ACORD to Validate Open Mapping Standard Through OMG's
Model Driven Message Interoperability (MDMI) Labs
MDMI Labs focus on research and development projects

Needham, MA, USA - June 14, 2010 - OMG™ today announced that ACORD will be participating in a MDMI (Model Driven Message Interoperability) Labs project to validate the applicability of MDMI as an open standards way of expressing mappings created using the ACORD Framework. MDMI Labs is a research and development project lab under the MDMI Consortium. The MDMI Consortium is focused on providing proof of MDMI business value in the form of a successful prototype and in use cases in insurance. MDMI Labs continues the work of vetting the MDMI standard, providing further proofs of concept for new use cases beyond the ones already proven in 2009. MDMI Labs conducts pre-competitive shared research and development projects applicable to a broad range of industries. For more information on MDMI Labs, please visit http://www.mdmi-consortium.org/labs.

"The OMG's MDMI enhances the ACORD Framework by providing a practical standard for addressing the inevitable message co-existence and message interoperability problem for the insurance industry on a world-wide basis. We clearly understand the value that standards bring to our community. Having an approved standard that has gone through the rigorous process of OMG gives us the potential to provide an open way to exchange mappings," said Frank Neugebauer, CTO of ACORD.

"OMG has a long history of bringing together the best in service modeling with domain experts in many industry sectors; ACORD is the acknowledged leader across the insurance world and we are proud to work together with ACORD to develop and deliver open standards to benefit the entire community," said Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., chairman and CEO, OMG. "Our Model Driven Message Interoperability (MDMI) standard delivers a consistent way to address the problem of message co-existence and interoperability, and is already in use in other vertical markets; by shifting from proprietary mappings to standard, machine-readable maps, ACORD and OMG together will deliver significant cost savings and agility to the insurance industry."

About MDMI
Message interoperability reduces costs, increases data quality and increases revenue. By automating interoperability between disparate systems, MDMI improves communications, helps reduce errors and provides a way to address future business changes. MDMI lets financial institutions use standardized maps provided by message format owners (including standards bodies, financial institutions and others) to correctly map information in financial message formats including ISO 20022 (UNIFI) compliant formats. Facilitating and mediating payments information across a number of message formats is a high cost obligation for financial institutions. The standard also provides a migration path to new message formats. The MDMI standard specification was submitted by FireStar Software, IBM, Informatica, IP Commerce and VISA with support from Adaptive and SWIFT, and was published at the end of 2007.

For more information about MDMI Labs, see http://www.mdmi-consortium.org/labs; for more information about OMG, visit http://www.omg.org. Questions about membership in OMG or the MDMI Consortium and participating in MDMI Labs may be directed to Ken Berk at +1-781-444 0404 or ken.berk@omg.org.

###

About OMG
OMG™ is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry standards consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies and an even wider range of industries. OMG’s modeling standards enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes. For more information, visit www.omg.org. 

Note to editors: For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit http://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list.htm.

Edited by Stephanie