ASC X12 Outreach Group Debuts CICA Workshop.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FALLS CHURCH, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 9, 2003

Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12's Convergence and Outreach Task Group (COTG) recently completed a highly successful educational workshop. Held in Irving, TX on December 3-4, the workshop was designed to begin the process of introducing the underlying concepts of ASC X12's Context Inspired Component Architecture (CICA) to a broader audience.

Over 50 ASC X12 members attended this initial workshop. Lisa Miller, COTG Chair said, "The workshop planning group felt that we should preview this course offering to our own membership before we expanded our audience. COTG plans to offer the course to extended audiences in the near future. Education is the first foundation to the success of CICA."

ASC X12's Communications and Controls Subcommittee developed CICA over the last 2 years. The new architecture is designed to facilitate the growing industry desire to augment existing electronic data interchange (EDI) platforms with business messages grounded in the more recently developed extensible markup language (XML). Newly elected ASC X12 Chair, Ralph Berwanger, commenting on this new offering said, "I am truly excited to see the hard work of many X12 volunteers begin to bear fruit. I am confident that CICA will enable us to avoid some of the pitfalls that we encountered in developing the X12 standard for EDI."

Plans are in the works to repeat this workshop at the February ASC X12 meeting in Seattle. Jerry Connors, President of the Data Interchange Standards Association, ASC X12's Secretariat, commented on the workshop, "We at DISA relish the opportunity to revitalize our educational programs by working with the COTG to expand our audience to a broad base of users in the e-commerce community."

About ASC X12

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12, accredited by the American National Standards Institute and comprised of cross-industry representation, develops robust e-business exchange standards in X12 EDI and XML formats that interact with a multitude of e-business 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 is an active contributor to 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. To learn more about ASC X12, visit www.x12.org or call 703-970-4480.