Geneva, Switzerland and Boston, MA, USA; 8 May 2006 – The OpenDocument OASIS Standard, a format which enables users of varying office suites to freely exchange documents, has been approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard. OpenDocument was balloted through the Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (JTC1) of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The OASIS OpenDocument submission has been given the designation, ISO/IEC 26300. OpenDocument defines a genuinely open XML file format for office applications. Suitable for text, spreadsheets, charts, graphs, presentations, and databases, the standard frees documents from their applications-of-origin, enabling them to be exchanged, retrieved, and edited with any OpenDocument-compliant software or tool. The standard will facilitate access, search, use, integration, and development of document content in new and innovative ways. “ISO/IEC 26300 is a shining example of what partnership in standardization can achieve for the business community. Its publication underscores the importance of partnership among ISO and IEC and standards developing organizations such as OASIS to craft a common set of standards, and reflects the international community’s recognition of the importance of open formats in enabling business interoperability,” said Alan Bryden, ISO Secretary-General. “ISO /IEC approval of OpenDocument as an International Standard is a major step forward in advancing the adoption of a format that gives all of us the flexibility to select the office application-commercial or open source-that best meets our needs,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “We are particularly gratified by the broad range of national ballots cast in favor of the standard. This action underscores the global support for the OASIS open standards process that produced OpenDocument and delivers an assurance of long-term viability that is particularly important to governments.” In May 2005, OpenDocument was ratified as an OASIS Standard and subsequently submitted by OASIS to the ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, subcommittee SC 34, Document description and processing languages. As ISO/IEC 26300, the standard will continue to be maintained and advanced by the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee and the recently formed OASIS ODF Adoption Committee, both of which remain open to participation from users, suppliers, government agencies, and individuals. Current members of OASIS committees focusing on OpenDocument include representatives of Adobe, IBM, Intel, Novell, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems, as well as government agencies and other organizations, such as the Chanfeng Open Standards Platform Software Alliance in China, National Informatics Center of the Government of India, Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration, Royal National Institute for the Blind, and Duke University. About ISO/IEC JTC1 ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology Standardization is made up of 66 member and observer national standards institutes and 38 liaison members. Eighteen subcommittees of JTC1 address a wide range of information and communication technology matters. JTC1 develops, maintains, promotes, and facilitates IT standards required by global markets, meeting business and user needs that address the design and development of IT systems and tools, their performance and quality, their security, the portability and interoperability of systems and applications, unified tools and environments, harmonized technical vocabularies, and user friendly, ergonomic user interfaces. http://www.jtc1.org About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org Additional Information: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org ISO http://www.iso.org/ OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ OASIS ODF Adoption Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/odf-adoption/ ISO press contact: Elizabeth Gasiorowski-Denis Journalist Public Relations Services Tel. +41 22 749 01 11 Fax +41 22 733 34 30 gasiorowski@iso.org OASIS Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 3 May 2006 – The OASIS international standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Business-Centric Methodology (BCM) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. BCM is a set of layered methods for acquiring interoperable e-business information within communities of interest. The BCM OASIS Standard serves as a road map, enabling organizations to identify and exploit business success factors in a technology-neutral manner, based on open standards. BCM offers a comprehensive approach for reducing unnecessary risk by providing techniques that result in an information architecture for enterprise agility and interoperability. The new OASIS Standard addresses interoperability through the semantic alignment of concepts and layering of constraints, as defined by reusable business templates. “BCM gives business people the choice to think in business terms-not in ‘techno-babble’,” said Peter Fingar, industry expert on business process management and author of the newly released book, Extreme Competition. “BCM helps managers precisely communicate their business goals among heterogeneous partners as well as layering the appropriate steps that must be applied for a project to succeed. By increasing communication between business partners and their developers, the standard lets enterprises achieve a greater degree of agility than would otherwise be possible.” According to Mike Lubash of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), BCM enables enterprises to align their existing services and systems within common lines of business across the value chain. “Instead of depending on narrowly focused, vendor-specific products, BCM users can deploy implementations that expand over time and derive maximum benefit from other standards supported within their enterprise,” said Lubash. He co-chairs the OASIS BCM Technical Committee, along with Carl Mattocks of MetLife. Mattocks added, “BCM builds from a unique viewpoint, one that considers the volatility of an organization’s information rather than its interconnection protocols. This is key to enabling