07/21/2004

The Open Group unveiled an industry-wide effort, with the support of IBM, “to promote the use of open standards to give information technology customers freedom of choice and provide interoperability among all vendors.”

The Open Group offered these details:

The "Developer Declaration of Independence" calls for the adoption and protection of open standards by corporations, governments, organizations, and individuals to ensure a fair competitive marketplace thus allowing all parties to compete equally from the basis of a shared technology foundation and framework. The Open Group has published the Declaration at http://www.opengroup.org/declaration/ and is asking supporters to visit the web site where they can sign it.

"The Declaration is a call to action for software developers, business and industry and all levels of government to publicly promote and defend open standards against the threats posed by proprietary architectures," said Allen Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Open Group." We hope everyone who has a stake in the success of open standards will sign the Declaration and make their voices heard on one of the most important issues facing the future of the IT industry."

"As a key player in open standards and a strong proponent of their adoption, IBM is proud to support The Open Group in its efforts with the Declaration," said Buell Duncan, IBM General Manager of ISV and developer relations. "Open standards are at the heart of the next computing wave where disparate systems and platforms are integrated across the enterprise and externally with customers, suppliers, and other partners. This end-to-end integration simply won't be possible without multi-vendor interoperability through open standards or with organizations being locked in to proprietary systems."

The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose vision of Boundaryless Information Flow(TM) will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry's premier certification service.