX, IMS Global Learning Consortium, Open Applications Group and the NAPM XML Initiative. Other groups are welcome and may register at http://www.omg.org/interop/. “The opportunity to agree on cross-consortia models benefits everyone,” added Klaus-Dieter Naujok of IONA, member of the UN/CEFACT Steering Group. “Participants in the Interoperability Summit Series will learn and share information about modeling tools, methodologies and approaches to meta-data management. The Summit will give us all the opportunity to disseminate information about our own models and modeling goals and work proactively with other consortia representatives to ensure capability across industries and business functions.” “XBRL.org is about bringing together the stakeholders in areas of business reporting and helping bridge interoperability of business data between disparate systems and speed the flow of information to the capital markets. Supporting integration between other XML efforts and XBRL.org expertise in the accounting and investment fields can only help make this happen with far greater impact,” said Louis Matherne, co-chair of the XBRL.org steering committee. 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 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 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. 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 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 XBRL.org XBRL.org (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 +1 978.667.5115 x209