Two leading organizations in the standardization of B2B supply chain standards have joined forces. The Uniform Code Council (UCC), best known for its Universal Product Code on retail and grocery products, has merged with RosettaNet, the high tech industry's leading e-business standards consortium.

According to Tom Rittenhouse, president and CEO of UCC, and Jennifer Hamilton, CEO of RosettaNet, the unification of the two groups will accelerate the development and adoption of XML communication standards and related supply chain initiatives. Beyond forming a common architecture for those standards, the merger is expected to increase the speed and number of implementations of the standards across an increasing range of industries on a worldwide basis. The two groups have worked together since 1998.