Open Standards 08

Standards, as they relate to the IT world, are continuously appreciating in importance and value. Additionally they are evolving away from their traditional configuration as large formal documents meticulously crafted by recognised standards organisations.

Today, "standard" is a term that can define agreements created by less formal processes and less formal groups, such as trading partners or even competitors. In some cases, such as the recently announced "Open Social", the consortium and the standard was created before there was even a clearly defined market for it to serve.

Corresponding to the changes to standards is the rapidly evolving world of open source software. In many cases, the term "open source" is becoming less of a technique for developing or licensing software and more of a business model.

Although both terms are losing meaning individually, when used together they deliver an exceptionally strong message. Software created as "open source" and supporting "open standards" results in unprecedented reference implementations that help all participants in that market sector.

Recognising the intersection between open standards and open source is the key theme of the 6th annual Open Standards conference. Not aligned to any single standards body or consortium in addition to being industry and vendor neutral, this even explores standards based value, relevance and concept rather than who they are administered by.

Target Audience

Across the board, IT standards are creating stable, low risk environments to implement solutions. Anyone responsible for influencing policy from public, private and academic sectors should consider attending.

The Open Standards 2008 conference provides attendees from both business and technology backgrounds with the unique and valuable opportunity to:

• interact with leaders in the development and implementation of open IT standards;
• gain a wide-screen perspective on where standards are succeeding and why;
• understand how organisations are creating internal "standards" to address local issues;
• hear how astute managers are using standards, instead of development resources, to solve IT problems;
• benefit from the collective knowledge of the longest running IT standards conference in the Asia Pacific region.