[ubl-comment] FW: [xmlorginterest] ACORD Brings Insurance Industry toOASIS UBL Liaisons

Title: FW: [xmlorginterest] ACORD Brings Insurance Industry to OASIS UBL Liaisons

-----Original Message-----

From: Carol Geyer [mailto:]

Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 10:29 AM

To: 

Subject: [xmlorginterest] ACORD Brings Insurance Industry to OASIS UBL

Liaisons

ACORD Brings Insurance Industry to OASIS UBL Liaisons

Boston, MA, USA; 19 April 2002 -- ACORD, the insurance industry

standards organization, has become the latest industry group to appoint

a representative to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL)

Technical Committee. ACORD joins liaisons from a broad group of industry

standards organizations in the subcommittee that provides guidance to

UBL, the initiative to define standard XML business forms for electronic

commerce.

"ACORD has been a long time advocate of working with other organizations

to achieve interoperability across industries," said Gregory Maciag, CEO

of ACORD. "Insurance is not only a vertical market, but also an integral

part of international supply chain management. The UBL effort brings

together major players in the standards arena to develop ebXML compliant

solutions. This is

very important to our industry."

Other organizations with liaisons to UBL include: ARTS, representing

retail sales; ASC X12, representing EDI standards; EIDX, representing

the electronics industry; RosettaNet, the information technology

consortium; and XBRL, the accounting industry standards organization.

UBL liaisons provide input to UBL and coordinate the review of standard

XML business schemas as they become publicly available.

"Input from these pivotal industry groups ensures that UBL reflects the

needs of the marketplace," said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of

the OASIS UBL Technical Committee and organizer of the working group

that created XML. "Our goal of defining a common XML library for basic

business documents like purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices

crosses all industries. Contributing to the development of UBL gives

industry groups the opportunity to shape the outcome of our work

together."

About UBL (http://oasis-open.org/committees/ubl)

The OASIS UBL (Universal Business Language) Technical Committee is an

open, publicly accountable, nonprofit initiative to define a common XML

library for basic business documents like purchase orders, invoices, and

shipping notices.  UBL provides a standard set of XML building blocks

together with a framework that will enable trading partners to

unambiguously identify and exchange basic e-commerce documents in

specific business contexts.

The OASIS UBL effort builds on the Electronic Business XML (ebXML

infrastructure developed by OASIS and the United Nations.  The ebXML

specifications provide for XML registry services, reliable XML

messaging, standardized trading partner agreements, a standard data

dictionary, and a business context methodology.  However, UBL documents

are usable in a wide variety of other ecommerce frameworks as well.

UBL unites and harmonizes a number of currently existing XML and EDI

business libraries into a set of internationally recognized de jure

standards. Designed to solve major interoperability problems for both

vendors and users, UBL will speed the entry of small and medium-size

businesses into the electronic marketplace. UBL is freely available to

everyone without legal encumbrance or licensing fees.

About ACORD (www.acord.org)

ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development)

is a global, nonprofit insurance association whose mission is to

facilitate the development and use of standards for the insurance,

reinsurance, and related financial services industries. With offices in

Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ACORD accomplishes

its mission by remaining an objective, independent advocate for sharing

information among diverse platforms.  Affiliated with ACORD are hundreds

of insurance and reinsurance companies and thousands of agents and

brokers, related financial services organizations, software providers,

and industry organizations worldwide.

About ARTS (www.nrf-arts.org)

The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), a division of

the National Retail Federation (NRF), is dedicated to the creation of an

international, barrier-free technology environment for retailers. The

National Retail Federation (NRF) is the world's largest retail trade

association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and

channels of distribution, including department, specialty, discount,

catalog, Internet, and independent stores. NRF members represent an

industry that

encompasses more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments with

aggregate annual sales of more than $3.4 trillion. NRF's international

members operate stores in more than 50 nations. In its role as the

retail industry's umbrella group, NRF also represents 32 national and 50

state associations in the U.S. as well as 36 international associations

representing retailers abroad.

About ASC X12 (www.x12.org)

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12, accredited by the American

National Standards Institute and comprised of cross-industry

representation, develops robust e-business exchange specifications and

electronic data interchange standards that interact with a multitude of

e-commerce technologies and serve as the premier tool for integrating

electronic applications. Through standards setting and active

participation in emerging and technically relevant initiatives, ASC X12

facilitates the effective exchange of electronic information. Propelling

global e-business, ASC X12 serves as the entry point for the United

States into the United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for

Administration, Commerce and Transport (UN/EDIFACT), an international

standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services.

About EIDX (www.eidx.org)

The Electronics Industry Data Exchange Association (EIDX) is a section

of the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) that

represents the majority of companies in the electronics industry. EIDX

researches and develops information exchange methodologies for the

electronics industry and develops and publishes business models and

standards implementation guidelines that represent current and emerging

practices.

About RosettaNet (www.rosettanet.org)

RosettaNet is an independent, self-funded, non-profit consortium

dedicated to the development and deployment of standard electronic

business interfaces to align the processes between supply chain partners

on a global basis. More than 250 companies representing more than $1

trillion in annual information technology and electronic components

revenues, currently participate in RosettaNet's standards development,

strategy, and implementation activities.

About XBRL (www.xbrl.org)

XBRL is an international consortium comprising accounting standards

bodies, accounting firms, technology companies, financial information

providers, corporations, and government regulatory bodies. The XBRL

standard is freely licensed and permits the automatic exchange and

reliable extraction of financial information across all software formats

and technologies, including the Internet.  XBRL does not require a

company to disclose any additional information beyond that which they

normally disclose under existing accounting standards, nor does it

require a change to existing accounting standards.

About OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org)

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information

Standards) is a not-for-profit, global 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. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web

services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing,

topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces.

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 www.oasis-open.org



+1.978.667.5115 x209

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