Industry Visionaries to Headline XML Europe 2003 Conference and Exposition

Experts from Sun Microsystems, Red Hat and OASIS to be featured in this year's keynote lineup

ALEXANDRIA, VA (March 25, 2003) - IDEAlliance is pleased to announce keynote presenters for this year's weeklong XML event. These industry experts will share their ideas and visions for the future at the annual XML Europe 2003 Conference and Exposition, being held 5-8 May 2003, at the Hilton London Metropole, in London, England. This comprehensive conference, now in its 20th year, is known for the quality of its program, which draws information technology experts from around the globe every year.

"This year's keynote presenters provide attendees with an exceptional opportunity to learn how technology visionaries are using XML effectively in their organizations today", said Edd Dumbill, Editor of XML.com and Conference Chair of this year's XML Europe event. "This year's theme is 'Powering the Information Society' and presentations will focus on how XML and related technologies are being used to drive today's businesses".

Keynote speakers for XML Europe 2003 include the following renowned experts:

• Jon Bosak is Sun Microsystems XML architect. He organized and led the working group that created XML and served for two years as chair of the W3C XML Coordination Group. He is a founding member of OASIS and of its predecessor, SGML Open. Prior to his work with XML, Mr. Bosak originated the Web strategy used by Sun for the distribution of Solaris documentation. Before joining Sun, he was responsible for the SGML-based delivery system that put Novell's NetWare documentation online and was a primary force behind the development of the DocBook standard for Unix and Linux documentation. Mr. Bosak will be speaking to attendees about The Universal Business Language (UBL).
• Patrick Gannon is President and CEO of OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). In addition to serving on the OASIS Board of Directors, Mr. Gannon has served since 2000 with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), as Chairman of the Team of Specialists for Internet Enterprise Development, which advises governments in transitional economies on best practices for electronic business. He also serves on the ebXML (electronic business using eXtensible Markup Language) Joint Coordinating Committee together with management from UN/CEFACT. Mr. Gannon has also provided guidance to governmental leaders (ministers and heads of state) on adoption of electronic business (Information & Communication Technology) strategies to facilitate economic growth; which has included Lee Teng-hui, President of the Republic of China, and Askar Akayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic. Mr. Gannon's closing keynote presentation will be, "Achieving Sustainable Business Benefits with XML and Web Services Standards".
• Daniel Veillard is a software engineer with Red Hat. Formerly, he was the co-chair of the W3C XML Linking WG and member of the XML Core WG where he was implementer of the libxml and libxslt C and Python libraries wrappers. He is also implementer and maintainer of the rpmfind services. Mr. Veillard is a Member of the Board of the Gnome Project. He holds PhD in distributed operating system from Grenoble. Mr. Veillard's presentation is entitled, "XML Usage Within the Open Source Community".

"Our keynote speakers bring decades of experience and insight to delegates," says Marion Elledge, Vice President of IDEAlliance. "Attendees will find their grasp of the today's important issues incomparable-and their recommendations invaluable. Our goal each year is to have everyone walk away with knowledge that can be put to use immediately, to help overcome current business challenges and to be able to make informed decisions for the future."

In addition to keynotes, presenters from more than 15 nations will deliver peer-reviewed papers before an audience of more than 800 IT professionals from the European community and beyond, including applications engineers, chief information officers, directors of e-business, project managers and team leaders from Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations.

The Exposition floor will feature vendors from Europe, North America, and Asia. More than 50 providers of software, systems and solutions are slated to showcase their latest innovations this May at the London venue. Last year's event had more than 650 attendees and this year's event promises to draw an even greater crowd.

Participants can register for XML Europe 2003 on line by visiting www.xmleurope.com. See website for complete details on program, registration, and more.

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. IDEAlliance has been a leader in information technology since 1966 (founded as Graphic Communications Association) having fostered the development and adoption of standards such as ADIS, GRACoL, ICE, JIFFI, Mail.dat, papiNet, PRISM, PROSE XML, SPACE XML, SGML, and XML. Learn more about IDEAlliance at www.idealliance.org.

Contact

Tanya Bosse
Manager, Promotion
703.443.1717
tbosse@idealliance.org