UDDI Registry Goes Live

The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Project, a group dedicated to providing an online registry for companies to communicate with each other using XML, launched the registry's public beta Thursday.

Companies now can list their Web services in the UDDI directory to help them establish and maintain e-business relationships, according to a press statement about the beta launch.

Companies can go to www.uddi.org/register.html to register with UDDI.

In September, Microsoft, Ariba and IBM launched UDDI with the help of about 40 other vendors, including Sun Microsystems, Andersen Consulting, LoudCloud and Nortel.

Since the launch, the project reports that 94 new members, including Netfish Technologies, Dun & Bradstreet, Hewlett-Packard and Intel, have joined, bringing the total number of participants to 130.

According to Microsoft, UDDI standardizes how companies can interface with one another by storing information about companies' B2B capabilities in a registry. Companies then can identify partners and access pertinent information so they can interface with them online to facilitate a B2B transaction.