Welcome to the Customer Council Web page

Customer Council Officers

• Alan Doniger (Energistics) was elected for a 3-year term commencing 21st July 2005
• John Anton (Kestrel Technology) was elected for a 3-year term commencing 20th July 2006
• Ben Calloni was appointed to The Open Group Governing Board as a Customer representative, for a 3-year term commencing 25th July 2007
  

• Ben Calloni (Lockheed Martin) was elected as Chair of the Customer Council for a 2-year period commencing July 26th 2006
• Alan Doniger was re-elected as Vice-Chair of the Supplier Council for a 2 year period commencing 25th July 2007.
  

Shared 'Members Councils' Web page

• The Members Councils Web page Web page provides in one place information that is of common interest to members of both the Customer Council and the Supplier Council.
  
• This includes the Forum/WorkingGroup Roadmaps

• Charter
• Recent Activities
• Promoting requirements
• Requirements Journal
• Member-Governors
• New Initiatives
• Certified Products
  

See also The Open Group Supplier Council

Activities

We welcome your active involvement in ensuring that the customer interests in The Open Group are well represented.

The activities of the Customer Council includes operating as the 'keeper' of Requirements, input to the planning of Open Group Conferences and suggesting speakers, and also gathering news and opinon from other customer organizations.

This page facilitates sharing of information by members, who must Log in (click the link in the left column of this page, and enter their user-name and password) to access the members-only facilities.

Note that this page has 3 viewing levels - public, members of The Open Group (read members-only information), and the Councils Steering Committee (write and read).

About the Customer Council

The Open Group Customer Council provides members who are designated as 'customers' (i.e. primarily buyers and end-users) of information systems with a cross-forum platform to represent the customer perspective, in ways that will ensure their membership returns best value, both to them as customer members and to The Open Group as a whole.

All our members use information systems in their daily work - regardless of whether they are from a 'supplier' or a 'customer' organization - so we welcome participation from all members of The Open Group, in their role as users.

The Customer Council:

• Has three seats on the Board of Directors
  We are therefore well-placed to ensure the customer viewpoint is well represented in The Open Group
• Raises issues and highlight problems
  We want members to raise issues of importance to users of IT solutions, to promote new ideas and opportunities for solutions, and to seek out and bring forward solutions to emerging problems.
• Influences the work of The Open Group
  We operate at the front-end of the collaborative Open Group process, by acting as keeper of requirements. In our Requirements Journal, we record all requirements, alongside analysis and progress on solutions.
• Seeks representation in each Forum of The Open Group
  Each Forum is encouraged to appoint at least one Forum Liaison Representative member to assure good communication (in both directions) between the Customer Council and their Forum, to share information on requirements and progress on projects and deliverables that are providing solutions.
• Promotes standards
  Use of standards-based solutions provides for greater assurance of interoperability between conforming products, so we encourage customers to demand products that conform to open systems standards. Specifically, we encourage buyers of IT to include a standards conformance requirement into their requests for quotations and procurement contracts.
• Focuses on getting best value from The Open Group for its members
  We periodically reflect on the value of current Open Group activities, and recommend improvements to achieve optimum value from existing activities - Forums, links with other Consortia, Certification and more. This benefits member companies and organizations, as well as The Open Group.