Press Release

Diverse Leadership Reflects Breadth of OASIS Standards Consortium

New Board Comprises Representatives from User, Vendor, and Academic Communities

BOSTON, MA, USA; 8 August 2005 — OASIS, the international standards consortium, today announced that John Jackson of General Motors and Claus von Riegen of SAP were elected, and Eduardo Gutentag of Sun Microsystems, Chris Kurt of Microsoft, and Michael Winters of IBM were re-elected to the organization’s Board of Directors. Eduardo Gutentag was named chair of the OASIS Board, which also includes Edward Cobb of BEA Systems, Mike DeNicola of Fujitsu, Patrick Gannon of OASIS, Robert Glushko, Ph.D. of the University of California at Berkeley, Frederick Hirsch of Nokia, and Jeff Mischkinsky of Oracle. Representing the user, vendor, and academic communities, these directors provide the leadership needed to advance OASIS as an optimal environment for driving the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards worldwide.

According to Gutentag, the new Board reflects both the growing role of end users and the importance of geographic diversity in the standards development process. "There was a time when the task of working on OASIS standards was mainly left to vendors. Today, almost half the OASIS membership is comprised of users and policy setters that include major end-user companies, government agencies, industry associations, and open source developers. These organizations and individuals realize that they have something of great value both to give and gain at every stage of the standards life cycle. From articulating requirements, calling for convergence, developing specifications, ensuring interoperability, defining best practices, expanding OASIS’ international reach, and demanding adoption services as well as a clear Intellectual Property Rights Policy, users are participating in OASIS at greater levels than ever before–and the standards we’re creating are all the better for their contributions."

"Globalization is driving the need for open standards, convergence and interoperability across diverse industries," said John Jackson, Director Software Technology for General Motors Information Systems and Services Group. "The ability of OASIS to work globally across suppliers and corporations while managing the unique requirements of each is key to creating global open standards."

"As the need for software interoperability continues to grow, Web services standards become increasingly important, and OASIS holds a unique position in their development," said Claus von Riegen, Director Web Services Standards at SAP AG. "As a Board Director, I am committed to further improving the efficiency and quality of standards development at OASIS."

The Consortium also announced new members of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board (TAB), a group of industry experts who provide guidance on issues related to strategy, process, interoperability, and scope of OASIS technical work. Newly elected OASIS TAB representatives include Martin Chapman of Oracle and Hal Lockhart of BEA Systems. William Cox, Ph.D., and Pete Wenzel of SeeBeyond were re-elected to the TAB. Frederick Hirsch of Nokia was appointed the Board representative on the TAB.

On behalf of the membership, OASIS CEO and president, Patrick Gannon, expressed appreciation to departing Board chair, Jim Hughes of Hewlett-Packard for his outstanding leadership and contributions to the consortium. Gannon also thanked departing Director, John Borras of the UK’s Local e-Government Standards Body, and TAB members, Christopher Ferris of IBM and Timothy Moses of Entrust, for their service and guidance over the past two years.

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 4,000 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

Press contact

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