Membership Levels

Strategic membership and governance

Platinum membership is for large, cross-technology, supplier organizations whose market is global in size, and whose information-sharing and interoperability challenges are global in scale. Recognizing that standards alone are insufficient, and that in a global economy no single economic region can act alone to ensure interoperability, Platinum sponsors recognize the need for a global certification authority for interoperability. As members of the Board of Directors, they influence all aspects of The Open Group from strategy formulation through budget and resource allocation.

The Open Group is proud of our Platinum sponsors and their commitment to multi-vendor integration through open standards, testing, and certification. Through their standards-compliant products and active involvement in The Open Group, they are making enterprise integration and multi-vendor interoperability a reality.

Forum Leadership and Sponsorship

Gold members are IT suppliers and buyers facing cross-technology issues and serving customers with significant multi-vendor integration challenges. Working openly with customers, competitors, suppliers, and partners to resolve these issues across the board-while safeguarding unique technology requirements-means taking a leadership position in multiple technology forums.

As a gold member, your organization will have a leadership position within the Forum you select. And in this position, you can initiate, participate, review and approve new, open standards designed to improve application interoperability in multi-vendor environments.

Individual Forums

For suppliers, silver membership equals participation in the process that leads to open standards and certification measures. For buyers, silver membership is involvement-the opportunity to learn, advise and influence the open standards development process itself.

Silver members benefit from active participation in a selected technology forum such as Security and eCommerce, Architecture, Wireless and Mobile Computing, Enterprise Systems Management, or Directory Interoperability, and have an influential presence in their group. Silver members target their energies at a single market segment and bring to the fore their individual technology and business requirements in the definition and development of open standards and their consequent test suites and branding programs.

Silver Membership Agreement

Academia has, traditionally, not been able to afford the fees to join high-tech and IT focus groups, and the commercial world has paid the price of not having to advanced thinking and developments going on in the academic world. Conversely, academia miss out the input, user focus and ‘real-world’ perspective on their work.

To help alleviate these problems, The Open Group has established two new membership categories, Academic Membership and Distinguished Academic Membership. The involvement of academia with the activities of The Open Group provides a number of benefits:

1. The members of academia are encouraged to understand and influence current business practices in the industry in order to better adapt their curriculum and student activities
2. The Open Group’s members gain visibility, new ideas and visions, showcase new technologies, and gain an opportunity for organizational promotion

The Open Group’s Forums provide unequalled opportunities for the exchange of information between buyers and suppliers, and the inclusion of academia only serves to improve the knowledge of all members; they learn about and shape the new ideas, concepts and technologies that universities, colleges, and technical institutes have to offer.

Membership Information

The benefits of the Academic Membership include: ·

• A one-year membership in The Open Group
• Access to all Forums.
• The member may participate in all group activities, deliver presentations, showcase technology, and present papers
• Submit papers for publication through The Open Group’s on-line catalog
• Attend The Open Group conferences at a reduced rate

The benefits of the Distinguished Academic Membership include:

• All the benefits of the Academic Membership (above)
• Voting privileges in one Forum.
• The only limitation placed on holders of these new memberships is that they must be on the academic staff of an accredited university, college, or technical institution.

Academic Membership Agreement

Data Sheet