organizations to adapt and properly respond to customer requirements.” BCM complements Enterprise Architectures (EA), service-oriented architectures (SOA), and frameworks, such as the Federal Architecture Reference Models and the United States DoD Architecture Framework. BCM also maximizes the use of Web services, providing for the interpretation of messages and business documents from an enterprise viewpoint. “In essence, BCM allows Web services to scale more efficiently to larger enterprises. In doing so, BCM complements other OASIS Standards, such as SAML, UBL, WS-Reliability, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, UDDI, and XACML,” explained Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “We congratulate the members of the OASIS BCM Technical Committee for their efforts.” BCM continues to be advanced within OASIS. The Committee, which remains open to new participation, plans to begin work on a business-centric framing language that will use ‘service bridges’ to ensure information used by one layer of SOA is accurately communicated to the other BCM layers. OASIS members also intend to develop an ontology for eBusiness that resides in the concept layer to ensure semantic synchronicity across all BCM layers. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing BCM via the bcm-dev mailing list. As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS BCM Technical Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard. Additional Information OASIS BCM Technical Committee Cover Pages Technology Report: Business-Centric Methodology About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 24 April 2006 – The OASIS international standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) version 1.2 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. WSRF provides a generic, open framework for modeling and accessing stateful resources using Web services. The WSRF OASIS Standard comprises a set of royalty-free, interoperable, and modular specifications that make it easier both to define and implement a Web service and to integrate and manage multiple services. A Web service is characterized by the messages that flow to and from it. Any resource manipulated by the service, such as a shopping cart at an online retail site, needs to be identified and described by the messages that are exchanged. “WSRF solves the problem of how stateful resources can be represented and managed using Web service technologies,” explained Ian Robinson of IBM, co-chair of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee. “In particular, WSRF addresses the requirements of the Web Services for Distributed Management (WSDM) OASIS Standard and other industry standards to expose and operate on fragments of a resource’s state, which is essential in resource-constrained or low-bandwidth environments.” David Snelling of Fujitsu, co-chair of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee, added, “The WSRF OASIS Standard provides a platform for many higher level WS Service applications including, but not limited to, management and Grid Computing infrastructures. Using WSRF, companies can provide a standardized, interoperable platform for resource-based Web services.” WSRF is already experiencing a high degree of acceptance in the marketplace, including the open source community. “We already have thousands of people coding to the Globus implementation of WSRF,” said Dr. Ian Foster, director of the Computation Institute at Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago, and a leader in the Globus Alliance, developers of the Globus open source implementation of WSRF. “The finalization of WSRF as an OASIS Standard will help accelerate adoption for interoperable distributed systems.” “The WSRF OASIS Standard was developed to help simplify Web Services and make them more flexible. Together, WSRF and Web Services Notification (WSN), which is also advanced at OASIS, are enabling a closer connection between the Grid services and Web services communities,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “We congratulate the members of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee-as well as those who participated in the public review and who have already implemented WSRF–for all their work in advancing WSRF as an OASIS Standard.” The OASIS WSRF Technical Committee remains open to new participation. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing WSRF via the wsrf-dev mailing list (http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS WSRF Technical Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard. Support for the WSRF OASIS Standard CA “By providing an open, broadly accepted standards-based mechanism to access representations of state across complex environments, the OASIS Web Services Resource Framework will provide a useful foundation that will increase the utility and manageability of Web Services to meet changing business challenges,” said Muhi Majzoub, vice president of engineering, enterprise systems management–applications at CA. “CA will continue to work closely with OASIS to develop workable standards that enable our customers to optimally utilize available information resources and streamline the management of their increasingly complex IT environments.” Fujitsu “Fujitsu, as a leading provider of enterprise systems, their management infrastructures and a strong supporter of open standards in the field, welcomes the publication of the WSRF standard suite of specifications. Fujitsu and Fujitsu Laboratories have been involved in the development of these specifications and interoperable implementations from the beginning and look forward to their wide-spread adoption in the industry,” said Yoshiyuki Tanakura, Corporate Senior Vice President of Fujitsu. IBM “Our customers are already seeing the benefits of large-scale SOA deployments,” said Karla Norsworthy, vice president, software standards, IBM. “The WSRF OASIS Standard provides the mechanism for describing the resources in these distributed IT infrastructures, including devices and services. This will simplify the task of integrating systems across and between enterprises. For example, this enables distributed management standards such as WSDM to have visibility to resources and their status.” Additional Information

