News For December, 2000

IXOS Software AG and 80-20 Software have signed a partnership agreement. Both companies will work jointly on the next generation of the IXOS-ExchangeARCHIVE product line. The partnership will provide global enterprise customers with comprehensive knowledge and eBusiness document management solutions. First joint products are expected to be launched in early 2001. The partnership covers joint product development and joint marketing for the 80-20 product line, which includes the retrieval server 80-20 Discovery and the personal portal 80-20 Retriever. 80-20 Discovery is able to arrange information according to concepts rather than keywords. 80-20 Retriever is a new personal portal, embedded in Microsoft Outlook, which uses automatic categorization technology, and is designed to handle personal file and email management. Both companies see significant growth opportunities by providing integrated solutions for the new Microsoft Exchange platform and the forthcoming portal and document management server, codenamed "Tahoe". www.ixos.com, www.80-20.com

Datachannel to Integrate Talk2's ViPrNET
12/21/2000

DataChannel Inc. and Talk2 Technology, Inc. announced a strategic alliance today that will allow users to access and voice-navigate through the DataChannel EIP. The companies have entered into a joint development and marketing agreement integrating DataChannel's DataChannel Server (DCS) 4.1 and Talk2's ViPrNET (pronounced "Vipernet") voice infrastructure. Using a telephone, enterprise customers may now access and interact with their enterprise information anywhere, anytime. Talk2's proprietary ViPrNET architecture is a carrier-class technology, capable of supporting tens-of-millions of users. ViPrNET runs on high performance, Unix-based computing platforms and is technology and platform agnostic. The integration of the two products is founded on DataChannel's XML development and the two companies' commitment to an XML-based architecture. These complimentary technologies ensure that voice access to critical information can scale with the growth of the EIP to potentially millions of users. Since EIP users access mission-critical information, security of the corporate firewall is extended by ViPrNET's Spontaneous Virtual Private Networking technology (sVPN). Each time a user dials into the portal to access information--on any device--the sVPN creates a secure session without having to modify the existing firewall, giving users seamless, high-security access to their information. www.talk2.com, www.datachannel.com

eBusiness Technologies & Epicentric Join Forces
12/20/2000

eBusiness Technologies (eBT) announced that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Epicentric, Inc. The alliance combines Epicentric's ability to establish a network of e-business centers within a common management structure with eBusiness Technologies' content management and workflow automation capabilities. Epicentric's solutions combine various sources of information and tools -- outside syndicators, internal data streams and Web-based applications -- and enable its customers to provide custom interfaces and different views of those data sources. eBT's engenda content management and workflow automation solution helps organizations manage the information from various content sources as well as original content. The alliance agreement calls for the two companies to jointly develop a tight integration of their products, providing the customers a streamlined way of managing content through the portal environment. www.epicentric.com, www.ebt.com

You can expect to see all kinds of combined offerings from content management and portal vendors before long.

FileNET's Eprocess Platform Available
12/20/2000

FileNET Corporation, announced worldwide general availability of Panagon eProcess Services, FileNET's new enterprise eBusiness application platform that enables organizations to manage complex business processes and extend those processes out to users on the Web. FileNET's eProcess platform is an open application software system that is used by large organizations worldwide to manage complex business processes, as well as XML and HTML Web content for eCommerce. Panagon eProcess Services is the process management component of FileNET's eBusiness strategy. Panagon eProcess Services supports Microsoft Windows NT, IBM AIX, and HP-UX operating systems with Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle database system support and is available today through FileNET's worldwide sales channel. Pricing for a typical configuration of Panagon eProcess Services starts at approximately $75,000. www.FileNET.com

FpML.org Seeks Industry Input
12/19/2000

FpML.org, the non-profit consortium developing Financial products Markup Language as an e-commerce standard for OTC derivatives trading, is seeking suggestions for additional asset classes and functionality that should be addressed in future versions of the standard. The consortium is comprised of leading banks, information and software vendors and systems integrators. The initiative stems from comments made by the nearly 300 delegates from 122 firms that attended FpML symposiums held recently in New York and London. Asset classes being considered include FX options, and equity, credit and commodity derivatives, with other suggestions welcomed. FpML is a freely licensed XML-based standard. FpML.org is dedicated to the development and use of FpML as the communications standard for streamlining the processes supporting e-commerce activities in the financial derivatives domain. To participate in extending its product coverage, complete the Call for Interest form at ww.fpml.org/wg/index.html. Responses are requested by COB January 4, 2001. Organizations actively participating in the FpML standard include: Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Chase Manhattan Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Fuji Capital Markets Corporation, Goldman Sachs, International Business Machines, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Reuters, SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, SwapsWire, S.W.I.F.T., and UBS Warburg. www.fpml.org.

