XML Cup Winners Announced at XML 2005; Michael Kay, Norman Walsh Recognized for Contributions to XML.

ATLANTA -- IDEAlliance, producers of the XML 2005 Conference, awarded the 2005 XML Cup to developers Michael Kay of Saxonica and Norman Walsh of Sun Microsystems during today's opening session. This is the fifth year the XML Cup has been awarded to innovators who have made significant contributions to the XML community.

"We congratulate Michael and Norm on winning this year's XML Cup," says Lauren Wood, senior technical program manager at Sun Microsystems and XML 2005 Conference chair. "They represent the hard work and innovation that has gone into developing current XML technology - Michael with his work on XSLT and XQuery, and Norm with his on-going dedication to the fundamental aspects of XML development and W3C and OASIS specifications."

Michael Kay is best known in XML circles for his involvement with the XML Transformation Language XSLT. He developed the XSLT processor Saxon and wrote the definitive reference book on the language, "XSLT Programmers Reference." He was also the technical lead on the group developing the XSLT 2.0 specification, culminating in the publication of a Candidate Recommendation earlier this month.

Kay started writing Saxon while working with British computer manufacturer ICL to interest clients in the potential of XML. ICL encouraged him to publish Saxon as open-source software, and it quickly became established as one of the leading implementations of the XSLT 1.0 specification. Kay is currently director of Saxonica, which continues to develop Saxon as open-source and commercial products. The latest XSLT 2.0 specification has a larger community than any other W3C specification at the same stage of development.

"XML has been an exciting field during the last five or six years because it has been the catalyst for so many fascinating developments," says Kay. "It has brought about a convergence of the document and data communities, and joined computer scientists, software producers and software users. XML will be remembered as a field in which a new software development process was begun; an approach that acknowledges the capabilities of individuals as opposed to corporations and in which writing software is essentially a creative endeavor rather than a factory process."

Norman Walsh is an XML Standards Architect in the Web Technologies and Standards group at Sun Microsystems. He is a member of the Technical Architecture Group at the W3C, where he is also chair of the XML Processing Model Working Group, co-chair of the XML Core Working Group, and an active member of the XSL Working Group. At OASIS, he is chair of the DocBook Technical Committee and a member of the RELAX NG and Entity Resolution Technical Committees.

Walsh was editor of the XML Catalogs specification for the Entity Resolution Technical Committee and wrote the implementation of the OASIS Standard that is part of the XML Commons project at Apache. He is a specification lead for the Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) and has participated in several other XML-related JSRs.

"Norm has been one of Sun's most active participants in standards organizations for many years now, providing visible technical leadership in the evolution of many key XML specifications," says John Loiacono, executive vice president of software for Sun Microsystems. "We are pleased to see Norm recognized today for his many contributions in the emergence of XML as a key enabling technology in the evolution of the World Wide Web."

XML 2005 is produced by IDEAlliance and is co-hosted by OASIS, W3C, WS-I, RosettaNet, NISO, XML.gov, HL7, SiCOP, and Liberty Alliance. Event sponsors include Sun Microsystems, JustSystem, RenderX, IBM Corporation, Microsoft, Design Science, Siberlogic, and BlastRadius.

About IDEAlliance

IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit membership organization. Its mission is to advance user-driven, cross-industry solutions for all publishing and content-related processes by developing standards, fostering business alliances, and identifying best practices. Founded in 1966 as the Graphic Communications Association, IDEAlliance has been a leader in information technology - developing Document Markup Metalanguage (GENCODE), sponsoring the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), and fostering eXtensible Markup Language (XML). IDEAlliance builds on these languages to create specifications that enhance efficiency and speed information in all aspects of publishing and content-related processes. Learn more about IDEAlliance at www.idealliance.org.