Content Management, XML, and Information Technology News | Gilbane Report News archives 1999

Charles F. Goldfarb, author of The XML Handbook, announced the launch of www.xmltimes.com, an Internet site for news and educational resources on XML, the language of e-business. The site features up-to-the-minute XML news-feeds from the Web's leading news agencies, with background and tutorial articles contributed by the authors of Prentice-Hall's XML Series from Charles F. Goldfarb. The XMLTimes.com Web site serves technical and non-technical readers with XML news, interpretive assistance, and a discussion community. www.xmltimes.com

Congratulations Charles!

Sequoia Integrates 3 "Populist" Apps with XML Portal Server
3/20/2000

Sequoia Software Corporation announced agreements with OfficeMax.com, biztravel.com, and 401Kafe for integrating their Web-based services with Sequoia's XML Portal Server (XPS). Collectively, OfficeMax.com's office products and services, biztravel.com's full-service online travel capabilities, and 401Kafe's online benefits planning information fall into the category of "populist applications" because they are useful to the broadest range of corporate users. By integrating these online applications within XPS, Sequoia is ensuring its customers' employees will be more enthusiastic about adopting the portal as their primary point of interaction with corporate content. This in turn will drive overall use of the portal, increasing the return on the corporate investment. Sequoia has signed a letter of intent with biztravel.com to integrate the biztravel.com service with XPS. The relationship is intended to give XPS end users immediate access to tools for planning, booking and managing travel arrangements. Based on an agreement with mPower, the parent company of 401Kafe.com, Sequoia will offer its customers integrated access to the 401Kafe site as a content component of XPS. 401Kafe is a community resource for 401(k) participants, providing news, articles, FAQs and discussion forums designed to enhance an individual's ability to grow the value of their 401(k) investments. www.biztravel.com, www.OfficeMax.com, www.sequoiasoftware.com, www.401kafe.com

I think it was Forrester that made the "populist" application requirement popular, although others (like Mike Maziarka) suggested it as a characteristic of corporate portals some time ago. Either way it is a good idea. Adding too many to any single portal site however would not be a good idea.

SoftWired Announces OEM Deal with Xerox
3/20/2000

SoftWired's iBus messaging technology will power Xerox Corporation's wireless-based product, MobileDoc. Xerox's software application was designed specifically to allow people to fax and e-mail documents of various size, remotely, from any mobile device including cell-phones, personal digital assistants, and pagers. MobileDoc will initially support Motorola's PageWriter 2000X and TimePort P930 interactive devices, and the Nokia 9110 Communicator. By integrating iBus/MessageBus with technology developed at the Xerox Research Centre in Cambridge, U.K., MobileDoc allows people to browse through large document libraries via wireless devices. Documents can be sent to any fax or e-mail in the world. Professionals can easily send up-to-the minute contracts, pricing proposals or any other document to customers and clients within minutes. The iBus is deployable as part of every inter-networked Java device from wireless PDA's, pagers and mobile phones to personal computers, delivering information in real time and with reliable multicast. www.xerox.com, www.SoftWired-inc.com

Birdstep Announces XML Database for Mobile Devices
3/20/2000

Birdstep Technology AS, an international vendor and developer of Ultra Small Footprint database technology, announced a unique solution to an increasing problem faced by the growing mobile computing industry. The Birdstep solution is a database that supports XML to increase processing power and storage capacity on handheld devices. An example is an XML-database of a 42,000 word Norwegian-English dictionary implemented on a PDA running Windows CE. The Birdstep database requires only 12MB of space to handle the dictionary, while traditional database systems supporting XML may need up to three times as much space. Birdstep's patented atomisation techniques store and manipulate the XML-structures within the actual database. This technology differs from most vendors that provide relational or flat file databases that are not able to provide multilevel XML support. Birdstep's technology allows for native XML representation within the physical database itself. As such, Birdstep's support for XML becomes an integrated part of the handheld's database system, versus approaches that only provide an XML-layer on top of the flat file or relational technology. In addition, Birdstep technology keeps the whole XML-structure - or tree - persistently across disk and memory, a detail of importance when manipulating large and complex XML-documents. www.birdstep.com

I think we've asked this before, but we are still interested in other companies building this kind of technology. Send us an email if you know of any.

