NEW YORK - (Business Wire) XBRL International, Inc., (XII) released “XBRL: Towards a Diverse Ecosystem” today, a Discussion Document seeking public comment on the future business requirements and technical roadmap for the XBRL business information standard. The Discussion Document may be downloaded at: .

The deadline to submit a comment letter or respond to the survey is March 19th, 2010.

 The XBRL Standards Board(XSB), responsible for managing the technical development of the XBRL standard, has developed the Discussion Document to determine the technical goals of the Consortium over the next 5-10 years. The XSB is seeking feedback on its proposals to focus on three areas:

l          Ease of use for developers

l          Enabling information comparability around the world

l          Simplifying the use of XBRL data for analysis systems.

The Discussion Document is the first step in the consortium’s development of a formal strategy which aims to expand on the existing, successful XBRL standard. The consortium is exploring ways to make it more accessible and more powerful while protecting existing investments made by a very broad range of users.

“XII is inviting this open dialogue with all our stakeholders as we gather feedback to evaluate the technical evolution of the XBRL standard over the next decade.” said Anthony Fragnito, CPA, CEO of XBRL International, Inc. “This important dialogue is being undertaken to ensure we continue the pace of XBRL adoption and meet the needs of the growing and diverse global marketplace using the XBRL standard.”

“We have reached an important point in the development of XBRL” commented John Turner, outgoing Chair of the XBRL Standards Board. “In part, XII now seeks to facilitate XBRL’s further adoption inside the enterprise, as well as within other areas of the private and public sectors that rely on business reporting of all kinds. We are very keen to obtain significant external input on our ideas.”