RightWorks & Cardonet Announce Strategic Partnership
12/19/2000

RightWorks Corporation and Cardonet, Inc. announced a strategic partnership that will allow RightWorks to resell the Cardonet Content Factory as an addition to the RightWorks eBusiness Application Suite. This arrangement expands the current partnership between RightWorks and Cardonet under which the Cardonet Content Factory, an e-catalog content management solution, is integrated with the RightWorks Open Commerce Network, an open horizontal exchange and virtual content aggregation portal that provides centralized access to products and value-added services. Under the new arrangement RightWorks and Cardonet will deliver e-business applications to suppliers, corporations and net market makers in need of an automated application for capturing, preparing and maintaining catalog content. The combination of Cardonet Content Factory with RightWorks Universal Content Manager, RightWorks' high performance catalog server, will offer customers an integrated solution that is cost-effective and eliminates the complexity of managing catalog content. www.rightworks.com, www.cardonet.com

W3C Issues XHTML Basic as W3C Recommendation
12/19/2000

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation. The specification reflects cross-industry agreement on a set of markup language features that allows authors to create rich Web content deliverable to a wide range of devices, including mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, and television-based Web browsers. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry. In January 2000, W3C published the XHTML 1.0 Recommendation, which combined the well-known features of HTML with the power of XML. In another W3C specification entitled "Modularization of XHTML", W3C's HTML Working Group describes a mechanism that allows authors to mix and match content from well-defined subsets of XHTML 1.0 elements and attributes. The XHTML Basic Recommendation combines some of these XHTML modules in a manner well-suited to mobile Web applications. XHTML Basic is designed so that it may be implemented by all user agents, including mobile devices, television-based devices, and other small Web devices. The XHTML Basic specification is the result of significant collaborative efforts of the W3C HTML Working Group, including participants from AOL/Netscape; CWI; Ericsson; IBM; Intel; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; Microsoft; Mozquito Technologies; Openwave Systems Inc.; Philips Electronics; Quark Inc.; and Sun Microsystems. In addition, the Working Group integrated feedback from the W3C Mobile Access Interest Group and the WAP Forum in an effort to ensure demonstrable functionality in wireless devices. Many industry players support, or have plans to support, XHTML Basic, including the WAP Forum. Today, content developers interested in making XHTML Basic documents can create them with W3C's own browser/editor, Amaya. www.w3.org/

We’ll cover XHTML and when it makes sense compared to HTML and XML in a future issue.

Accumedia Teams with Vignette
12/18/2000

Accumedia announced a development partnership with Vignette Corporation. The partnership will allow Accumedia to help media and entertainment (ME) companies effectively manage and distribute their digital assets. Accumedia will integrate the Vignette V/5 E-business Application Platform into the Accumedia Convergence Platform (CAP) to enable entertainment and media companies control the creation, distribution and management of their content assets as they deploy them through the Internet. www.accumedia.com, www.vignette.com

Cytura Unveils XML-Based Ebusiness Platform
12/18/2000

Cytura Corporation announced the introduction of Cytura 3.0, a comprehensive XML-based eBusiness platform. Cytura 3.0 is an eBusiness platform that enables non-technical employees such as marketers and administrators to operate without IT support. Cytura 3.0 also combines extreme personalization, real-time content management and community building capabilities into a single integrated offering, yielding a lower cost of ownership, more powerful performance and "one stop shopping" convenience for the cost-effective development and operation of a corporate Web portal. Supporting multiple languages from a unified framework, Cytura's software and tools provide B2B, B2C and EIP solutions for clients in a variety of vertical industries and international markets. Key features and benefits of Cytura 3.0 include: Extreme Personalization--With Cytura 3.0, companies can personalize content to the word level, update content in real-time and rapidly build out syndicated communities across multiple languages. An entire article, sentence or paragraph can be personalized depending on the site user's age, location, interests, relationship, etc.; Rapid site building, administration and management functionality--Cytura's Site Builder application and administrative tools enable non-technical employees to build all of the community sites within a portal. The administrator can easily build layouts, add menu items and define the type of content or value-added services to display in each area of the site without any scripting; and Rapid Syndication of New Communities--Companies can easily deploy new communities and syndicate sites as their needs grow. Cytura leverages open standards such as XML, XHTML and Java. Cytura 3.0 is available immediately to all industries, including healthcare, media/entertainment, financial services, insurance, manufacturing telecommunications and energy. www.cytura.com