Netscape Announces Gecko Adoptees, XUL, & Netscape 6
3/20/2000

Netscape Communications announced that Netscape Gecko will be used by IBM, Intel, Liberate, NetObjects, Nokia, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. These companies will use the cross-platform Netscape Gecko browser engine to extend the Web from the traditional desktop computer to a wide range of Internet devices such as set-top boxes and browsing appliances. Designed to power Internet devices across many platforms and devices, Gecko is a key component of the "AOL Anywhere" strategy. In another announcement, Netscape also said that Netscape 6, its new Gecko-driven Internet browser would be available to the public within the next 25 days. Netscape also announced the availability of XUL (pronounced "zool"), the XML based User interface Language, a new XML application that makes it easy to develop a cross-platform user interface. XUL, the XML-based User Interface Language, uses XML to describe the features, objects, and layout of a traditional desktop application user interface. XUL lays out the user interface elements across all platforms by using these common Web standards: HTML, XML, CSS, the W3C DOM, and JavaScript. http://home.netscape.com/browsers/gecko/whitepaper.pdf, http://home.netscape.com

Cool. The model is appealing and we wish them luck, but we have to say we had almost forgotten about them.

ICAP Forum Completes Draft with Plans to Submit to IETF
3/20/2000

The ICAP Forum of Internet companies today announced the completion of the first draft of a protocol aimed at enabling Internet e-services. The new protocol, Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP), leverages the Internet's infrastructure and increases the intelligence and flexibility of networks. ICAP will be submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) Web Replication and Caching (WREC) working group as an Internet draft at the next WREC meeting. The proposed standard allows enterprises, content providers and ISPs to seamlessly conduct e-services such as Web page reformatting, targeted Web advertising, virus scanning, content filtering, data compression and language translation from any Internet access device. The ICAP Forum is hosted by Akamai Technologies and Network Appliance, and is joined by content delivery service providers, application developers, and Internet infrastructure companies. Forum members participating in the development of ICAP include: AdForce, Advertising.com, Allaire Corporation, Anystream, Appliant, Inc., BroadVision, Capella, Cidera, Cobalt Networks, Compaq, Direct Hit, DoubleClick, eBuilt, Ecliptic, eColor, Engage, Entera, Finjan Software, Fresher Information, Frictionless Commerce, Gomez, Google, Idiom, Idini, iKnowledge, InfoLibria, Ingeniux, iWeb.com, Izar, Kanda Software, Lionbridge Technologies, Mirror Image Internet, Navisite, Network Associates, Novell, N2H2, Oki, Open Market, Optibase, Oracle Corp., Pandesic, Predictive Networks, PictureWorks, RuleSpace, Secure Computing, SightPath, StarBurst Software, Symantec Corp., Trend Micro, Inc., Vignette Corporation, Websense, and WWWhoosh. Instructions on how to participate in development of the protocol are available at www.i-cap.org. With the first version of ICAP now complete, the Internet community is invited to prototype e-services offerings using ICAP and provide feedback on the protocol at comments@i-cap.org. Central to the ICAP concept is a simple, yet powerful, open protocol that enables communication between edge content devices (i.e. Web caches and Internet content delivery servers), and application servers that modify content and then deliver it to Internet access devices. For example, when a Web cache receives a request from a cell phone browser, the cache will deliver the requested content to an application server that adapts the content for display on the cell phone. The cache serves the page, and caches it for subsequent cell phone browsers. This allows a very high degree of flexibility on the types of services that can be offered at access points while maintaining the high performance and integrity of the access servers. www.i-cap.org

We don't know anything about this so can't comment on it. However if all the consortium members actually are actively involved it should be checked-out.

Bowstreet Announces Business Web Exchange & Web Factory 2.0
3/16/2000

Bowstreet announced the Bowstreet Business Web Exchange, an open Internet community where companies can find, acquire and customize other companies' "web services" from the Exchange, as well as publish web services to it to build their businesses. Bowstreet is replacing the traditional model of building custom B2B applications - coding line by line with a simpler approach. Line-of-business managers will visit the Exchange to find, obtain, exchange and publish web services, which are complete business processes wrapped in XML. Without technical help, managers will snap these web services into their B2B web systems to automate the creation of dynamic and customized business webs, or B2B web marketplaces. Business managers can blend and customize the web services they acquire, then deploy them in unique combinations to customers, partners and suppliers. Each web service contains all of the publisher's terms of use, allowing companies to expand their market reach and commercial horsepower without in-depth negotiations. As a result, companies can scale their business relationships as quickly as they can conceive of new business models and mutually beneficial relationships. With XML-based web services, companies can now instantly connect their back-end systems with partners' systems, automating their business processes over the Internet without IT help. In addition to creating custom web pages, web services can send output such as stock prices, catalog data or custom flight information to pagers, wireless phones and computer systems. Each web service will contain all the instructions, code, documentation, templates and usage examples a web service consumer needs. Bowstreet also announced Business Web Factory 2.0. A special, free Marketplace Edition of the Bowstreet Business Web Factory will be available on the Bowstreet Business Web Exchange to get companies started publishing, obtaining and deploying web services at no cost. www.bowstreet.com

