STAR's 2009 Release: Bridging the Gaps

MCLEAN, Va., May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Standards for Technology in Automotive
Retail (STAR), a global information technology standards body for retail
automotive and related industries, has released its final set of schema
repositories for its 2008-2009 publication cycle.

With this release STAR continues to prove that while it may be "Automotive" in
name, STAR is more than capable of supporting related industries such as the
medium and heavy-duty truck sector. In fact, a significant portion of the
enhancements in this release can be attributed to requests made by STAR's
Truck segment. These requirements focused heavily in the area of Parts
Management with updates to the Parts Inventory, Parts Prices List, and Parts
Shipment specifications among others. This level of cross-industry
harmonization is made possible through STAR's use of a semantically flexible
vocabulary creating functional equivalents that meet the needs of multiple
industries.

In addition to proving itself as a cross-industry standard, STAR continued to
strengthen its position as a globally-recognized standards solution in a
project with European auto manufacturers, Renault SAS and PSA Peugeot Citroen.
The manufacturers worked together with STAR to identify and incorporate needed
enhancements into the STAR Sales Lead standard to meet international
requirements. These enhancements have since been found to meet the needs of
various U.S.-based users.

The ability of the STAR organization to develop open standards that bridge the
gap between industries as well as regions is a testament to its commitment to
the efficient and interoperable exchange of business communications.

STAR is technology dedicated to business efficiency.

About STAR
The Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) organization is the
information technology (IT) standards organization for retail automotive and
related industries. STAR is leading the effort to implement voluntary IT
standards throughout the automotive industry. These standards are designed to
support business information needs and provide secure and reliable means for
dealers, manufacturers, and retail system providers to communicate.
Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, STAR is a not-for-profit volunteer
organization and its members include dealers, manufacturers and retail system
providers. As members, these companies are interested in developing,
promoting, and administering voluntary IT standards in the retail automotive
industry and improving the effectiveness, timeliness and competitiveness of
the IT solutions needed within the retail automotive industry.

For more information about STAR and a list of current members please visit
www.starstandard.org.

For further information, contact Ghezal Khalili at 703-556-8584.

SOURCE STAR (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail)

Ghezal Khalili, Executive Coordinator of STAR, +1-703-556-8584, Fax:
+1-703-821-7081, gkhalili@starstandard.org