Propylon Joins OpenDocument Format Alliance to Promote Improved Access to and Retrieval of Electronic Government Documents

Mar. 03 2006

As documents and services are increasingly transformed from paper to electronic form, there is growing recognition that governments and their constituents may not be able to access, retrieve and use critical records, information and documents in the future. A broad cross-section of associations, academic institutions, industry and related groups today joined together to form the OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), an organization dedicated to promoting open solutions to this problem.

As technologies rapidly evolve, documents are created by public sector agencies using different applications that may not be compatible with one another today, let alone into the future. Through the use of a truly open standard file format that can be implemented by numerous and varied applications, the Alliance seeks to enable governments and their constituents to use, access and store critical documents, records and information both today and in the future, independent of the applications or enterprise platforms used for their creation or future access.

Specifically, the ODF Alliance supports the use of the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an open XML-based collection of office document formats, including text, presentation and spreadsheet formats. ODF, the only established open standard document format, enables the retrieval of information and exchange of documents between different applications, agencies and/or business partners in a platform and application independent way.

“With a broad cross section of support, the ODF Alliance will work to enable governments around the world to have greater control over and direct management of their documents, now and forever,” said Ken Wasch, president of the Software & Information Industry Association, a leading member of the Alliance and the principal trade association of the software and digital content industry. “There’s no doubt that the momentum of ODF is gaining traction worldwide as more people every day are discovering that it’s a better way to preserve and access documents.”

Propylon CTO Sean McGrath added “Truly open XML-based file format for office documents is the key to information longevity. Longevity is naturally a key concern for the public sector in Ireland as it is throughout the world. We have been proactive supports of ODF in Ireland and internationally for a considerable period of time and look forward to contributing to this important initiative.”

The ODF Alliance was formed by a diverse coalition of more than 35 organizations from a wide range of countries around the world companies participating include Propylon, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle, Novell, EDS. More information about the Alliance is available on the Alliance webs site at: http://www.odfalliance.org

The Alliance is building support globally for use and recognition of ODF, and all organizations that share its goals are welcomed to join the effort. Organizations can join by visiting the Alliance web site at: http://www.odfalliance.org/join.asp

About Propylon

Propylon was established in 1999 and is a world leader in lawmaking software. Legislative and regulatory institutions worldwide depend on Propylon’s Legislative Workbench software to efficiently and reliably draft, amend and publish laws and regulations. Clients include the states of Pennsylvania, Oregon and Kansas and the Irish Parliament. The company has offices in Europe and the United States. For additional information about Propylon please visit www.propylon.com.

For additional information or media inquiry, contact:

Tracy Gamble
tracy.gamble@propylon.com
Telephone: +1 (214) 727-1092