ebXML Initiative Releases Technical Specs for Comment
3/15/2000

The first ebXML Initiative Technical Specifications have been released for public comment. The ebXML Requirements Specification is available for download from the ebXML web site at www.ebxml.org. This ebXML Requirements Specification represents the work of the ebXML Requirements Project Team. It defines ebXML and the ebXML effort, articulates overall business requirements for ebXML, and defines specific technical infrastructure requirements that will be addressed by the various ebXML Project Teams in preparing their deliverables. The document includes general guiding principles for the development of other ebXML Technical Specifications. Major requirements are identified in the specification. The specification is available for the full ebXML Work Group and all interested parties in the general public. Comments should be emailed as plain text in the body of the mail message or as an attachment to Mike Rawlins, ebXML Requirements Project Team Leader at rawlins@metronet.com or Mark Crawford, ebXML Requirements Project Team Editor at mcrawfor@mail.lmi.org. The review period closes 27 March 2000. The specification will undergo a second cycle of revision and review prior to the expected final approval. The ebXML vision is to create a single global XML framework solution. It is a joint effort of the United Nation/CEFACT organization and OASIS. Participants represent 14 countries, 83 companies, government agencies and several national and international standards organizations. More than 500 people around the world participate via Internet mailing lists. Following the public comment period, the final Requirements Specifications will be approved by the full ebXML Plenary during its meeting in Brussels 8-12 May 2000. Full details about the ebXML Initiative, its project teams and meetings is at www.ebxml.org, www.uncefact.org, www.oasis-open.org

Update Companion Enables Content Contribution to Web Sites
3/15/2000

Companion B.V. released an update of their main product Companion 2.0. The main new feature in this update is the add-on Companion Publisher which can be installed separately on the machines of content contributors. Companion 2.0 and Companion Publisher provide a comprehensive environment for database publications without the need for a specific and expensive application server. Companion makes it possible to create pre-generated database-driven web sites. Companion provides three Database Query Wizards and several specialized Companion tags to include database content in static pages, e.g. one specific field, a list of fields, all records, or a selection based on an SQL query. Companion facilitates content publication from ODBC and Access databases. For publication Companion retrieves the specified content from the database(s) and inserts it into the files that are uploaded to the web server. Companion Publisher enables content contributors to publish new database content, for instance new press releases or new product information, without the help of the web developer. Web developers control which templates are shown in Companion Publisher. A simple user interface allows the content contributor to start and stop the publication of templates. By choosing a Project Profile the author can choose to publish to a test location before the final release. Companion 2.0 is geared at professional, technically skilled users and early adopters. Companion 2.0 departs from the current paradigm in web development of editing source files directly -- Companion introduces a separate layer, enabling a component-based approach of script management. The following prices are applicable: Single user license: $199 (introductory price, normal price $349); Five user license: $945 (normal price $1675); Ten user license: $1875 (normal price $2975). www.companion.nl

Sounds interesting. There will be an increasing amount of software coming out of Europe. There were a record number of French startups exhibiting at Documation France a couple of weeks ago, and there is a lot of German activity as well.

IBM Announces Content Manager
3/14/2000

IBM unveiled the IBM Content Manager, an offering that helps companies manage the exploding amount of digital information now facing organizations in the e-business world. Content Manager offers a complete, integrated portfolio for database management, content management and business intelligence. IBM Content Manager helps companies make the most of their information, no matter the form. IBM Content Manager leverages IBM's experience in rich media and document management technologies. It enables corporations to electronically manage, protect and share critical business information, in any format, including XML and HTML. Images, audio and video, computer generated output and business documents can now be securely shared electronically - a crucial step in the e-business transformation. Additionally, it can search across a variety of content and data repositories such as production imaging, computer-generated output, document management and multimedia repositories, delivering a unified search result. The IBM Content Manager, when combined with the recently announced IBM Enterprise Information Portal, provides a single point of access and integration for IBM and non-IBM data and content stores helping customers truly leverage the vast amounts of information across their business. IBM Content Manager is currently available shipping with support for IBM AIX and Microsoft Windows NT platforms. Pricing starts at $15,000 per workstation server and $2,000 per concurrent user. www.ibm.com/software/data/cm