OASIS WSRF Technical Committee

About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 11 April 2006 – The OASIS international standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) version 2.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. SPML provides an XML-based framework for managing the allocation of system resources within and between organizations. Encompassing the entire life-cycle management of resources, SPML defines the provisioning of digital services such as user accounts and access privileges on systems, networks and applications, as well as non-digital or physical resources such as cell phones and credit cards.

“One of the hardest parts of provisioning is interoperability,” noted analyst, Mark Diodati of Burton Group’s Identity and Privacy Strategies. “SPML provides a standards-based approach, and version 2.0 adds important functionality that is required for robust provisioning services.”

“SPML v2.0 will further facilitate the seamless application of identity management solutions to the day-to-day challenges of provisioning and de-provisioning business services,” said Gavenraj Sodhi of CA, co-chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee. “The result will be more efficient IT administration, improved security, and easier extension of services beyond organizational boundaries.”

“SPML 2.0 provides a service-oriented identity protocol that goes far beyond just enterprise provisioning while enabling customers to spend less time connecting systems and applications, and more time focusing on the technology issues and implementations most important to their business needs and services,” said Jeff Bohren, of BMC Software, co-chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee.

The SPML v2.0 OASIS Standard offers enhanced functionality as well as a new profile that lets users and other objects be manipulated more easily. Additional features include improved password management, user suspension capabilities, and user attribute schema discovery.

“SPML was developed alongside other key security specifications, including the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and WS-Security, both of which are also OASIS Standards,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “Our security committees work together to exploit the benefits of reuse and coordination to the greatest extent possible. We congratulate the members of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee for this outstanding achievement.”

The OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee remains open to new participation. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing SPML via the spml-dev mailing list. As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard.

Support for the SPML OASIS Standard

BMC Software “BMC Software is pleased with the approval of SPML 2.0 as an OASIS Standard,” said Doron Cohen, CTO, Identity Management Business Unit, BMC Software. “BMC is committed to working with organizations like OASIS to create and promote the influence of standards in the market that help customers effectively and efficiently build an identity-aware business.”

CA “CA is excited to be co-authors of the SPML 2.0 specification. Its ratification as an OASIS Standard is a significant milestone for security management standards and is inline with the maturity of Identity Management solution requirements,” said Gavenraj Sodhi, director of product management for security management at CA and co-chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee. “We look forward to continued adoption of identity management standards, with the goal of encouraging interoperability and thus promoting more efficient processes for implementing Identity Management Solutions.”

Oracle “Oracle is deeply committed to helping bring security standards to the market and building support for these standards into our family of identity management products,” said Prateek Mishra, director, Security Standards, Oracle. “As a member of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee, we are pleased that the standard has been finalized, and we look forward to helping accelerate its adoption throughout the industry and across our customer base.”

Additional Information

OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee

About OASIS:
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 30 March 2006 — "The Meaning of Interoperability" will bring standards developers and users together at the annual OASIS Symposium in San Francisco, 9-12 May 2006. The program will feature three days of presentations where members and non-members of the international standards consortium will explore the factors that affect an organization’s ability to interoperate with partners in automated collaboration processes.

"There is more to interoperability than getting the right network connection between two servers," noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "Interoperability is a concept that crosses all aspects of business conducted electronically–document design, message format and protocol, partner agreements and company procedures, IT governance, business processes and workflow. The OASIS Symposium provides a face-to-face opportunity to examine practical aspects from others attendees’ experiences in making interoperability pervasive and invisible."

In the keynote address, Peter Quinn, former CIO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will offer one example of the journey to institutionalize open standards and the cultural, political and commercial impediments encountered on the road to "open." According to Quinn, "In too many instances, technology enterprises have been constructed using proprietary technologies, which has resulted in unnavigable chasms of information and siloed operations. The cost of any enterprise, today, demands open standards to insure access to all and a sustainable cost structure."

The program closes with a keynote by Randy Heffner, vice president at Forrester’s Application Development & Infrastructure Research Group. Heffner will use Forrester’s vision for the future of IT as a framework to outline standards requirements and address the question, "How much business interoperability do we really need?".

Presentations on OASIS work including the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), ebXML, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) OASIS Standards will be featured, along with sessions on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Web services, and other topics relevant to interoperability.

Related events include technical committee meetings, tutorials, training sessions, and the annual OASIS member meeting. Open to both members and non-members of OASIS, the Symposium is sponsored by BEA Systems, EDS, IBM, Intel, PTC, SAP, and Sun Microsystems. The program is coordinated by the OASIS Technical Advisory Board and chaired by Jacques Durand, Ph.D., of Fujitsu, and Hal Lockhart of BEA Systems.

Additional Information: OASIS Symposium:http://www.oasis-open.org/events/symposium_2006/

About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 22 March 2006 — The OASIS international standards consortium today introduced the DITA XML.org Focus Area (http://dita.xml.org). The new site serves as the community gathering place and information resource for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an approved OASIS Standard that builds content reuse into the authoring process.

