The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) and Clasma, Inc.have announced that Jay Althof of Trane Global Control Systems and Patrick J. Gannon of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) will deliver keynote addresses at XML Symposium 2005.

The core objectives of the XML Symposium are to deliver a cohesive vision of how XML and Web services will drastically propel the HVAC industry forward and set expectations on the deployment of these advanced technologies in buildings. The symposium is brought to the industry by two leading organizations working toward tomorrow's intelligent buildings: CABA, the association bringing together stakeholders in the smart home and intelligent building automation industries, and Clasma, Inc., an event organizer, marketing and public relations company focused on emerging technologies for building systems.

The event will be held on February 9 in Orlando, at the Orange County Convention Center. It will be collocated with the AHR Expo and ASHRAE winter meeting.

"The subject matter, XML and Web services, is widely used by the IT community and many other industry groups who desire to leverage the Internet as a connectivity and automation vehicle," states Anto Budiardjo, president and CEO of Clasma. "These technologies bring to fruition the convergence of building systems and the IT infrastructure, and they are drastically changing the buildings industry as they enable cooperation between disparate approaches to open systems. It is our intention to provide the best possible forum to discuss how these new technologies function and how they will impact building owners and managers."

Althof and Gannon will greatly inform the audience with their perspectives. They will be joined by 23 other industry leaders that will share leading-edge research and information.

Althof is a vice president of Trane Global Control Systems and is a CABA board member. He currently has overall responsibility to determine the future control products for Trane, market the current product line and provide technical support and training for all controls products. In addition, he is responsible for developing new business offerings within the context of controls and contracting.

Gannon is president and CEO of OASIS, an international not-for-profit non-governmental organization whose mission is to drive the development, convergence and adoption of eBusiness standards. OASIS has been instrumental towards standardizing XML through its leadership of the Open Building Information Xchange (oBIX) initiative. oBIX is creating XML specifications to facilitate interoperable HVAC and automation systems in buildings. The initiative was originally founded by CABA in April 2003.

"We are extremely pleased that Jay Althof and Patrick Gannon will participate at our conference," says Ronald J. Zimmer, CABA president and CEO. "Their speeches will provide the industry with path-breaking perspectives on the role of XML and Web services within the system integration and intelligent buildings sector."