The Object Management Group and J Consortium Form Strategic Alliance; Collaboration on Real-Time and Object-Oriented Systems Standards

Business Wire, Jan 25, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

NEEDHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2000

The Object Management Group (OMG(TM)) and the J Consortium have established a liaison to promote rapid development of specifications for the real-time and embedded marketplace. Efforts will also include developing standards for real-time and embedded systems, such as sensors for the medical, avionics, automotive and other industries, and moving toward computer controlled "appliances" ranging from smart refrigerators to automotive and aircraft engines.

"Collaboration between OMG and the J Consortium will accelerate the availability of open vendor-neutral standards which are essential to the development of the real-time, embedded systems being used to control modern, less expensive, more efficient automation. Examples of such systems are already appearing in the medical and automotive fields, and will soon be powering "smart" appliances," said Richard Soley, chairman and CEO of the OMG.

Initial collaboration will be between the J Consortium and OMG's Real-Time Special Interest Group (SIG), Telecommunications Domain Task Force (DTF), and the Manufacturing DTF. Once off and running, it is expected that other groups within OMG will participate also, such as the Transportation DTF and Healthcare DTF.

Both OMG and the J Consortium are leaders in open vendor-neutral real-time and embedded standards development, and are also approved International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) submitters. Therefore, this liaison will serve to bring to ISO real-time and embedded specifications with the broadest possible industry base.

"The membership trade between OMG and J Consortium is a big step in making embedded / real-time Java solutions standardized and largely accessible to the industry," says Wendy Fong, chairman of the J Consortium. "I am delighted we share the same objectives and will work together in developing technically excellent, commercially viable and vendor neutral specification for the embedded / real-time software community."

The OMG will be a Technical Member of the J Consortium, with Liaison Director Henry Lowe, as the primary/voting representative and the J Consortium will be a Contributing member of the OMG, with Kelvin Nilsen, technical chairman, as the primary/voting representative.

About The J Consortium

The J Consortium is an independent organization comprised of companies and individuals worldwide dedicated to accelerating the use of Java technologies in real-time and/or embedded applications. J Consortium seeks to provide a technical framework ensuring the ability for Java-based development of soft and hard real-time applications through an open vendor-neutral forum. From its seven founding companies, the organization has now grown to 92 members, with new members being added all the time. The working groups set up within the J Consortium build APIs addressing the particular needs of individual niche market segments.

To learn more about J Consortium activities and how to become a member, see www.j-consortium.org. J Consortium is a registered trademark of J Consortium in the USA and other countries."

About The OMG

With the support of its membership of software vendors, software developers and end users, the OMG's CORBA is "The Middleware That's Everywhere(TM)." Since 1989, the OMG has been "Setting The Standards For Distributed Computing(TM)" through its mission to promote the theory and practice of object technology for the development of distributed computing systems. The goal is to provide a common architectural framework for object-oriented applications based on widely available interface specifications. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with an office in Tokyo, Japan as well as international marketing offices in Bahrain, Germany, India, and the UK, along with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, USA. The OMG is also a major sponsor of the Integrate 2001 trade show and conference, which will be held September 19-21, 2001 in New York City.

For information on joining the OMG or additional information, please contact OMG headquarters by phone at 1-781-444 0404, by fax at 1-781-444 0320, or by email at info@omg.org. The OMG provides current information and services for Distributed Object Computing through The Information Brokerage(R) on the World Wide Web at www.omg.org and at www.corba.org. Information about OMG Japan can be found at www.omgj.org.

Note to editors: CORBA(R), The Information Brokerage(R), CORBA Academy(R), IIOP(R) and the Object Management Group logo(R) are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. OMG(TM), Object Management Group(TM), the CORBA Logo(TM), ORB(TM), Object Request Broker(TM), the CORBA Academy logo(TM), XMI(TM), MOF(TM), CWM(TM), OMG Interface Definition Language(TM), IDL(TM), CORBAservices(TM), CORBAfacilities(TM), CORBAmed(TM), CORBAnet(TM), UML(TM), the UML Cube Logo(TM), "We're Known By The Companies We Connect(TM)" and Unified Modeling Language(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.