"Interest in DITA is tremendous right now, and there is strong support in the community for a resource to share information," noted Don Day of IBM, chair of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. "The DITA XML.org Focus Area combines the free expression of a wiki with stable background materials on the standard, as well as organized community postings on topical issues. Novices, experienced implementors, providers of ITA-compliant products and services, local user group members, those interested in advancing the standard-everyone will be able to make use of the site."

All DITA XML.org Focus Area pages are accessible by the public, and users are encouraged to contribute content. The site features three main sections:

DITA Knowledge Base, which provides a technical and educational background on the standard, as compiled by the site’s Editorial Board;

DITA Today, which serves as a community bulletin board and directory where readers share news, events, product listings, services, case studies, testimonials, and recommendations on other useful resources; and

DITA Wiki, which enables the public to dynamically collaborate on documents and add new pages to the site.

XML.org also supports blogs and forums to encourage open discussions on issues of interest to the DITA community. It serves as an access point to related information on the OASIS-hosted Cover Pages (http://xml.coverpages.org), a comprehensive public resource for information on XML and related technical standards for the structured information community. The Focus Area also supplements and references the official OASIS DITA Technical Committee pages, which are devoted to documenting the development of the standard.

Creation and oversight of content for the DITA XML.org Focus Area is provided by the site’s Editorial Board, which includes: Don Day and Michael Priestly of IBM; Bruce Esrig of Lucent Technologies; Kay Ethier; JoAnn Hackos and Jen Linton of Comtech Services; Scott Prentice of Leximation; and Jerry Silver of Blast Radius.

Funding for the Focus Area is provided by Adobe, Blast Radius, Comtech, Innodata Isogen, PTC, and Vasont.

Support for the DITA XML.org Focus Area

Adobe "Adobe FrameMaker’s DITA support and Adobe’s own internal use of DITA to develop our product help content in the Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe Digital Audio and Video products is a direct result of the work from OASIS. Adobe is honored to be associated with the new DITA XML.org Focus Area and pledges our continued support for the DITA OASIS Standard," said Michael Hu of Adobe.

Blast Radius "The DITA Focus Area is another example of the strong momentum behind DITA," said Robert Miller, Vice President of Marketing, Blast Radius. "For the first time, the grass roots collaboration around an XML documentation standard can come together in an active online community sharing best practices and providing authoritative information on the use of this important technology. As a leading vendor of DITA-based solutions, Blast Radius welcomes the Focus Area and looks forward to its role in educating users about
DITA."

Comtech "Comtech Services is pleased to support the development of the DITA XMLorg Focus Area. This new site promises to provide a superior resource for building a DITA information repository. It also provides a forum for DITA users and prospective users to build a community of practice," said JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD, Comtech President.

PTC "PTC is proud to be a sponsor of the DITA XML.org Focus Area," said PG Bartlett, vice president product management for Arbortext, PTC. "We have high expectations for the widespread implementation and use of DITA and believe this site will be a valuable resource of information for organizations that want to utilize DITA to simplify XML-based technical document publishing."

Vasont "For anyone who wants to find out what DITA is all about, the DITA XML.org Focus Area is an excellent resource. It centralizes important information about DITA, lists upcoming events, and allows for collaboration among DITA users. This is the premiere DITA knowledge base, and Vasont Systems is proud to be a sponsor of this resource," said Suzanne Mescan, Vice President of Marketing, Vasont Systems.

About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional Information

OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office

Cover Pages Technology Report http://xml.coverpages.org/odf.html

Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 7 March 2006 — Members of the OASIS standards consortium are collaborating to provide expertise and resources to educate the marketplace on the value of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) OASIS Standard. By raising awareness of the benefits offered by a truly open file format—one that has been advanced and approved by an internationally recognized standards body—the new OASIS ODF Adoption Committee will increase the demand for and availability of ODF-conforming products, resulting in a greater choice of tools and platforms and expanding the ODF community of users, suppliers, and developers.

“The life of a document may far exceed that of a particular software product or vendor. Users have a right to retain control over their work—no matter when their documents were created or what tool was used to create them. Open standards in general, and ODF in particular, can help ensure that right,” noted Don Harbison of IBM, convenor and proposed chair of the new OASIS ODF Adoption Committee. “Our team will work to help users understand what’s really at stake here and the advantages ODF offers for platform- and application-independent documents.”

ODF was approved as an OASIS Standard in May 2005 and was submitted by OASIS to the ISO/IEC JTC1 (International Organization for Standardization International Electrotechnical Commission’s Joint Technical Committee) for further approval as a de jure standard. ODF is maintained and advanced by the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee, which was formed in November 2002. The new OASIS ODF Adoption Committee will work closely with the consortium’s technical committee to align market-based requirements and help guide future enhancements to the standard.

