News Release: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Establish Formal Relationship

Today, W3C and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) announced a Memorandum 
of Understanding (MoU) that will enable both organizations to 
collaborate on specifications for mobile access to the Web. This 
agreement will further solidify the foundation for faster 
development, adoption, and standardization of new features and 
functions for mobile devices that connect to the Web.

For more information about W3C, please contact Karen Myers, W3C Media 
Relations Manager, at +1.617.253.5884 or +1.978.502.6218 
(karen@w3.org) or contact the W3C Communications representative in 
your region, listed at the bottom of this email. For more information 
about OMA, please contact Alexa Hanes at +1.650.851.1621 
(ahanes@omaorg.org).

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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) 
Establish Formal Relationship

Cooperation on "Mobile Web Access" and interoperability are key to 
future mobile applications

Web Resources:

This press release:
    In English: http://www.w3.org/2004/07/OMA-pressrelease.html.en
    In French: http://www.w3.org/2004/07/OMA-pressrelease.html.fr
    In Japanese: http://www.w3.org/2004/07/OMA-pressrelease.html.ja

Memorandum of Understanding
    http://www.w3.org/2004/05/W3C-OMA-Agreement-FINAL.html

XHTML Basic
    http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xhtml-basic-20001219/
SMIL
    http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/
Mobile SVG
    http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
Device Independence
    http://www.w3.org/2001/di/
Multimodal Interaction
    http://www.w3.org/2002/mmi/

http://www.w3.org/ -- 29 July 2004 -- The World Wide Web Consortium 
(W3C) and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) today announced a Memorandum 
of Understanding (MoU) that will enable both organizations to 
collaborate on specifications for mobile access to the Web. This 
agreement will further solidify the foundation for faster 
development, adoption, and standardization of new features and 
functions for mobile devices that connect to the Web.

This formal working relationship enables the two organizations to 
collaboratively engage in exchange of technical information and 
contributions. The result will benefit developers, product and 
service providers and others, by providing standardized technology at 
their disposal to accelerate the development and deployment of new 
mobile applications and services.

"The W3C's formal relationship with the OMA brings us one step closer 
to achieving our vision of universal access to one Web, for anyone, 
anywhere, anytime, using any device," said Dr. Philipp Hoschka, 
Interaction Domain Leader at the W3C. "Together, W3C and OMA are well 
positioned to lead development toward technological compatibility and 
the ease of repurposing Web content, known as single Web authoring."

"OMA is pleased by this new working relationship with the W3C and 
believes it will be well received by the mobile industry. By working 
collaboratively with the W3C, OMA seeks to capitalize on the 
synergies between each organization to address the market 
requirements for interoperability. Together we can improve the 
quality of the end user's experience, and facilitate the development 
and adoption of new, enhanced mobile information, communication, and 
entertainment services," stated Mark Cataldo, Chair of the Technical 
Plenary at OMA.

OMA, an industry organization made up of over 350 global companies, 
develops interoperable mobile data service enablers that work across 
devices, service providers, operators, networks, and geographies.

W3C develops Recommendations in widespread use in the mobile industry 
today, including XHTML Basic, SMIL and mobile SVG. W3C's activities 
in the area of Device Independence and Multimodal Interaction are of 
high relevance to the mobile industry.

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by 
developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its 
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly 
run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence 
Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium 
for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and 
Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium 
include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for 
developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications 
to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 
organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see 
http://www.w3.org/

About the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) delivers open specifications for the 
mobile industry, helping to create interoperable services enablers to 
work across countries, operators and mobile terminals and is driven 
by market requirements. To expand the mobile market, companies 
supporting the Open Mobile Alliance will work to stimulate the fast 
and wide development and deployment of a variety of new, enhanced 
mobile information, communication and entertainment services. The 
Open Mobile Alliance includes all key elements of the wireless value 
chain, and contributes to the timely availability of mobile service 
enablers. For more information, please visit 
www.openmobilealliance.org.

W3C Contacts
Contact Americas and Australia --
     Karen Myers, <karen@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.978.502.6218
Contact Europe --
     Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
     Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

OMA Contact
    Alexa Hanes, <ahanes@omaorg.org> +1.650.851.1621

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Received on Thursday, 29 July 2004 10:04:14 UTC