OGC(R) Announces Call for Sponsors for Fifth Spatial Open Web Services Initiative.

WAYLAND, Mass. -- The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC[R]) has issued a call for sponsors for the OGC Web Services, Phase 5 (OWS-5) Interoperability Initiative, a testbed to advance OGC's open interoperability framework for geospatial capabilities. Interested organizations are invited to an all day planning meeting on February 9, 2007 in Herndon, Virginia.

In last year's OWS-4 initiative, participants advanced specifications relating to CAD/GIS/BIM integration, Sensor Web Enablement, Geospatial Decision Support Services, Geoprocessing workflows, Geospatial Digital Rights Management, Mass Market geoservices and Compliance testing. These "threads" addressed interoperability issues affecting Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Defense, earth observation, transport and logistics, e-commerce and other domains.

The February 9 Sponsor Meeting will be the first of 2 meetings over the next two months to review the OGC standards baseline, discuss OWS-4 results, and identify OWS-5 requirements. OGC members have expressed interest in advancing specifications for: SOAP and WSDL interface definitions; distributed image and vector processing workflow automation; Geospatial Digital Rights Management (GeoDRM); consumer applications; integration of geospatial information and building information models; GML profiling; Sensor Web Enablement (SWE); geospatial expression in the Semantic Web; and enhanced capabilities for conformance testing.

These requirements will be expressed and tested in the context of two "super-themes." One will focus on workflows across enterprises where security, authentication, and rights expression are of high concern, combined with reliability and high availability. The other will take a mainstream approach, with requirements centered on mass-market Web technologies like Web browsers, REST-based services and other lightweight, simple interfaces and information encodings.

Alliances with other Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) are an element of developing OGC specifications for the geospatial applications. Therefore, the OGC is also seeking partnerships with other SDOs to develop sponsorship of OWS-5.

If your organization is interested in participating, register for the meeting at: https://portal.opengeospatial.org/public/ows5.php or contact Raj Singh at [e-mail].

OWS initiatives are part of OGC's Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on and collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into OGC's Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release. In OGC's Interoperability Initiatives, international teams of technology providers work together to solve specific geoprocessing interoperability problems posed by the Initiative's sponsoring organizations. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include test beds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services - all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of OpenGIS standards.

The OGC[R] is an international industry consortium of more than 300 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS[R] Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.