Other activities of the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee include the creation of white papers, FAQs, overview documents, case studies, and other educational materials. The group will serve as a community-building resource by providing ODF information through the OASIS and XML.org websites, collateral, newsletters, webinars, conferences, and other outreach venues. The Committee will also host proof-of-concept demonstrations to highlight use cases of ODF with XML schemas and industry vocabularies that can be integrated with Web services.

The OASIS ODF Adoption Committee will also coordinate its efforts with other ODF promotional groups around the world, including the OpenDocument Foundation, which has joined the ODF Adoption Committee, and the recently formed ODF Alliance, which intends to focus efforts on influencing public policy through governments.

“The mission of OASIS extends beyond development to encompass convergence and adoption,” explained James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS. “By promoting ODF awareness and education through this new committee, participants maximize their collective resources within the security of the OASIS open process. Coordinating our centralized agenda with the efforts of ODF support groups around the world will further leverage and fuel the ODF momentum that continues to build.”

Members of the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee include representatives of IBM, Novell, and Sun Microsystems, as well as government agencies such as the National Informatics Center of the Government of India and the Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration and other ODF advocate organizations. Participation remains open to all. In order to accommodate worldwide interest in this work, the Committee’s first meeting will be held 28 March 2006 by teleconference. As with all OASIS projects, archives of the Committee’s work will be accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment.

Support for ODF Adoption

IBM “The community effort to accelerate the adoption of the OpenDocument Format around the world will be greatly enhanced by the work of this new OASIS ODF Adoption Technical Committee,” said Dr. Bob Sutor, Vice President, Standards and Open Source, IBM. “We at IBM look forward to working hand-in-hand with others in the industry who believe as we do that the OpenDocument Format will provide a revolutionary and long overdue positive effect on innovation around the creation and use of office documents.”

Novell “History has repeatedly shown that widespread adoption of a technology standard leads to greater value-added technical innovation and presents new opportunities for business,” said Markus Rex, chief technology officer, Open Source and Platforms for Novell. “The Internet is the best example of this. Promoting the adoption of ODF as a standard will lead to similar innovation in office applications. Novell is firmly committed to open standards and working within OASIS to promote ODF. We are helping customers maximize their investment through choice and flexibility.”

Oracle “Oracle believes open standards provide the best way to create and evolve sustainable IT ecosystems,” said Don Deutsch, vice president of Standards Strategy and Architecture, Oracle. “Encouraging adoption of the OASIS OpenDocument Format standard is an excellent way to highlight the benefits of standards that promote choice and provide users with the necessary flexibility to use their critical documents independent of any particular application or enterprise platform.”

Sun Microsystems “As an advocate and supporter of open standards and open source, Sun recognizes the importance of choice, innovation and access to information. Companies that share technologies and collaborate on open standards create new markets in which everyone can participate and no one is excluded – which is why Sun originally donated the know-how that started the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee, granted a perpetual covenant to free the specification for all, and is now fueling the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee. As an active OASIS member and as a founding member of both the OpenDocument TC and the ODF Adoption Committee, Sun will continue to provide its expertise to help ensure the success of the OpenDocument Format,” said Eduardo Gutentag, Technology Director – Corporate Standards, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional Information

OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office

Cover Pages Technology Report http://xml.coverpages.org/odf.html

Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 15 February 2006 — OASIS, the international e-business standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved WS-Security version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed through an open process by the OASIS Web Services Security (WSS) Technical Committee, WS-Security delivers a technical foundation for implementing security functions such as integrity and confidentiality in messages implementing higher-level Web services applications. Gartner analyst, Ray Wagner, advised, “Enterprises should adopt WS-Security formatting for all across-the-firewall Web service deployments, even in cases where no security needs have been identified. Gartner believes that WS-Security will be the standard for the majority of Web services, and committing to it now will allow enterprises to easily modify the security profile of deployed Web services in the future.” WS-Security builds on existing security technologies to deliver an industry standard way of securing Web services message exchanges. Providing a framework within which authentication and authorization take place, WS-Security lets users apply existing security technology and infrastructure in a Web services environment. “We have made significant, but complementary, additions to WS-Security-many of which are the direct result of user feedback,” said Kelvin Lawrence of IBM, co-chair of the OASIS WSS Technical Committee. “WS-Security v1.1 enhancements include extra profiles for Kerberos, the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) OASIS Standard, SOAP with Attachments and Rights Expression Language (REL).” “The new release also enables secure, message-based Web services scenarios incorporating existing security technologies,” added Chris Kaler of Microsoft, co-chair of the OASIS WSS Technical Committee. “Applications can share information on network access regardless of the underlying platform.” Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, stated, “The OASIS WSS Technical Committee is a fine example of the open standards process, where the needs and interests of a broad base of constituents-large and small companies, vendors and users, private enterprises, multi-national corporations, and government agencies-are addressed to the benefit of all. We look forward to seeing adoption of this new level of WS-Security in the same way that the 1.0 standard was embraced.” The OASIS WSS Technical Committee remains open to new participation and particularly seeks input from those in the international community to advance WS-Security. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing WS-Security via the wss-dev mailing list (http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS WSS Technical Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard. Support for WS-Security Forum Systems “This is a significant step for the industry, since advanced Web services are not possible without capabilities such as the Kerberos Token Profile and SOAP with Attachments. Not unlike Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for network communication, WS-Security will be the defacto standard for secure Application-Oriented networking,” said Walid Negm, Vice President of Marketing, Forum Systems. Fujitsu “Fujitsu is pleased to see the new version of WS-Security become an OASIS Standard. We have been committed to the standardization of Web services technologies. With the addition of attachments support and other enhancements, the new standard will enable us to provide a wider range of solutions. This will help our customers realize secure systems based on Web services technologies,” said Yasushi Ishida, Executive Architect, Software Unit, Fujitsu Limited. Hitachi “Hitachi is very pleased to see WS-Security v1.1 approved as an OASIS Standard. Initial reactions from the press and users when Web services was in its infancy was that the security issues would be so great to make practical deployment an impossibility. With the publication of WS-Security v1.1 as an OASIS Standard, the community at-large may be assured that the underlying tools necessary to secure Web services deployments are at hand and are practical. Usage of these standards and their composition with higher level protocols will form the basis of practical secure deployments. This inhibitor to deployment is now removed,” said Takao Nakamura, Executive General Manager, Software Division, Hitachi, Ltd. Microsoft “Microsoft is excited to have collaborated with the co-authors of the WS-Security 1.1 specification. Its ratification as a standard is a significant milestone for Web services and the industry overall incorporating feedback from products deployed using the WS-Security 1.0 industry standard,” said Chris Kaler, Security Architect at Microsoft Corp and co-chair of the OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee. “WS-Security is a core component of the WS-* Web services architecture for secure, reliable and transacted Web services and is supported broadly across the industry. We look forward to continued adoption of the Web services standards, with the end goal of a common architecture for software interoperability.” Nokia “Nokia is pleased to see the completion of WS-Security v1.1 as an OASIS Standard. Nokia has been an active contributor in creating this standard and believes it will benefit mobile Web services,” said Frederick Hirsch, Senior Architect at Nokia. “WS-Security v1.1 is a major step forward in open standardization of the Web services stack, given the importance of interoperable security for Web services.” Oracle “WS-Security v1.1 answers the need for secure authentication of Web services,” said Prateek Mishra, director, Security Standards, Oracle. “Our work in the OASIS WSS Technical Committee demonstrates Oracle’s commitment to bringing security standards to the market, incorporating them into our products, and passing along the benefits to our customers. We were pleased to work alongside other technology vendors to develop WS-Security v1.1, and look forward to helping to accelerate its adoption.” Reactivity “The approval of WS-Security v1.1 as an OASIS Standard is critical to the future growth of Web services and service oriented architectures (SOA) that our enterprise customers are implementing,” according to Andrew Nash, chief technology officer at Reactivity. “WS-Security standards enable our customers to do what matters most—building and deploying successful Web services and SOA projects that scale with the company as they add new partners, customers and services to their network.” Sun Microsystems “Sun is pleased to participate in the evolution of WS-Security and to see it reach this important milestone. Through the OASIS process, other organizations, like the Liberty Alliance and WS-I, can reference this specification with confidence,” said Bill Smith, director of business alliances at Sun Microsystems. “As part of Sun’s objective to provide developers with the out-of-the-box tools they need to easily create identity-based security for their Web services applications, we look forward to broadening our support for WS-Security across the Solaris Enterprise System in products like Sun Java System Access Manager, Sun Java System Federation Manager and Sun Java System Application Server.” VeriSign “WS-Security is already the industry foundation for adding security to Web services. The new WS-Security v1.1 standard is an important milestone that includes significant enhancements to the original specification. It also profiles and adds support for several new security token types, such as SAML, Kerberos, X.509 certificates, and others,” said Siddharth Bajaj, director, Advanced Products and Research, VeriSign. About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org Additional information: OASIS WSS Technical Committee Cover Pages Technology Report Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 13 February 2006 — OASIS, the international standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Election Markup Language (EML) version 4.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed through an open process by the OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee, EML enables the secure interchange of information between electronic voting systems, software, and services. “EML provides a high-level overview of the processes within an electronic voting system and XML schemas for the various data interchange points between the e-voting processes,” explained John Borras, out-going chair of the OASIS Election and Voter Services Committee. “It describes the data requirements of the flows between electronic voting processes and addresses security issues relating to the exchange of data.” Services addressed by EML include new voter registration, membership and dues collection, change of address tracking, redistribution of electoral boundaries, requests for absentee/expatriate ballots, election timetabling, polling place management, election notification and administration, ballot delivery and vote counting, and election results reporting and analysis. “The increase in the use of electronic voting techniques around the world has resulted in an explosion of products and suppliers addressing this market,” said Siobhan Donaghy of OPT2VOTE Ltd, secretary for the OASIS Election and Voter Services Committee. “EML provides the needed assurance that all these products can work to the same standard.” EML has been developed following work over several years by key representatives from IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and other suppliers in collaboration with international government agencies across many countries. These organizations came together to develop a robust and reliable standard that would provide a secure approach and sustain voter confidence in voting practices. “EML is designed to benefit public officials who oversee voting in local or national elections and referendums, as well as those who conduct private elections within corporations or other organizations. Suppliers of electronic voting systems profit from EML by reducing their development costs,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “Of course ultimately, it’s the voters who stand to gain the most from this standard. The added reliability that comes from using common data elements in a consistent manner provides more security and reduces costs in the election process, which is a bottom-line benefit that has the potential to touch us all.” The OASIS Election and Voter Services Committee remains open to new participation. Those interested in implementing EML are encouraged to exchange information via the public eml-dev mailing list (http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS Election and Voter Services Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard. About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org Additional information: OASIS Election and Voter Services Technical Committee EML FAQ Cover Pages Technology Report Press contact: Carol Geyer Director of Communications, OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209