PTC Announces Windchill 5.1
12/18/2000

PTC announced the shipment of Windchill 5.1, the latest version of PTC's family of web-based collaboration software. Featured in this release are several new products developed to address open B2B connectivity, eCatalog development, and data engineering requirements. These new capabilities enable companies to find and publish component data in a distributed network and connect business processes across the extended enterprise using the rapidly evolving RosettaNet standard. PTC is committed to support the advancement of this standard and embed it as a core capability throughout its Windchill collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions. The latest release of Windchill features the following software components and services for B2B connectivity, distributed content management, e-business process integration and data engineering: Windchill Gateway for RosettaNet; Windchill eCatalog & Windchill eCatalog Web Search enables manufacturers to publish RosettaNet PIP2A9 compliant product catalogs and provide full parametric search access to the eCatalog directly from their website; Windchill eCatalog Search Portal allows manufacturing customers to search detailed information on components across a distributed network of electronic catalogs with a powerful parametric search engine; and, Data Engineering-CounterPart and PartSpeak enables content aggregation, cleansing and standardization to prepare enterprise product information for e-business processes. As part of the introduction of Windchill 5.1 collaborative sourcing capabilities, a new PTC Global Services Sourcing practice is being introduced. This team of consultants within the PTC Global Services organization is focused on developing and deploying supply chain collaboration solutions for PTC customers. The practice has domain expertise for RosettaNet PIP implementation, support and training, business process consulting, component and supplier management, and data engineering solutions. www.ptc.com

Interwoven Announces TeamSite 4.5 B2B Edition
12/14/2000

Interwoven, Inc. announced its latest addition to the TeamSite software suite, TeamSite 4.5 B2B Edition. The B2B Edition of TeamSite empowers trading partners to easily contribute and publish B2B content. It also provides features tailored specifically for suppliers, marketplaces and other B2B sites to accelerate and control the interchange and syndication of commerce-critical content. The B2B Edition serves the needs of the 1000+ Ariba and Commerce One customers. The TeamSite 4.5 B2B Edition includes supplier and exchange enablement features such as: New merchandizing-specific workflow which accelerates and controls the markup of product and catalog-related content; Integration workflow for B2Bi and EAI (webMethods and TIBCO) that allows the rapid inclusion of legacy and ERP content; Automated transformation and validation of XML to cXML (Ariba) and xCBL (Commerce One) which ensures the quality and timeliness of content targeted to B2B sites; Individual product specialist or team work areas for collaborative content development and quality assurance. As part of the Interwoven Content Interchange Framework, TeamSite 4.5 B2B Edition is expected to be generally available in January 2001. The Framework, introduced in August 2000, is Interwoven's strategy to provide, in conjunction with other partners, a comprehensive content solution for B2B suppliers and exchanges. www.interwoven.com/products/b2b/

appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0 Available
12/14/2000

appsolut software gmbh announced the release of the appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0. Version 2.0 can be implemented more quickly and provides a wider array of functions compared to its predecessor, such as improved user and role management, optimized access to MS Exchange and Lotus Notes, as well as new content management functions. The appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0 can be easily customized and offers an enterprise portal solution that caters to organizations' specific needs. All corporate processes -- spanning various applications and data sources -- can be integrated into a single browser interface. This web-based portal interface replaces the interfaces of the different applications throughout the organization. Rather than having to deal with a multitude of proprietary interfaces with different log-on procedures and input modes, portal users can now work with one, clear-cut enterprise portal interface. Relevant data and functions are made available to enterprise portal users at the right location and the right time -- personalized and role-specific. This way, companies can effectively streamline operations and avoid costly user training and support. The appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0 allows users to 'take' corporate bits of information from the organization's IT systems and 'assemble' them within a new process context. The resulting portal application is more useful to users than the sum of the individual applications. This capability of consistently mapping corporate processes with information is what makes the appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0 a unique innovation in the enterprise portal market. Its framework approach is what makes the appsolut Enterprise Portal Suite 2.0 so flexible. Enterprise portal functions are encapsulated in individual modules, which can be integrated into the framework according to specific corporate requirements. www.appsolut.com

SoftQuad & Documentum Announce XML Content Management Solution
12/13/2000

SoftQuad Software, Ltd. and Documentum, Inc. announced a technology integration, which brings the advantages of XML content management to Global 2000 companies with e-business initiatives. The integration of SoftQuad XMetaL to Documentum 4i eBusiness Platform enables business users to easily create, manage, and share customized content across e-business applications and the Web. SoftQuad's integration module is targeted for availability by the end of this month, coinciding with Documentum's targeted release of its newly announced version of the 4i eBusiness Platform. The new product integration allows users to create, edit and save XML documents into Documentum's content repository directly from within XMetaL, while managing content lifecycle with the Documentum 4i eBusiness Platform. The solution enables enterprises to manage and deliver customized XML content to different audiences and delivery channels, such as e-commerce sites, portals, handheld and wireless devices, and electronic marketplaces. www.documentum.com, www.softquad.com

Now that Documentum has a better XML solution, an XML editor integration makes a lot more sense.

