OGC Newsletter - December 2003

December 2003

CONTENTS
Presidents Message
OGC News: Year Three
Call For OGC Specification-Based Websites

DEPARTMENTS:
IP Update, Member Corner, New Member, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe

Back issues of OGC News are available.


PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

OGC's New Industry Enterprise IT Special Interest Group

Businesses and agencies around the world are moving to service-oriented architectures to improve information sharing within and between organizations. Web Services based on global Internet and Web standards offer the potential to integrate IT resources at lower near term and long term cost than would be possible without them.

But, as we've grown to expect with heavily hyped IT trends, the benefits often don't come without a struggle. Techniques and technologies used to build service architectures vary from organization to organization as well as between business sectors. Lack of coordination too often results in new non-interoperable stovepipe applications replacing the old ones, despite a company's or agency's explicit intention to escape from stovepipe implementations altogether.

Our members showed great foresight in their decision to give priority to developing implementation specifications for the Web. Then they followed through with extraordinary rigor and discipline to define, test and approve specifications that now comprise the foundation for geospatial information sharing and use for Web-based applications. Much of the foundation interface and encoding specification work is complete. Many of the specifications are in now implemented in announced products and are being used in the marketplace.

Our success and our methods are attracting the attention of IT professionals who are planning and implementing enterprise-wide service architectures. OGC member vendors and integrators are well equipped to help these professionals integrate geospatial content and services into their business processes. A benefit for all OGC members is that working with a larger set of enterprise users will help us tune OGC's reference architecture baseline to mainstream enterprise requirements.

The OGC Planning Committee recently chartered an Enterprise Architecture Special Interest Group (EASIG) to facilitate industry collaboration on service oriented architectures and to provide an organizational framework for that collaboration. The EASIG will work to:

• Identify and publish consensus-derived "best practices" for building service oriented architectures
• Identify and advance development of OpenGIS(R) Specifications to aid in enterprise integration
• Help the broader IT community understand and integrate OpenGIS Specifications, reference architectures, and lessons learned into their architectures and programs
• Identify and understand the requirements of sectors that have not yet been involved in the OGC process
• Discover capabilities developed in other business sectors that can be leveraged for the geospatial community
• Work with other standards organizations to promote integration of geospatial and mainstream IT standards and technologies.

Like the OGC Government SIG, this SIG will seek participation of both OGC members and non-members throughout industry. The Planning Committee agreed that this is necessary to maximize engagement with the organizations that are most influential in the broader evolution of the IT enterprise. With such outreach as part of its mission, the EASIG is positioned to make an important contribution to the development of cooperative planning across the industry with regard to consistent geospatial interoperability best practices at the enterprise level.

I encourage interested organizations to learn about the EASIG and consider participating. This SIG could become a major stimulus for the geospatial industry market growth toward which we have been working.

David Schell
President, OGC

OGC NEWS: YEAR THREE

This issue marks the end of the third year of OGC News' publication. During this time, we have strived to bring our readers useful information about the progress of the consortium in advancing OpenGIS specifications to meet the needs of the global community. This year, we have added an HTML version of OGC News. Along the way, our distribution has grown to over 5,000 recipients worldwide.

In 2003, we launched OGC User, distributed quarterly via email. OGC User focuses on the many projects worldwide where forward looking organizations have implemented OpenGIS based solutions to improve, or in some cases create, interoperability. We believe that OGC User offers very useful examples and case studies for others interested in reaping the benefits of increased interoperability through the use of open standards.

As we prepare to enter 2004, I would very much like to hear your ideas about how to improve OGC News and OGC User. Please email me directly at mreichardt [at] opengeospatial.org. I very much want to hear from you.

Mark Reichardt
Executive Director Outreach & Adoption Program

CALL FOR OGC SPECIFICATION-BASED WEBSITES

With the growth in the number of OpenGIS specifications available, there's a corresponding increase in the number of websites that implement them. In 2004, OGC News would like to feature these websites to help spread the word about what's possible when organizations commit to using open standards.

Know of a website that uses OpenGIS specifications to solve a real world problem or demonstrates an interesting use? Drop the adena [at] opengeospatial.org (editor) an e-mail with the details including the URL, organization behind the website, specifications used, technology used and the goal of the website.

Thanks for your help!

IP UPDATE

OGC Web Services (OWS-2)

The OWS-2 RFQ is now available. A bidders conference was held December 18, 2003 and clarifications have since been issued. Responses are due January 9, 2004.

Emergency Mapping Symbology (EMS-1)

Responses to the Emergency Mapping Symbology Initiative request for quotations were received by December 16. Participants were selected later that week and include Galdos Systems, Compusult, and Cubewerx. A kick off meeting took place on December 22 and work is underway.

MEMBER CORNER

LizardTech(R), Inc., a developer of digital imaging software and viewing tools, produces geospatial imaging software. Recognizing that our customers come from vastly different backgrounds, interoperability is the core principle at work behind all of our geospatial solutions.

Our customers depend on these tools for mission-critical work and LizardTech is dedicated to working with other OGC members to create interoperability standards and OpenGIS specifications that will be compatible across spatial data infrastructures enabling all of our customer segments to leverage their technology investment well into the future.

Karen Morley
Vice President
LizardTech, Inc.

NEW MEMBER

OGC welcomes new members who joined us recently.

City of Toronto
Government

OGC IN THE NEWS

OGC in the Press

IONIC Software Announces Compliance in OpenGIS Spatial Web Services

Web Services Put GIS on the Map
Robert L. Mitchell
Computerworld
December 15, 2003
Includes a sidebar Q and A with Carl Reed

Industry Outlook 2004
David Schell and other editorial advisory board members
GEOWorld
December 2003

Emergency Mapping Symbology and Next Steps
David Schell
GEOWorld
December 2003

Standards That Control Standards
Steve Barrie
Directions Magazine
December 16, 2003

TopoZone and USGS Create the National Map Partnership
December 8, 2003

Aerial And Satellite Images Now In JPEG2000 Format
December 6, 2003

IONIC Launches RedSpider Studio for Developing Geo-Spatial Web
Nov 2003

EVENTS

January 12-16, 2004
New York, NY
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings

January 30- 7 February 2004
Bangalore, India
GSDI 7

February 2-6, 2004
San Diego, California
Boundaryless Information Flow & Open Standards and Certification
OGC members are eligible for a discounted rate. See member e-mail or contact Mark Reichardt.

March 28-30, 2004
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The GeoTec Event - Pathways to Integration:

April 19-23, 2004
Ottawa, Canada
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings

April 25-28, 2004
Seattle, Washington
GITA Annual Conference

For further info on events please contact gbuehler [at] opengeospatial.org (Greg Buehler).

gbuehler [at] opengeospatial.org.

CONTACT

Please send comments and suggestions to:

adena [at] opengeospatial.org (Adena Schutzberg)
Editor, OGC News

Open GIS Consortium
35 Main Street Suite 5
Wayland MA 01778-5037
USA Phone: +1 508 655 5858
Fax: +1 508 655 2237

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Copyright 2003 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.