Boston, MA, USA; 30 November 2005 — OASIS, the international e-business standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed through an open process by the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee, CAP provides a simple, general-purpose format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over any network.

"CAP allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different systems, increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the notification task," said Elysa Jones of Warning Systems, Inc., chair of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee. "Since the approval of CAP v1.0 in 2004, the standard has been deployed by a wide variety of government agencies and companies within the emergency management community. CAP v1.1 incorporates many lessons learned in the production implementation of the standard."

Jones cited several high-profile CAP implementations, including the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

"CAP is an integral part of relaying civil emergency messages on the NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards and other NWS dissemination systems," said Mark Paese, Director, Operations Division for NOAA’s National Weather Service. "Its success is an excellent example of how the emergency management community and the government can work together to increase the effectiveness of emergency alerting."

The United States Geological Survey is pleased to be providing information about earthquakes and volcano and landslide advisories in CAP format," said David Oppenheimer, a seismologist with the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program. "The advantage of CAP is that it allows the USGS to instantaneously distribute our earthquake information to a wide audience of emergency responders in an approved message format." The USGS automatically distributes CAP messages about earthquakes within minutes after their occurrence as well as advisories via the Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) and as an RSS feed from the USGS website.

CAP v1.1 enhancements include flexible geographic targeting using latitude/longitude shapes and other geospatial representations in three dimensions; multilingual and multi-audience messaging; phased and delayed effective times and expirations; enhanced message update and cancellation features; template support for framing complete and effective warning messages; compatibility with digital encryption and signature; and a facility for digital images and audio.

Chip Hines, Program Manager for the Disaster Management eGov Initiative Office of the Chief Information Officer Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA Department of Homeland Security, noted, "Not only does the publication of the CAP OASIS Standard signify an increase in capability to send alerts, it also shows that the process works–that the emergency community is ready, willing, and able to bring standards into their operations. CAP has grown into a standard that is being adopted worldwide, helping the seamless transition of a host of alerts across platforms and systems. The end result is a world better prepared for any emergency."

"The CAP OASIS Standard is being used in many exciting ways, some that weren’t envisioned in the initial stages of its development. It offers tremendous benefits for local public safety environments as well as in global and regional efforts, such as tsunami warnings," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "With this work and their continuing efforts, members of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee are responding well to today’s critical need for enhanced response. There is little doubt that the use of CAP offers the potential to save lives."

The OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee remains open to new participation and particularly seeks input from those in the international community to advance CAP in alignment with other specifications in its Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) suite. All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing CAP via the cap-dev mailing list (http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS Emergency Management Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard.

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional information:

OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/emergency/

FAQ http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/emergency/faq.php

Press contact:

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

Boston, MA, USA; 29 November 2005 — OASIS, the international e-business standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved XML Catalogs version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. XML Catalogs defines mechanisms to facilitate machine processing of XML entities associated with external identifiers, allowing references to web resources, such as files, images, stylesheets, and schemas, to be mapped to other resources.

