The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) has been chosen by Microsoft Corp. to help develop the standards for the .NET Connected for Smarter Retailing Logo program. The program, announced today at the Retail Systems 2004/VICS Collaborative Commerce show being held in Chicago, will assure retailers that the next generation applications being developed support industry standards for interoperability.
The Microsoft. .NET Connected for Smarter Retailing logo program addresses a need identified by Microsoft’s customers and partners - to be able to clearly delineate Internet-enabled retail solutions built with Microsoft .NET, utilizing industry standard XML Web services connecting people, information, systems and devices. Microsoft’s .NET Connected programming model makes up the basis for Microsoft’s Smarter Retailing Initiative, a comprehensive solutions framework for enabling the next generation of retail innovation that was announced in January 2004.
For a solution to qualify for the .NET Connected for Smarter Retailing logo, it must be built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and it must either expose or consume a Web service. Additionally, the solution is required to comply with the ARTS IXRetail standard XML schemas for interfacing applications within the retail enterprise. IXRetail has seven operating system independent schemas in the public domain with more in development by volunteer committees of retailers and vendors.
Standards are extremely important to maximize return on investment in Retail technology, said John Polizzi, Co-Chair of ARTS and SVP, CIO North American for Blockbuster Inc. Conformance testing is essential to insure compliance to standards and therefore continuity of the investment's return. ARTS has developed a conformance testing program for our XML standards. I am delighted with this joint program and it's message encouraging vendors to provide standards based, compliant solutions.
As part of our Smarter Retailing Initiative and commitment to the retail industry, Microsoft is very focused on driving standards adoption, said Tom Litchford, director of marketing and channel for the Retail & Hospitality Industry Solutions Group at Microsoft and ARTS board member. We see ARTS as an extremely important part of this process and a key ingredient in the development of the .NET Connected for Smarter Retailing Logo program.;
The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) 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 three standards: The Standard Relational Data Model, UnifiedPOS and IXRetail. Membership is open to all members of the international technology community- retailers from all industry segments, application developers and hardware companies.
Microsoft’s Smarter Retailing Initiative helps retailers win today by leveraging current investments, and win tomorrow by easing delivery of new retail experiences. Consisting of Smarter Shopping, Smarter Selling and Smarter Operations, the Smarter Retailing Initiative is designed to close the loop between the retailer s strategy, the in-store execution and familiar technologies already in the consumer’s hands. More information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/smartretail.
For more information contact ARTS at ARTS@NRF.com or 202-626-8140
