In today's rapidly changing market, it is unrealistic to think that OFDAxml schema will remain static. Any schema that the OFDA Technology Committee creates will soon become obsolete as manufacturers continue to expand the definition of "office furniture." For the office furniture industry, rapid evolution of a schema is a necessity.

To illustrate, suppose Manufacturer X has implemented the OFDAxml schema. Now suppose a few months after implementing the schema, Manufacturer X adds new capabilities to their products, none of which are supported by the current version of the schema. To gain market advantage, the manufacturer will want to get information about these new capabilities to their dealers ASAP. Further, they will have little motivation to wait for the next meeting of the OFDA Technology Committee to consider upgrades to the schema. They need results NOW.

By creating an extensible schema, manufacturers can immediately incorporate data about the new capabilities, without modifying the schema and without touching the business software and specification software products used by dealers. To complete the cycle, the changes made by Manufacturer X can be addressed as the OFDA Technology Committee reconvenes to discuss enhancements to the schemas.

OFDAxml schemas can achieve extensibility through use of the <any> and <anyAttribute> elements where extensibility is desired and validated against a specific namespace.