Sequoia Software & Doclinx.com Partner
12/13/2000

Sequoia Software Corporation announced it has entered into a three-pronged strategic alliance with Doclinx.com. Sequoia has licensed Doclinx's Docsan XML search engine, enhancing the search performance of XPS, Sequoia's XML-pure portal software. Doclinx has become a value added reseller of XPS, and will expand the scope of its consulting practice to focus on portal engagements. Sequoia is also turning to Doclinx for Java consulting expertise as it ramps up the development of XPS for Unix, based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition. The Docsan XML search engine gives users the ability to conduct free text and XML-based searches across data and documents in over 200 file formats. Sequoia selected Docsan over other better-known search engines, because of its native support for XML and proven performance. www.doclinx.com, www.sequoiasoftware.com

Artesia Releases Teams 4.1
12/13/2000

Artesia Technologies announced a major enhancement for its software for the management and distribution of rich media. Slated for general availability later this month, TEAMS 4.1 will offer integrators and consultants a number of new APIs that open customization and implementation opportunities for creating new enterprise-class applications. The newest version of TEAMS incorporates support for such video formats as Real, AVI, Quicktime, Microsoft ASF, MPEG1 and MPEG2, and provides users with the ability to edit and sequence video programming via their web browser through the inclusion of TEAMS' Clip Identifier (CI), Clip Time Adjuster (CTA) and Play Decision List (PDL) features. The full integration of Virage's VideoLogger into TEAMS allows the software to seamlessly ingest video and audio programming into a central repository so that the user may take advantage of Artesia's search and retrieval functionality in order to located specific assets based on key frames, speech that has been converted to text, and a number of other parameters. Based on J2EE JSP technology, TEAMS 4.1's web user interface provides users with a full range of advanced functionality to capture, manage, access, retrieve and distribute digital assets. In addition, TEAMS' web interface incorporates support for localization and internationalization using ISO8859 character sets. With the addition of these and other web-based capabilities, TEAMS can allow creative, trade and marketing partners to collaborate online in the development and deployment of digital assets of all types. Pricing for TEAMS 4.1 is available from Artesia Technologies or an authorized reseller. www.artesiatech.com

PyBiz Announces Free Evaluation of XML Search & Indexing Product
12/12/2000

PyBiz announced a change of policy that makes the use of XDisect, their high-speed XML indexing and search engine free during the development phase of customer projects. PyBiz had been working with pilot customers for evaluation of its XDisect product in an enterprise environment. The December release of XDisect has been greatly improved as a result of incorporating this valuable customer feedback. XDisect now offers very high speed indexing capabilities. It also includes the ability to make incremental changes to the XML data. The new version can easily index millions of XML documents. XDisect supports index sizes of greater than 2 Gigabyte on Windows NT/2000, Solaris and Linux. It has an open XML/HTTP API to make integration to all major programming environments simple and easy. Queries against XML documents can now be done using the standard SQL Language. Since most application developers are familiar with SQL, it makes working with XDisect very rapid. The addition of a new browser based GUI environment helps programmers understand the structure and semantics of their XML data very easily. www.pybiz.com

BizTalk Server 2000 Released
12/12/2000

Microsoft Corp. announced the release to manufacturing, pricing and licensing of Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000. The latest release in the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, BizTalk Server 2000 is a comprehensive solution that unites enterprise application integration, B2B integration and BizTalk Orchestration technology to allow companies to easily build dynamic business processes that span applications and organizational boundaries. Enterprise Edition. BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is targeted at large organizations, trading hubs and digital marketplaces and has support for integrating unlimited internal applications with unlimited trading partners over the Internet. BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition will support multiple processor and clustering deployments to handle even the largest transaction volumes. The suggested retail price for BizTalk Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is $24,999 per CPU. Standard Edition. BizTalk Server 2000 Standard Edition is targeted at small and medium-sized organizations and has support for integrating up to five internal applications with up to five external trading partners, such as exchanges or digital marketplaces. Intended for small to medium-sized transaction volumes, the standard edition will not have support for multiprocessor or clustered deployments. The suggested retail price of BizTalk Server 2000 Standard Edition is $4,999 per CPU. BizTalk Server 2000 is scheduled to be generally available in January 2001. Microsoft today also published the final version of its BizTalk Framework 2.0 specification. Based on industry standards for data exchange and security such as SOAP 1.1, XML and S/MIME, the BizTalk Framework enables the secure and reliable exchange of business documents over the Internet. Development of the BizTalk Framework is overseen by the BizTalk Steering Committee, which comprises industry partners, consortiums and standards bodies. www.microsoft.com

