XML is Changing the Way Organizations Publish and Do Business On the Internet FOSTER CITY, Calif.--Aug. 8, 2002--As evidence of influential technological developments continue, changes occurring in the publishing industry point towards one direction. Seybold Seminars, a division of Key3Media Events, Inc., will focus on how Extensible Markup Language (XML) and related standards are shifting within the publishing industry. XML is rapidly evolving into the de facto language of the Internet, allowing cross-media or multi-channel publishing, permitting the same structured content to be delivered to CD-ROM, Web, print, or wireless devices, as well a near universal data interchange between different systems both within and between enterprises. XML is becoming known as one of the most influential technological developments in the history of the Web. As XML related technologies emerge, its growth and increased impact on a number of industries, such as financial, has been made more evident over the past several weeks. Recently, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced that it is working on a new XML-based standard to help news services report the use of stock market data by their clients to the NYSE (these vendors are required to report this use.) In conjunction with the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the NYSE is now gathering comments from the industry on what it calls Vendor Reporting eXtensible Markup Language (VRXML). Market data vendors such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson and Moneyline would use VRXML to report the use of their published information by clients. The NYSE believes that VRXML would be extended to cover a broader range of industry requirements in the future. Likewise, several mortgage brokers (Mortgage Industry Vendors A La Mode Inc. and Value IT) have begun performing beta tests of an XML-based data exchange initiative, which will help brokers streamline appraisal ordering, management and delivery technology. The initiative is based on XML specifications drawn up by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), which hopes the initiative provides a more portable and efficient way to exchange mortgage-related data. The beta tests will run through August. Attempting to stay on top of XML's rapid growth, the W3C also announced this week that it had advanced a recommendation for Exclusive XML Canonicalization. W3C is primarily concerned with digital signatures. For example, a person or organization might require a digital signature over a section of an XML message, but needs to ensure that it will not break when that sub document is removed from its original message and/or inserted into a different context. The concern is that independent XML processors can introduce incidental changes to the document, which can invalidate the signature. Exclusive XML Canonicalization addresses this issue. To see how some of these issues relate to your business and your effectiveness as a publisher, be sure to attend the IDEAlliance Conference on XML in Publishing at Seybold San Francisco 2002, beginning Monday, September 9. Sponsors for the conference are Artesia Technologies located in booth number 1125 and Arbortext located in booth number 1233. For more information about Seybold Seminars, visit www.seyboldseminars.com. To register as media for the event, contact Dervla O'Reilly at dervla.o'[email protected].