Microsoft Corp. announced it will hold an open design review for gathering industry feedback on new metadata extensions that will enable a business to integrate its line-of-business, data warehousing, and knowledge management environments. Also today, the Meta Data Coalition (MDC) formally announced that the Open Information Model (OIM) has been accepted as the metadata standard. The proposed extensions to the OIM capture business knowledge such as goals, objectives, processes and rules, as well as terminology and categorizations, enabling the automated linkage between a wide variety of business information types. This linkage is needed for the creation of enterprise information portals or “digital dashboards,” which enable real-time decision-making by providing businesses with a single window into all their information. The OIM extensions are the result of extensive collaboration with industry partners and represent the first milestone in the effort initiated with the Meta Data Coalition in December 1998. The open design review period for the new model extensions begins today with the availability of preliminary specifications for the following three models: Knowledge description model, Business engineering model, and Business rule model. This phase of the open design process is expected to conclude with an industry partner review in fall of 1999, where updated specifications, final input and early product demonstrations will be presented. Information about obtaining a copy of the specifications and providing feedback during the design review period is available through the Microsoft Web site at www.microsoft.com/repository/ or the Meta Data Coalition Web site at www.mdcinfo.com