RightWorks Launches Open Commerce Network
12/12/2000

RightWorks Corporation announced the launch of the RightWorks Open Commerce Network, an open, horizontal exchange and virtual content aggregation portal that provides centralized access to products and value-added services over the Internet. In addition, RightWorks announced functionality and scalability enhancements to the RightWorks Universal Content Manager, a secure catalog server. Both announcements are part of RightWorks' strategic supplier enablement initiative to offer "content anywhere." Powered by the RightWorks Universal Content Manager, the Open Commerce Network enables suppliers to automate and personalize catalogs at a centralized location and selectively publish them to buying organizations. The RightWorks Open Commerce Network incorporates catalog management software from Cardonet to offer suppliers a second-generation set of online self-service tools for maintaining personalized electronic catalogs, which produces cost saving by reducing infrastructure expenses. It also offers a streamlined approach for updating content across organizations; real-time views of buyer-specific pricing and terms; the ability to maintain a single catalog view while assigning multiple pricing contracts; rapid electronic catalog standardization; the ability to define complex products with an unlimited number of attributes; and an automated content cleansing and normalization process that enables fast, accurate, comprehensive item search results. The RightWorks Open Commerce Network also provides suppliers access to new sales channels. A component of the RightWorks eBusiness Application Suite, the RightWorks Universal Content Manager now features a second-generation catalog engine. The new catalog server enables organizations to maintain millions of SKUs on a single database. Because it is "stateless" and "cacheless," processing updates to the catalog content takes just minutes. The new catalog server also provides enhanced functionalities such as advanced parametric search, content standardization, flexible pricing schemes, and ability to tunnel out and in. The RightWorks eBusiness Application Suite, including the RightWorks Universal Content Manager, supports 12 local languages including English, UK English, two variations of French (Continental and French Canadian), two variations of Spanish (Continental and Latin), Portuguese, German, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Modules are priced separately and will be available in mid-December. www.rightworks.com

IntraNet Solutions Announces Xpedio 4.5 with Automatic Content Categorization
12/11/2000

IntraNet Solutions, Inc. announced the release of Xpedio 4.5, the latest version of its Xpedio Content Management system. The Xpedio 4.5 release includes enhancements to Xpedio's two primary components - Xpedio Content Server and Xpedio Content Publisher - as well as the addition of two new components, Xpedio Dynamic Converter and Xpedio Content Categorizer. Xpedio 4.5 continues to provide rapid deployment, enabling companies to have operational business Web sites up and running in days or weeks. With Xpedio Dynamic Converter, based on dynamic conversion technology from the Information Exchange Division which IntraNet Solutions acquired in July 2000, site developers have the option of converting and delivering Web content from the native source to HTML dynamically upon user request, as opposed to publishing all content to the Web site at the same time. Xpedio Content Categorizer allows content to be automatically categorized and tagged, rather than manually, when input by individuals or in a batch process, which is useful when there is a large amount of content to be entered or when the source content changes frequently. The enhanced Xpedio Content Publisher now enables users to publish content to WML standards that are specific to mobile phone microbrowsers, including Nokia and Phone.com. Xpedio 4.5 will be available in mid-December 2000. Expanded wireless support will be included in Xpedio Content Publisher, priced at $30,000 USD. Xpedio Content Categorizer will be sold as an optional module and is priced at $50,000 USD. Xpedio Dynamic Converter will also be sold as an optional module, priced at $30,000 USD. All other features will be available as part of the core Xpedio Content Server, priced at $175,000 USD. www.intranetsolutions.com

IEEE & DCMI Collaborate to Design Metadata Architecture for Web-Based Learning
12/8/2000

Representatives of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee Learning Objects Metadata (LTSC-LOM) Working Group and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding outlining the commitment to develop mutual interoperable metadata for technology-supported learning, education and training tools. The MOU signifies that a core set of specifications and accredited standards is emerging to support an interoperable infrastructure for worldwide e-learning technology. Ready access to comprehensive repositories of metadata is increasingly noted by developers of Web-enabled learning technology products as a critical factor in the next generation of learning and knowledge creation. However, to be useful, that metadata must be highly interoperable and reusable worldwide. The agreement signals a path forward for how education and training practitioners engaged in developing metadata can best support e-learning. Representatives from concurring projects sponsored by the following organizations support the joint effort between the IEEE LTSC-LOM and DCMI: ARIADNE (Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe), EdNA (Education Network Australia), GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials), and the IMS Global Learning Consortium. http://purl.org/dc/

