Share |

Association for Retail Technology Standards
National Council of Chain Restaurants
Loss Prevention (LPInformation.com)
Retail Advertising and Marketing Association
Community of Online and Multichannel Retailers
STORES Media, Knowledge Series, and more
NRF Foundation Research & Education
Forum for International Retail Association Executives

News

Technology Image: Text decoration - bullet

May 1, 2007

ARTS Launches Project to Accelerate Retail SOA Adoption

For Immediate Release
Contact: Kathy Grannis or Ellen Davis (202) 783-7971
grannisk@nrf.com or davise@nrf.com

ARTS Launches Project to Accelerate Retail SOA Adoption
--Big Lots, Oracle Execs Lead Effort to Provide Retailers with Industry-Specific SOA Model--

Austin, Texas, May 1, 2007 -- The Association for Retail Technology Standards announced at its quarterly XML Committee meeting today that it has launched the SOA Blueprint for Retail project, a program that will provide retail businesses with specific guidelines and best practices for implementing a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Retailers require SOA to more easily link business operations across stores, the Web, suppliers and merchandisers.

Operating as a work team of the ARTS XML Committee, which develops standard XML message sets and schemas to facilitate application interoperability, the SOA Blueprint project brings together more than 25 members from leading retail businesses and technology providers including Kohl’s, Big Lots, CSK Auto, IBM, Oracle, Cisco, SAP and Microsoft. Big Lots executive Greg Wilmer and Oracle Retail’s David Dorf have been elected as co-chairman and will provide leadership for the project.

“Retailers have been slow to adopt service-oriented architecture despite the tremendous benefits it can bring to their businesses,” said Richard Mader, Executive Director of ARTS. “The SOA Blueprint project is an important step towards breaking down barriers to adoption and providing retailers with the education and guidance they need to get started.”

Taking a vendor-neutral approach, the work team will provide guidance on what an ideal SOA looks like for retail, what infrastructure and services are required, and how ARTS XML documents should be used. The SOA Blueprint for Retail project will also deliver use cases for how SOA works across multiple retail channels such as in-store and on the Web.

“Retail organizations are paying particular attention to SOA because it addresses many of their most significant information technology challenges,” said David Dorf, Director of Technology Strategy, Oracle Retail and Co-Chair of the SOA Blueprint for Retail project. “When properly implemented, SOA can help transform the economics of retail businesses by changing the way they develop, integrate and support their complex systems.”

The ARTS Board of Directors approved the formation of the SOA Blueprint project earlier this year. The group’s preliminary recommendations and progress will be discussed at the NRF 97th Annual Convention and Expo in New York City, January 13-16, 2008.

Retailers interested in participating in the SOA Blueprint for Retail project or finding out more about it can do so by contacting Richard Mader at maderr@nrf.com.

The Association for Retail Technology Standards of the National Retail Federation is an international membership organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry. ARTS has four standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS, IXRetail and the Standard RFPs (in partnership with NRF). Membership is open to all members of the international technology community-- retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies.

The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet, independent stores, chain restaurants and grocery stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2004 sales of $4.1 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 state, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com

###

Email to Friend | Printer Friendly

Subscribe to the NRF News Feed