"XML Catalogs play an important role in processing XML, enabling the use of known, trusted, and available resources under circumstances in which this would otherwise not be possible," said Lauren Wood of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee. "The standard is stable and has been widely implemented."

Entity resolution refers to the procedure used by an XML processor to locate a resource or external file on the web. The processor applies the file’s labeling information (such as its system identifier and possibly a name, public identifier, etc.) to determine the actual location of the external file. This determination process, which ‘maps’ the known labeling information into an actual location, is referred to as entity resolution. The file that contains the specific mapping information is known as the XML catalog.

"As a way to help systems work in practice, XML catalogs are such an essential part of the XML infrastructure that they predate XML itself," said Jon Bosak, organizer and chair of the original XML Working Group and a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems. "Catalogs were one of the first and most important specifications released by SGML Open, the organization now known as OASIS. It’s great to see this foundational part of the infrastructure brought up to date with web-oriented processing and XML features."

"The XML Catalogs OASIS Standard is essential, because XML itself does not specify entity management in any detail," noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "By enabling intelligent mapping, XML Catalogs allows machine processing to deal with realities encountered on the Web today. External identifiers may require resources that are not always available, protocols may not be accessible to different types of software on a single computer. XML Catalogs is a big step forward for interoperability of XML documents."

All interested parties are encouraged to exchange information on implementing XML Catalogs via the xmlcatalogs-dev mailing list (http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/). As with all Consortium projects, archives of the OASIS Entity Resolution Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment on the standard.

Support for XML Catalogs OASIS Standard

"As a long-time supporter of XML and related standards, PTC welcomes this new catalog standard to the fold," said PG Bartlett, vice president product management for Arbortext solutions, PTC. "Easing customer implementations and information sharing remains one of our top priorities."

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional information:

OASIS Entity Resolution Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity

XML Catalogs OASIS Standard FAQ http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/faq.php

Press contact:
Carol Geyer, Director of Communications OASIS Email: carol.geyer@oasis-open.org Phone: +1.978.667.5115 x209

BOSTON, MA, USA; 1 NOVEMBER 2005 – Members of the OASIS international standards consortium have formed a committee to define an architecture to incorporate the application of semantics into service-oriented systems, providing intelligent mechanisms for consuming Semantic Web services. The new OASIS Semantic Execution Environment (SEE) Technical Committee will develop guidelines, justifications, and implementation directions for an execution environment for Semantic Web services.

"The technology of Semantic Web services envisions easy access to various systems and facilitates the consumption of the functionality exposed by these systems on the Web," explained senior Ovum analyst, Bola Rotibi. "Seamless integration, ad-hoc cooperation between various business parties or dynamic collaborations on the Web can be achieved only if tools for handling semantically enhanced services are provided."

Professor Dieter Fensel, Ph.D., of DERI (Digital Enterprise Research Institute), proposed co-chair of the OASIS SEE Committee, declared, "This is an exciting development on the journey to IT systems at last offering flexible intelligent services without complicated software or application integration issues. In the future we will be talking about services rather than software, and these services can only reach their full potential if they are enriched by semantic descriptions."

"Our work at OASIS will combine Semantic Web Services and Grid Computing in an effort to take advantage of their differing, but closely related perspectives to provide the infrastructural architecture for machine-to-machine enabled communication and cooperation," added Michal Zaremba, Ph.D., of DERI Galway, proposed co-chair of the OASIS SEE Committee.

"It’s important to note that this OASIS Committee will not be developing a specification, but rather it will focus its efforts on describing the ways in which knowledge management and semantic tools can augment SOA," noted James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS. "The Committee will define how existing methods, such as W3C’s Semantic Web, Owl, and Topic Maps, can be deployed in an SOA."

Academic and research institutions worldwide are strongly supporting this effort. Members of the OASIS SEE Committee include representatives of DERI (Ireland), INRIA Institut National de Recherche en Informatique (France), Open University (UK), and the Software Research & Development Center (Turkey). Global companies such as Fidelity and Nortel are also actively involved.

The OASIS SEE Committee will operate under Royalty Free on Limited Terms mode, as defined by the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy. The Committee’s first meeting will be held 11 November 2005, and participation remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, and individuals. As with all OASIS projects, archives of the Committee’s work will be accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment.

About OASIS:
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international 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. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, and XCBF. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional information:

OASIS SEE Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/semantic-ex

Cover Pages Technology Report on Semantic Web http://xml.coverpages.org/semanticWeb.html

Press contact:

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