Sparx Systems modeling tools adopted by ISO Geospatial Community

ISO/TC 211 committee decides to adopt Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect as modeling tool of choice for development of geospatial interoperability specifications.

Creswick, Australia, July 30, 2008 – At its 26th Plenary Meeting held at Copenhagen in May 2008, the ISO/TC 211 Technical Committee decided to maintain its geospatial reference models using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect – an industry leading modeling tool for UML and related standards. ISO/TC 211’s decision was based upon recommendation of its Harmonized Model Maintenance Group (HMMG), following an earlier decision to develop future reference models using the latest UML 2 specification.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards. The ISO/TC 211 technical committee “aims to establish a structured set of standards for information concerning objects or phenomena that are directly or indirectly associated with a location relative to the Earth”. The HMMG was created to maintain all ISO19100 family models for use by the members of the ISO/TC 211 community in the creation of standards.

“In choosing Enterprise Architect, the HMMG considered the cost to users, the need to interact within the Technical Committee across development project boundaries, and the ability to support and interact with implementors of the standards. In the end and based on functionality and cost, Enterprise Architect was the only feasible choice”, said John Herring, Chair of the HMMG.

An active participant in key standards forums such as the Object Management Group (OMG), Sparx Systems was one of the first modeling tool vendors to provide UML 2 support. The company's continued responsiveness to its growing customer base and aggressive product development cycle in support of open standards, has positioned Sparx Systems as a leading vendor in the modeling tools space.

“It has been a pleasure working with the HMMG in realizing this outcome”, said Ken Harkin of Sparx Systems. “It reflects a strong trend by standards bodies, including UN/CEFACT, the ASC X12, OGC and many others, to use Enterprise Architect as a preferred tool for building and storing reference models”.

Enterprise Architect version 7.1 is available for download and evaluation from: www.sparxsystems.com

About ISO

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards.

ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries, one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system.

ISO is a non-governmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors. On the one hand, many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. On the other hand, other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been set up by national partnerships of industry associations.

Therefore, ISO enables a consensus to be reached on solutions that meet both the requirements of business and the broader needs of society.

About Sparx Systems

Sparx Systems specializes in high performance and scalable visual modeling tools for the planning, design and construction of software intensive systems.

With customers in industries ranging from aerospace and automotive engineering to finance, defense, government, entertainment and telecommunications, Sparx Systems is a leading vendor of innovative solutions based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and its related specifications. A Contributing Member of the Object Management Group (OMG), Sparx Systems is committed to realizing the potential of model-driven development based on open standards.

The company’s flagship product, Enterprise Architect, has received numerous accolades since its commercial release in August, 2000. Now at version 7.1 , Enterprise Architect is the design tool of choice for over 150,000 registered users world-wide.