Microsoft Offers XML-Based Protocol for Extending Business Intelligence to Web Services
12/6/2000

Microsoft Corp. announced the release of the beta specification for XML for Analysis -- a new protocol that extends the Microsoft business intelligence strategy to the Microsoft.NET vision of Web services, allowing application developers to provide analytic capabilities to any client on any device or platform using any programming language. Built on HTTP, XML and SOAP with more than 50 industry players instrumental in its development. As an extension to OLE DB for OLAP and OLE DB for Data Mining, XML for Analysis uses the Internet as the platform for building analytical applications from diverse sources of data, thus enabling developers to provide better Web services for analytic data. Corporations can now allow trading partners, customers and suppliers to access data easily and securely over the Web without worrying about client operating system, application language or middleware compatibility issues. XML for Analysis expands access to business intelligence by increasing the flexibility for developers to incorporate analytical data within applications that reside remotely on the Internet, or even those that are hosted by another company. Users can achieve a new level of pervasive data analysis because they have access to data from any client ranging from a PDA to an Internet-enabled phone, interactive TV device, laptop computer or PC. XML for Analysis is a fully compatible advancement to the OLE DB for OLAP and OLE DB for Data Mining protocols. The beta specification of XML for Analysis is now available for download at www.microsoft.com/data. A beta software development kit of XML for Analysis is planned to be available for download in early 2001, and final specification and software for XML for Analysis are scheduled to be available in the first half of 2001. www.microsoft.com

Epicentric & Documentum Align
12/6/2000

Epicentric, Inc. announced that it has entered into an alliance with Documentum, Inc. Epicentric will integrate its E-Business Network platform with the Portal Edition of Documentum's 4i eBusiness content management platform. The integration will allow joint customers of Epicentric's E-Business Network platform and Documentum's 4i Portal Edition to take advantage of Documentum's content management and collaboration capabilities within the networked business communities that were created through Epicentric. By implementing Epicentric's E-Business Network platform with Documentum's content management platform, Global 2000 companies can accelerate the delivery of up-to-date strategic information across networked business communities. Key information, such as sales data or market research, can be instantly accessed and shared with the employees, partners or customers who require the data. Epicentric's integration framework enables companies to deliver a unique, privately branded interface to each business community and users to tailor the information to meet their personal needs. www.documentum.com, www.epicentric.com

More evidence of portal and content management coming together.

Enterprise Content Management Conference Series Launched by AIIM, GCA, & Bluebill Advisors
12/5/2000

Bluebill Advisors, Inc., AIIM International, and the Graphic Communications Association (GCA) announced "Enterprise Content Management 2001" (ECM 2001), a new conference series covering all the technologies and trends related to integrating content and data into enterprise e-business applications, including: content management, corporate portals, XML, digital rights management, digital assets, rich content, syndication, content aggregation and categorization, e-catalogs, enterprise meta and metadata integration strategies, and application and information integration. The three organizations will jointly produce the new events. The first three-day conference will be held October 2-5, 2001 at the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles, CA. Today, businesses have to be able to publish content via multiple channels, including Web, wireless, kiosk, and print, but publishing is only a small part of how enterprises must manage content. Content also has to be shared with suppliers, customers, channel partners, and employees, for a wide variety of enterprise applications. ECM 2001 is the only educational event dedicated to all the application and infrastructure technologies for managing content across and between enterprises. ECM 2001 is an educational, vendor-neutral event designed specifically for e-business and IT managers responsible for developing strategies involving content management, and for project managers in charge of implementing solutions. www.aiim.org, www.bluebilladvisors.com, www.gca.org

That’s right, we are launching a new event. As you might guess, it will cover the same topics we cover in the report. See www.ecmseries.com for more info. Note that Gilbane Report subscribers will get a discount!

