Denmark adopts OASIS UBL

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

Denmark Becomes First Country to Adopt OASIS Universal Business Language

Copenhagen, Denmark; 26 January 2004--The Danish National XML Committee
announced today that it has formally adopted  an early version of the OASIS
Universal Business Language (UBL) as a standard for e-Commerce in the public
sector. Following a 30-day public hearing, the Danish XML Committee decided
to use UBL 0.7 to enable integration between systems controlled by state
authorities and a newly implemented portal for public procurement.

UBL provides an XML library of common business data components together with
a set of standard business documents such as purchase orders and invoices
that are assembled from the component library. UBL is the product of an
international technical committee of the Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS), a non-profit consortium dedicated
to the creation of XML standards. Currently at version 1.0 Beta, UBL is
produced in an open, publicly visible process and is made available without
royalties or other fees.

The Public Procurement Portal - www.doip.dk - is an electronic market place
to which both private and public purchasers and their suppliers have access,
and whose functionality, interface, security and transaction costs are
regulated by the public sector. It is the first public procurement portal in
Europe. The establishment of the Public Procurement Portal is an important
part of the strategy to make procurement efficient and is implemented on the
basis of the wish to create a common infrastructure for the trade between
the public units and the suppliers.

With a public sector procurement of goods and services for approximately DKK
100 billion per year, even modest improvements in efficiency will be of
great value for Danish society. By virtue of the public sector's purchasing
volume, increased use of e-commerce will furthermore contribute to the
penetration of e-commerce in Denmark in general. The suppliers will get
accustomed to e-commerce and an infrastructure will be established.
Particularly favourable arrangements have been made to secure access by
small suppliers.

"A royalty free standard with strong and broad vendor support is a key
enabler for the development of both e-Business and e-Government. We are
pleased to be a part of the OASIS UBL initiative," said Michael Bang
Kjeldgaard of the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency, chair of the Danish
XML Committee. "We have learned valuable lessons from the work being carried
out in the OASIS UBL Technical Committee. Not only does UBL deliver a
royalty free standard for electronic commerce, but the 'Naming and Design
Rules,' that dictate how UBL is expressed in XML Schema, have inspired us in
the development of other XML vocabularies."

"The availability of UBL has greatly reduced the costs associated with
developing an XML-interface between State 
institutions and our procurement gateway," says Soren Bauer of the Agency
for Governmental Management. "The OASIS UBL Technical Committee has been
very responsive to our proposals for enhancement, and we are excited to be
among the first to implement UBL. The UBL initiative is a major breakthrough
and provides a huge potential for future integration efforts. We
congratulate OASIS on a job well done."

Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee
and organizer of the working group that created XML agrees: "In adopting
UBL, Denmark takes the lead in establishing an open, non-proprietary
e-commerce environment equally suitable for both governments and small
businesses. UBL's vendor-neutral development process and free licensing
makes it a natural choice for government procurement, and I believe that
this announcement will jump start UBL adoption by governments across
Europe."

For further information
. Mr Soren Bauer, project manager of the Public Procurement Portal pro-ject,
scb@oes.dk + 45 2224 6143
. Mr. Jon Bosak, chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee,
jon.bosak@sun.com
. Mr. Michael Kjeldgaard, chair of the Danish National XML Committee,
mbk@itst.dk. Telephone +45 3337 9115
. OASIS UBL Technical Committee, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl