Calendaring and Scheduling Interoperability - current status.

Ian Robertson, The Open Group, 4^th March 1997

Summary

The issue of interoperability amongst calendaring and scheduling (C&S) products was raised at the last Program Group Meeting in Rome. The market for products which specifically included interoperability is small at present but there are indicators which predict rapid growth. The technical problems of interoperability are being addressed by the Internet Engineering Technical Forum (IETF) and a viable solution seems likely in the short term. However, the IETF has no public plans for testing and branding. In this case, the roles of the two organisations appears complimentary and we recommend finding ways in which this synergy can be developed to the benefit of our members.

Background

The last meeting proposed that we consider ways in which C&S systems could and should interoperate. Typical products in this area include (a) the PC based systems (e.g. Lotus Organiser and Microsoft Schedule+), (b) mainframe based systems (ICL Team Office and IBM Office Power) and (c) personal digital assistants (Psion, Casio, HP etc.). At present the majority of the office (LAN) based systems (a and b above) are able to schedule meetings between users of the same only if they use the same product. Devices of type (c) are typically only used by individuals but can often be updated through a connection to a PC. The user requirement is for all such systems to interoperate to some degree (it is recognised that full interoperability may be restricted by physical interconnections; whether someone is "on-line"). By so doing, there could be substantial improvements in personal and corporate efficiency, improved use of resources and reductions in administrative overheads. To date, these benefits are qualitative only; no quantitative study has been done yet.

Market size and growth

The number of C&S installed is substantial since products from the main PC software manufacturers are frequently packaged with every PC sold. The installed base is therefore in excess of 10 million. However, the number actually in use is inevitably rather less. Furthermore, the number of organisations which make everyday use of C&S as part of their business is probably much less. Typically only larger organisations (greater than 100 staff) use C&S at present. Finally, there will be an even smaller subset of these organisations where more than one C&S product is in active use or the members of the organisation need to use C&S products to co-ordinate meetings with members of other organisations. We must therefore conclude that the market size for C&S products that interoperate is small. On this basis is appears difficult to justify any major investment in standardisation.

On the other hand, there are several factors that suggest that market growth could be very rapid and the ultimate market size could even exceed the numbers given above for the PC industry. Some of the factors are:

• The change in working style and habits (mobile staff, "hot desking", fewer secretarial staff) make formal C&S more necessary.
• Growing awareness that message based systems (e-mail, voice mail, "post-it notes") do not give any assurance that the message has been read or accepted. What is needed is a positive agreement between parties.
• The availability, at low cost, of the Internet as a means of communication but with obvious deficiencies with respect to e-mail delays and incompatible protocols.
• Potential for selling services that rely on an active C&S community. Examples might include: publishing transport timetables in a common electronic format, advertising hotel and conference rooms so that they can be automatically associated with meetings.
• Deployment of "smart-cards" to hold information on individuals: health data, hospital appointments etc.

The availability of common formats for C&S information coupled with efficient transport protocols will be a positive factor in accelerating market growth.

Technical Solutions - IETF.

At present, the products that go furthest to meet some of these user requirements are Lotus Organiser and Internet Sidekick. Both of these are equipped to operate over the Internet using the Web page approach and through e-mail. However, interoperability with other manufacturers products is not well advanced.

Since C&S is partly a communications problem it is not surprising that a Working Group of the IETF has been set up to consider the issues and propose solutions. The background and current status can be found at: http://www.imc.org/ietf-calendar/ . The following information has been gleaned from this set of pages and by subscribing to the IEFT C&S e-mail forum.

• Substantial progress has been made and there are at least three candidates for a C&S protocol (CIH, CIP, ICAP). One of these(CIH) is based on HTTP while others are totally new. There is a debate how such a protocol should react to firewall and security procedures and how near to "real time" the response should be.
• An applications level language has been specified (VCAL) and this is being extended to include allocation of resources (e.g. rooms). As an example:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR

. boiler plate

.

BEGIN:VEVENT

ATTENDEE;TYPE=RESOURCE;STATUS=TENTATIVE;EXPECT=REQUIRE:facilities@office.my.com

RESOURCES:VIDEO PHONE

LOCATION: My office building

DESCRIPTION:I need one of the two video conference rooms

DTSTART:19970227T100000Z

DTSTART:19970227T120000Z

END:VEVENT

END:VCALENDAR

Possible actions by the Interoperability Program Group

At first sight, it seems that the Open Group is not needed in this area. The IETF is using its established, open procedure to build a consensus amongst the relevant parties and can be expected to reach a workable solution in a reasonable time. Furthermore, the group of companies collaborating in the C&S forum is mainly outside the membership of the Open Group and we would bring no new or special relationships to the forum. Technically, although the solution will be specified in Internet terms, it is clear that it is equally applicable to private networks (LAN and WAN).

Despite these comments, it does seem that the Open Group could play a complimentary role in the following areas:

• Testing: the Open Group is an established source of conformance testing procedures.
• Branding: it is important to establish the link between an open standard and market growth. A branding program provides an immediate connection between the technical solution, product quality and customer procurement.
• Interoperability: the Internet operates on the principle of de facto interoperability: "if your technology doesn't work then you can't join in" . However, for business, this approach presents too high a risk. As in other areas, the Open Group could consider a more commercial approach based on a legal undertaking and a recognised framework for resolving disputes.

In summary: C&S offers an opportunity for IETF and The Open Group to work together. This could have immediate benefits for both parties and substantial returns for our members.