Object Management Group Members Meet in Anaheim, CA, February 2-5; Charter Four New Subgroups; Elect Architecture Board Members.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NEEDHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2004

Members of the Object Management Group(TM) (OMG(TM)) met in Anaheim, CA, USA during the week of February 2-5, 2004 at a meeting sponsored by Compuware Corporation (www.compuware.com).

New Financial Payment Gateways Standardization Effort

A number of OMG members, including major banking and financial institutions, formed a working group to standardize models of interoperability and interfaces between payment and business systems. Bridging the gaps that separate systems with different protocols, the new standards will spread the adoption of electronic payments into all areas of banking and finance. Any interested company is welcome to join OMG and work on these new standards; for information email [e-mail].

New Subgroup Charters

Reflecting the group's expanding range of interests, OMG members chartered four new subgroups in Anaheim. The new Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) Platform Task Force (PTF) will standardize modernization of existing applications by specifying a knowledge-discovery metamodel, models for source and target platforms, and transformations between these models. The Open Collaboration Services Initiative Special Interest Group will work on standards for intra- and inter-enterprise collaboration based on OMG's Model Driven Architecture(TM) (MDA(TM)). The Information and Security Assurance Platform SIG will coordinate security architectures in current and future specifications. Finally, the Software Based Communications Domain Task Force (DTF) will standardize the architecture of software-defined radios used in military, telecommunications, and other areas.

Architecture Board Election

Elected by the members, OMG's prestigious Architecture Board reviews each new standard before it is adopted to ensure that it conforms to the organization's architecture and is consistent with the group's existing standards. In Anaheim, Carol Burt of 2AB; Manfred Koethe of 88Solutions; Robert Kukura of Raytheon; Jishnu Mukerji of Hewlett-Packard; and Thomas Rutt of Fujitsu were elected to two-year terms.

New Infrastructure Standards

OMG issued Requests for Proposals (RFPs) stating the requirements and schedules for three new standards efforts. Two were initiated by the Real-Time, Embedded, and Specialized Systems PTF: A standard for power conservation will be based on OMG's Model Driven Architecture, defining a platform-independent model of a power-conserving system. The RFP requires the standard to also include a set of conforming interfaces for CORBA(R)-based systems; interfaces for additional systems may be included as well. A high-assurance Object Request Broker standard will cover use of CORBA with certifiable high-assurance realtime operating systems. The third RFP, from the telecommunications industry, will standardize a MOF(TM)-compliant metamodel and UML(TM) 2.0 profile for modeling interactive dialogues in voice-based applications. These will enable developers to specify dialogues independently of the hardware and software that they run on, preserving their utility as platforms advance in this rapidly-changing field. Any company may join OMG and submit to these RFPs; for information, send email to [e-mail].

New Standards Votes

Members finished evaluations and started final adoption votes for two new standards: One standardizes a set of identifiers for quantities used in Life Science Research, facilitating interoperability among applications in biotechnology at multiple levels. The other standardizes a binding of the MetaObject Facility to OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL), defining a CORBA-based repository for MOF-based UML models.

Tutorials, Information Day, Sponsor Presentation, and Software Demonstrations

On Wednesday, February 5, an Information Day on Model-Integrated Computing for Embedded Real-Time Systems included five presentations. Wim Bast and Bruce Epstein of Meeting Sponsor Compuware Corporation spoke in plenary on "MDA and OptimalJ." OMG presented a tutorial "Survey of OMG Specifications." Eight member companies demonstrated their implementations of the group's specifications.

OMG Board Endorses New Standard

Following member evaluation and endorsement, a vote by OMG's Board of Directors makes a new standard official. Following work at the Anaheim meeting, the Board ratified adoption of a set of lightweight services - Naming/Directory, Events, and Time - suitable for resource-constrained embedded CORBA systems.

Next Meeting; Links to Additional Information

OMG members will meet next in St. Louis, MO, USA, during the week of April 26-30, 2004. Interested non-members may attend as observers; for an invitation, see www.omg.org/news/meetings/tc/guest.htm. OMG's home page is www.omg.org. Information about the MDA is collected at www.omg.org/mda. All OMG specifications may be downloaded free of charge from www.omg.org/technology/documents/specifications.htm.

About The OMG

With well-established standards covering software from design and development, through deployment and maintenance, and extending to evolution to future platforms, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration which maximizes ROI, the key to successful IT. OMG's standards cover multiple operating systems, programming languages, middleware and networking infrastructures, and software development environments. OMG's Modeling standards, the basis for the MDA, include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform with hundreds of millions of deployments running today.

Headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, and international marketing representatives in Japan, the UK, and Germany, the Object Management Group is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium. OMG member companies write, adopt, and maintain the organization's standards following a mature, open process. All current OMG specifications may be downloaded without charge from the organization's website, www.omg.org; the site also provides additional information about OMG and its activities. For information on joining the OMG, or questions not addressed on the website, please contact OMG headquarters by email at [e-mail], by phone at [phone], or by fax at [phone].

Note to editors: The OMG Object Management Group Logo(R), MDA(R), Model Driven Architecture(R), UML(R), CORBA(R), CORBA Academy(R), The Information Brokerage(R), XMI(R) and IIOP(R) are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. OMG(TM), Object Management Group(TM), CORBA logos(TM), Model Driven Development(TM), MDD(TM), OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL)(TM), The Architecture of Choice for a Changing World(TM), CORBAservices(TM), CORBAfacilities(TM), CORBAmed(TM), CORBAnet(TM), Integrate 2004(TM), Middleware That's Everywhere(TM), Unified Modeling Language(TM), The UML Cube logo(TM), MOF(TM), CWM(TM), The CWM Logo(TM), Model Driven Architecture Logos(TM) and the XMI Logo(TM) are trademarks of the Object Management Group. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.