Software AG, Inc. to Host World Wide Web Consortium Working Group Meetings; Three Software AG XML Experts Sit on Five W3C Working Groups

Business Wire, Oct 1, 2001

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 1, 2001

Software AG, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Software AG, the largest systems software provider in Europe and a pioneer in XML technologies, announced today that it will host several working groups of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in Reston, VA, the company's North American headquarters, October 1-5, 2001. The W3C's XML Schema Working Group, XML Query Working Group, and XSL Working Group are scheduled to meet in Reston.

"As a pioneer in XML technologies and a leading provider of XML-based enterprise software solutions, Software AG is proud to provide a meeting place for the important tasks of the W3C's Working Groups," said Software AG, Inc. President and CEO Gary Voight. "Our representatives on the working groups are respected thinkers in the standards process. We're looking forward to helping facilitate the development of new standards to create better, more effective exchange of data."

The W3C was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C is a vendor-neutral organization with over 510 members. Members are required to meet face-to-face two to four times a year to discuss and develop technologies essential to Web architecture. Through the efforts of Working Groups and the reviews required by W3C's process, W3C produces Recommendations, which are often regarded by industry as Web technology standards. At least 35 Recommendations have been published to date.

Software AG Sits On Five W3C Working Groups

Software AG, Inc.'s representatives on the W3C working groups include Jonathan Robie, Michael Kay, and Michael Champion. Robie is a co-author of Quilt, a language that formed the basis for the current W3C XQuery query language. Kay is the author of a widely respected book on eXtensible Stylesheet Language: Transformations (XSLT). Michael Champion, Senior R&D Advisor at Software AG, Inc. is a member of the W3C's Document Object Model Working Group and co-editor of both the DOM Level 1 Recommendation and the DOM Level 2 Core and Traversal and Range Recommendations.

Software AG participates in the following W3C working groups:

XSL: The XSL Working Group is chartered to continue the development of XSL (eXtensible stylesheet language), a style sheet and transformation language for XML and other structured markup languages. XSL is constituted of three main components, a transformation language known as XSLT, an expression language for addressing parts of XML documents, known as XPath, and a vocabulary of formatting objects with their associated formatting properties.

Michael Kay sits on the XSL Working Group.

DOM: The Document Object Model is a platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of XML and HTML documents. The document can be further processed and the results of that processing can be incorporated back into the presented page. The DOM is widely supported by XML products, tools, and database systems and is used to build integrated applications from diverse components. The W3C DOM Working Group ensures agreement on interoperable and scripting-language neutral solutions.

XML Protocol: The XML Protocol Working Group develops a framework for XML-based messaging systems, which includes specifying a message envelope format and a method for data serialization, directed mainly, but not exclusively, to RPC applications, and conforming with the above mentioned principles.

Michael Champion sits on the DOM and XML Protocol Working Groups.

XML Query: XML Query Working Group provides flexible query facilities to extract data from real and virtual documents on the Web, providing interaction between the Web world and the database world. Many aspects of XML Query are to be incorporated into XPath Version 2.0.

XML Schema: The XML Schema Working Group develops technologies for shared vocabularies that allow machines to carry out rules made by people. They provide a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML documents. XML Schema was published as a W3C Recommendation in May 2001; ongoing work includes formal description of XML Schema.

Jonathan Robie sits on the XML Query and XML Schema Working Groups.

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, over 510 organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see www.w3.org.