Executives from Government, Industry and Consortia Call for Standards

Key Executives from Government, Industry and Consortia Call for Open
Standards at The Open Group Conference

San Francisco, CA   April 8, 2004   At The Open Group's recent conference,
key executives from the federal government, industry and technology
consortia discussed their vision of the IT of the future, and emphasized
the importance of standards and certified conformance for achieving global
interoperability.

Dawn Meyerriecks, Principal Director for GIG Enterprise Services, Defense
Information Systems Agency (DISA), US Department of Defense, presented a
vision of information flow without boundaries providing access to
information to all who need it when they need it. She quoted Secretary
Rumsfeld stating that "the most transforming thing in our forces will not
be a weapons system but a set of interconnections and a substantially
enhanced capacity because of that awareness." She emphasized that to make
this vision a reality, all the elements have to be standardized and
interoperable.

"In today's defense, old rules don't apply anymore   we have to be able to
provide an incredible agility to respond wherever and whenever needed,"
said Meyerriecks. "To be able to go after this vision of agility and build
a global information grid, we need conformance to standards. Standards are
mission critical."

Carl O'Berry, Vice President, Strategic Architecture, Boeing Integrated
Defense Systems, agreed. "Tomorrow's battlespace is integrated, where no
soldier is alone but can access all information that is relevant to him. To
achieve such global interoperability, we need to start with a common, open
architecture based on standards."

The need for standardization and its significant benefits from the customer
viewpoint was stressed by Dr. Vaho Rebassoo, CTO, IT Services, The Boeing
Company, who presented the challenges and complexity of integration testing
in a large corporation with over 7,000 servers and 3,000
applications. "Standards and conformance to standards provide one of the
foundational supports to Boeing's leadership in the aerospace industry,"
Rebassoo said.

Onno Kluyt, Director, JCP Program Office, Sun Microsystems, discussed the
supplier view. He pointed out that one of the most important value
propositions of the Java technology is compatibility, which assures
application portability and gives assurance to end users that required
functionality is present.

"The Open Group brings together the government agencies, integrators and
vendors in a non-acquisition environment that allows them to align their
needs for interoperability, and agree on appropriate standards and
certification," said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group. "Our
members recognize the importance of providing secure, reliable and timely
access to integrated information, and are working hard on addressing the
challenge and realizing the vision of Boundaryless Information FlowÔ."

The industry's and government's call for standards was enthusiastically
received by the expert panel as they discussed the role and importance of
standards and certification, and looked for ways to collaborate further to
increase interoperability and develop standards earlier in the
process. They also agreed on the need for users to be a part of the process
from beginning to end.  The panel included Dr. Susan Zevin, Acting Director
of Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), Dr. Carl Reed, Executive Director, Specification
Program, Open GIS Consortium, David Archer, President and CEO,
Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium (POSC), Jamie Clark, Manager for
Technical Standards Development, OASIS, and Roger Reich, Senior Technical
Director, VERITAS Software Corporation, Chair of the SNIA Storage
Management Initiative and Member of the Board of the DMTF.

About The Open Group
The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose
vision of Boundaryless Information Flow(TM) will enable access to
integrated information within and between enterprises based on open
standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers,
suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture,
understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish
policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop
consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source
technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the
operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry's premier
certification service. Further information on The Open Group can be found
at http://www.opengroup.org.

Boundaryless Information Flow is a trademark of The Open Group.
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