Siemens Nixdorf Becomes a Principal Member of the Open GIS Consortium

Wayland, Massachusetts, USA, March 24, 1997 - The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced today that Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems AG (SNI) has become a Principal Member of the consortium. As a Principal Member, SNI has a seat on OGC's Management Committee, which oversees the OGC Technical Committee and plans cooperative industry development programs. David Schell, OGC's president, said, "This is an major event for OGC. SNI is an important participant in the global GIS industry, and it is significant for Europe and the industry that this broad-based information technology company supports the OpenGIS Specification. We seek to make geographic data and geoprocessing an integral part of enterprise information systems around the world, and Siemens Nixdorf will help us make that vision a reality." OGC now has over twenty European members, and Michael Brand, president of EUROGI (European Umbrella Organization for Geographic Information) sits on OGC's Board of Directors. OGC also has a Class A Liaison with the ISO/TC 211 Geographic Information/Geomatics technical committee, and OGC was one of the sponsors of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference held last September in Bonn, Germany. SNI's participation will further expand Europe's role in OGC's programs. Gunter Wagner, Siemens Nixdorf's European GIS Manager, said, "OGC has given the GIS industry a temendous push at the international level. SNI will be able to contribute to the Consortium's efforts by bringing in the extensive European know-how of the SICAD customer base. The focus of our work shall be to manifest and to promote the benefits of GIS." About OGC OGC, an open consortium of 90 corporations, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and universities, coordinates collaborative development of open geoprocessing software technologies. OGC's goal is to specify common interfaces and services that integrate geographic information systems and other spatial technologies to fulfill a vision of unimpeded network-based access to geodata and geoprocessing resources. See http://www.opengeospatial.org . -- end --