Documentum Introduces XML Enterprise Content Management Platform
12/5/2000

Documentum announced the release of the next generation of its 4i eBusiness Platform. The release features significant enhancements, offering complete support of XML for content management and B2B interchange, as well as full internationalization and multilingual support, automated delivery of content to multiple channels, and integration with industry-leading source code management systems. XML content management provides the basis for streamlining the content creation process by enabling content reuse and automating the generation and delivery of assembled content for multiple channels. This is achieved by adding intelligence to content earlier in the process and separating the creation and delivery processes. Content can now be re-purposed rather than re-created and intelligently transformed and customized to suit the characteristics and formats of different devices and channels (e-commerce sites, portals, PDAs, wireless devices, and online exchanges/marketsites). Full lifecycle, workflow, security, and library services enable organizations to automate their business processes, and sophisticated link management services enable the reuse of content globally. Documentum is actively involved with XML e-business standards organizations, such as OASIS, ebXML, UDDI.org, WAP Forum, and XML.org. Documentum and Arbortext also announced an extension of their partnership integrating Arbortext's Epic. www.documentum.com

Long in coming, but very welcome for a lot of their customers. We haven’t evaluated it but others have had positive impressions (e.g., our friends at Seybold).

Tibco Launches Product for Managing XML Assets
12/5/2000

TIBCO Software Inc. announced XML Canon/Developer (XCD). XCD, the first member of the XML Canon family, is a development platform that enables the life cycle management of XML-based business rules in a Web-accessible repository. XCD allows businesses to dynamically create and adapt XML-based standards that facilitate collaboration for e-business internally and with trading partners, customers and industry groups. The XML Canon product line supports the diverse requirements and various stages of XML development organizations are implementing. First to be launched is XCD for organizations developing and deploying XML infrastructure assets (e.g. XML schemas, DTDs, instance documents, stylesheets, or adjuncts.) Key Features include: managing business rules and taxonomies, web-enabled collaboration, life cycle management, extensible architecture, and full integration across TIBCO Extensibility product family: Turbo XML, XML Authority, XML Instance, and XML Console. XML Canon/Developer will run on Windows 2000, NT 4, SP6 with support for SQL 7.0 SP1 or Oracle 8i. Microsoft IE 5.0 or 5.5 is also required. TIBCO's Extensibility client interface Turbo XML is also required. To sign-up for the limited early access beta program visit: www.extensibility.com/tibco/solutions/xml_canon/, www.tibco.com

Kinecta Announces Free Application for B2B Syndication
12/4/2000

Kinecta Corporation announced plans to deliver a free content distribution tool, Kinecta Syndicator Lite. Kinecta Syndicator Lite enables organizations to set up open, dedicated channels for automating ongoing business-to-business content delivery instead of relying on manually intensive and error prone methods such as e-mail or FTP (file transfer protocol). It also avoids unscalable and inflexible click-back methods such as linking and framing. Kinecta Syndicator Lite also manages delivery of multiple content types, formats, content sources and delivery frequencies. Like Kinecta Interact, Syndicator Lite automates the distribution of any type of digital asset in a wide range of file formats, including XML, HTML, text, PDF, graphics, audio, video and streaming media. Users can download the Kinecta Syndicator Lite Java-based server application, and then authorize a limited number of partners to distribute content to. Businesses that need access to more advanced functionality and support for larger distribution networks can easily upgrade to the enterprise-class Kinecta Interact syndication platform. Kinecta Syndicator Lite is expected to be generally available on February 1, 2001 as a free download. Interested users can begin registering online today. Basic support will be provided for free along with an online community of users of ICE technology and Kinecta ICE-based products. Kinecta Syndicator Lite will also come with a "Getting Started" guide which will provide a step-by-step process to enable users to quickly get their syndication networks up and running. For easy set up, Kinecta recommends running Syndicator Lite with Windows NT and the Microsoft Access database. For experienced information professionals, Syndicator Lite can be run with Sun Solaris or Linux and a relational database, and it can be customized and extended using a free Software Development Kit. Additional services and support can be purchased online. For more information on ICE, visit www.icestandard.org, www.kinecta.com

Free is always interesting. This is a good way to learn about syndication without a big investment.

Semio Updates Interface to Content Management Solution
12/4/2000

Semio Corporation announced a new version of its content categorization solution, Semio Tagger, offering open interfaces to categorization information. Version 4.1 makes the content categorization information generated by Semio Tagger readily accessible to other programs, for easier integration with online content solutions and business portals. Semio Tagger extracts key concepts from a wide variety of document sources to build customized content categories. These categories may be integrated in a variety of online applications, including content navigation and personalization in portals. With Semio Tagger 4.1, Semio Corporation offers a comprehensive and open interface to the results obtained through its patented categorization processes. This interface will support future partnership integration efforts through published interfaces and toolkits. Semio Tagger 4.1, Semio Taxonomy Viewer 4.1 and Semio Map Viewer 4.1 are currently available from Semio Corporation, available on Sun Solaris 2.7 and above, Windows NT and Windows 2000 platforms. www.semio.com

