The European standards promotion group SPAG took another crack at open systems interoperability last week with the launch of Process to Support Interoperability. The group is trying to avoid the cry of ‘not another one’ by pointing out that the scheme has one or two extras that we have not seen before. For example, the Process targets inter-working, rather than conformance testing, unlike the lack-lustre Corporation for Open Systems COS Mark. More innovatively, companies signing up for the programme will be legally committed to going through a conciliation process to sort out unforeseen interoperability problems. SPAG’s membership is currently working on getting 1984 X400 implementations certified, and on the horizon is work on X500 and network management.
