Progress Software Corporation has announced the release of the Progress® DataXtend® Browser for ACORD.

ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is a standards development organization for the insurance industry and related financial services industries. ACORD standards are in widespread use worldwide, allowing insurance carriers to transact business electronically with agents, brokers and other data partners in the insurance, reinsurance and related financial services industries and simplifying the integration of IT systems. By serving as a common communication method for use by multiple parties, ACORD standards increase the efficiency of the entire industry.

The DataXtend Browser for ACORD, built on top of the award-winning Progress DataXtend Semantic Integrator (SI), empowers users to visually explore model-based representations of the comprehensive schemas of the ACORD XML standards. With the DataXtend Browser you can search for the content and understand the meaning of any of the entities in the ACORD XML standards.

The Browser enables more effective use of the ACORD standards by providing a tool that allows all participants, from business owners and analysts to developers, to share a common and simplified view of their respective Insurance domains. The initial version of the DataXtend Browser for ACORD includes model-based representations of the Property & Casualty/Surety and Life, Annuity & Health XML standards. Future versions are planned that will include the Reinsurance & Large Commercial XML standard.

“The Progress DataXtend Browser for ACORD is a welcome addition to a growing number of software products that are making the ACORD standards easier to understand and utilize,” said John Kellington, Senior Vice President, ACORD. “ACORD appreciates Progress providing this browser to our members which will facilitate their implementations of our standards.”

Progress DataXtend SI addresses the challenge of data interoperability in environments based on service-oriented architectures (SOA), bringing the same agility to data that SOA does to processes. DataXtend SI uses a common model to mediate the differences between the data models of applications and services.

The Progress DataXtend Browser for ACORD is freely available to ACORD members from ACORD.org.