Saqqara Introduces ContentWorks
12/4/2000

SAQQARA Systems, Inc. introduced SAQQARA ContentWorks, a new application that speeds, simplifies and automates the complicated and labor intensive task of acquiring and transforming product data from multiple sources into 'product content' - technical, marketing and business information about products that is organized and structured to drive Internet-based transactions. ContentWorks is part of the comprehensive SAQQARA solution for B2B suppliers (manufacturers, Net market makers and distributors) to help them to implement a Transformation, Management and Exchange (TME) product content strategy. TME defines the processes necessary to ensure the creation of branded and differentiated product content that allows B2B suppliers to effectively market and sell on the Internet. ContentWorks streamlines the process of creating and maintaining fully branded and differentiated product content that gives B2B buyers all the information they need to make informed buying decisions. ContentWorks allows suppliers to acquire product data from a variety of sources, including structured databases, word processing formats, flat files, HTML and XML, and transform it based on rules created by the supplier's product domain experts. The resulting product content can easily be published in an e-catalog or syndicated to trading partners in any required market taxonomy and interchange format including XML, cXML, xCBL, CIF, etc. With SAQQARA ContentWorks, B2B suppliers, especially Net market makers and distributors, can leverage their product domain expertise to simplify and automate the acquisition, cleansing, translation and classification of product data from multiple sources and in different data formats and taxonomies. SAQQARA ContentWorks is available today. www.saqqara.com

Sun Announces Availability of Java Technologies for XML
12/4/2000

Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the early access availability of two key Java technology APIs for the XML: the Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM) and the Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP). Both APIs are downloadable free of charge through Sun's Java Developer Connection at http://java.sun.com/jdc/. These two APIs, along with the Java API for XML Data Binding (JAXB), form the core of XML support in the Java 2 platform. JAXB, formerly called Project Adelard is nearing completion through the Java Community Process (JCP) program. These Java technologies for XML give developers a powerful, easy-to-use API tool set for developing and deploying Java technology-based applications that harness the synergies of the Java platform's portable code and XML's portable data. All three technologies are being developed through the JCP program, the open, community-based organization that stewards the evolution of the Java platform. JAXP, JAXM and JAXB are expected to be included in the next releases of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). The draft specification for JAXM is available through the JCP; the projected final shipping date of JAXM is early 2001, pending JCP and ebXML specification availability. Sun hopes to make the final reference implementation of JAXM available to developers through a credible open source organization, such as the Apache Software Foundation. For more information on the Apache Software Foundation's XML parser project, please visit www.xml.apache.org. The draft specification for JAXP is available through the JCP, and the projected final shipping date of JAXP is calendar Q1 2001. The draft specification for JAXB is available from JCP website as JSR 31, and pending the approval of the JAXB specification by the JCP, JAXB is expected to be shipped Q1 2001. http://sun.com

Autonomy Announces Commerce Application Builder
12/4/2000

Autonomy Corporation plc announced its new Commerce Application Builder. Autonomy Commerce Application Builder provides a flexible, scalable and fully automated infrastructure for managing and personalizing e-commerce content to enable more and higher quality transactions. Built to be integrated with leading E-Commerce transaction systems, Autonomy's Commerce Application Builder automatically aggregates, organizes, links and personalizes commercial content regardless of its format (XML, HTML), language or storage (RDBMS, Content management systems). Commerce Application Builder analyzes human-friendly information, identifies its main ideas and then automates critical operations on it. Commerce Application Builder enables sites to manage, rapidly update and maintain highly personalized content rich exchanges, e-marketplaces, and Web stores, all at lower costs. Easily integrated with many transaction systems including Cybercash, and Intershop, Commerce Application Builder also supports extended functionality to enable mobile commerce through WAP and i-Mode wireless standards as well as speech, digital TV and auctions in future releases. Commerce Application Builder includes advanced personalization features. It provides automatic user profiling, which can be utilized for automatic targeted advertising and promotions and for user defined personal shopping assistants. Autonomy Commerce Application Builder technology is available for immediate integration with Intershop's enfinity site transaction systems. Autonomy can plug-in CyberSource as the transaction back-end for Commerce Application Builder for environments that have not standardized on another transaction system. CyberSource has experience and functionality for providing real-time payment processing, fraud protection and digital product delivery. CyberSource provides secure credit card authorization, delivery address verification and Internet fraud screen enhanced by VISA. Commerce Application Builder is available for Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000, LINUX, Sun Solaris and most versions of UNIX. www.autonomy.com

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