Boston, MA November 21, 2001 Major standards groups and consortia from around the world will collaborate at the Interoperability Summit in Orlando, Florida, December 6-7, 2001. HR-XML, OASIS, OMG (tm), 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. "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.
"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.
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.
