Transaction Processing Program Group
The TP Group has reached a crucial stage. At the Amsterdam Conference a group came together to work on scenarios which could be exemplars of "business transactions". It is clear that our primary objective in San Diego should be to drive this forward so that we can make a substantial and valuable contribution to the IT-DialTone Architecture. One day will be devoted to detailed work on this topic.
However, TP is an important component in the development of electronic commerce and our second objective is to continue to analyse and review this emerging area. We are arranging presentations from two viewpoints:
- the automotive industry: Automotive Network Exchange (ANX) has defined a global architecture for information exchange and is building the "extranet" which carry most of the transactions between the "big three" US automotive companies and their supply chains.
- the telecommunications industry: TINA is a international consortium that has been working on the next generation of standards in this area. A key part of the design is to ensure interoperability and facilitate business transactions between telcos.
As usual, the meeting will provide a organised forum for debate and discussion between customers and IT vendors. I believe members will gain particular value for themselves and their organisations:
- through the opportunity to provide input to the IT DialTone. This architecture is the central strategy of The Open Group and is therefore an effective way of influencing vendors to design products to meet future IT demands.
- from information on emerging architectures in the automotive and communications sectors. These are global industries and their IT strategy will have a significant impact on all other markets.
