This is a very short blog about some very exciting news... The process we kicked off in 2005 when we wrote a white paper with IBM proposing a new interoperability to simplify human interaction in business processes has now reached the final phase.

Both standards that come from this white paper, BPEL4People and WS-HumanTask,  have now been published for public review. That is equivalent to a public dress rehearsal where OASIS, the standards body supporting the finalization and publication of the standard invites anyone to read and provide feedback about both standards to make sure there are no bugs that the editors have overseen.

Taking a draft standard to finalized status is not trivial. This brace of BPM standards is on its way to reaching that status in record time. Considering the great support and attention from the industry giants as well as the support given by specialist Web Service companies this standard should prove to be a very useful standard to drive not just better interoperability but also an established abstract layer for tackling and supporting the complex area of business process management.

The background to the standard, together with the public review documents can be read at:

 http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpel4people

Many thanks to my very learned colleague, Ivana Trickovic, for taking the standard this far.

We are all looking forward to a successful public review and a final ratified standard.