Xerox Brazil Partners with InterTech
3/14/2000

Xerox Brazil has partnered with InterTech Information Management Inc. to bundle InterTech's DocuPACT software with their current scanner technology. InterTech is a software and application service provider for electronic document management and workflow solutions that enable document-centric commerce over the web. In addition to having their own document management software, DocuShare, Xerox Brazil has also chosen to integrate DocuPACT with their Document Centre-230 hardware--a scanner/copier/printer rolled into one. Xerox is also selling this solution to the banking market and plans to develop human resources and accounts payable applications to be bundled with DocuPACT/DC-230. www.intertech.com, www.xerox.com.br

fourthchannel Expands XML Support; Integrates with OnDisplay's XMLConnect
3/13/2000

ASP fourthchannel announced its support of XML business documents as a means of exchanging data with other applications and technologies. fourthchannel customers can now leverage XML to integrate their Internet commerce solution with their back-office applications, and those of their partners; XML connectivity also increases the product's attractiveness for licensing to OEM distribution partners. fourthchannel also announced its integration with XML Connect, a new product from OnDisplay Inc. that enables the secure and reliable exchange of XML business documents. www.fourthchannel.com, www.ondisplay.com

Arbortext Announces Support for XHTML 1.0
3/13/2000

Arbortext, Inc. announced their product support of the W3C's Recommendation for XHTML 1.0. Available in Arbortext software products, this support provides customers a way to reformulate HTML 4 as XML. XHTML 1.0, a W3C Recommendation, allows authors to create Web documents that can be processed by XML-enabled software while still working with current HTML browsers. With XHTML 1.0, XML's promise of being able to mix and match known HTML 4 elements with elements from other XML languages is extended to more application domains including wireless devices and eBooks. Available immediately, XHTML support can be downloaded from www.arbortext.com. All Arbortext customers are eligible to receive this at no charge as an update from the Arbortext Support Web site. Adept version 8.0 and above and all versions of Epic support this update. www.arbortext.com

Adobe Announces New Versions of FrameMaker & FrameMaker + SGML
3/13/2000

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced new versions of Adobe FrameMaker and FrameMaker + SGML software. New features offered in the FrameMaker 6.0 applications include enhanced web support and improved book management capabilities. Sophisticated XML output functionality and integration with Adobe Acrobat and AdobeGoLive provides a complete print-to-web, multichannel publishing solution. Multichannel publishing allows FrameMaker users to publish content to a variety of mediums-web, CD-ROM, print-utilizing leading technologies such as XML, HTML and PDF. FrameMaker 6.0 + SGML offers the same functionality as FrameMaker 6.0 with additional support for SGML, a required format for documentation in some industries. Along with FrameMaker 6.0, Adobe offers FrameViewer 6.0 software, an online viewer for electronic FrameMaker documents. In FrameViewer, the cross-references, indexes, and tables of contents that were created in FrameMaker automatically become hypertext links making document navigation easier. Users of FrameViewer can also add annotations to documents which can even be marked "public" or "private." Using Adobe GoLive software, and most other HTML editors, documentation specialists can generate cascading style sheets to create a consistent look and feel across all media, including paper or the web. With integration into Adobe Acrobat 4.0.5, FrameMaker 6.0 provides support for export to Adobe PDF. Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 software for Windows 98 and WindowsNT 4.0, Macintosh 8.5, 8.6 or 9.x, and Unix are expected to be available in Spring 2000 in the U.S. and Canada. French, German and Japanese versions are expected to be available shortly after the U.S. and International English versions. The U.S. version of FrameMaker 6.0 is expected to sell at an estimated street price of U.S. $799 for Mac and Windows platforms, and $1,329 for the UNIX personal version. The U.S. version of FrameMaker 6.0 + SGML is expected to sell at an estimated street price of U.S. $1,449 for Mac and Windows and UNIX personal version. The U.S. version of FrameViewer is expected to sell at an estimated street price of U.S. $49. FrameMaker will be available through adobe.com and Adobe's standard distribution channels. www.adobe.com/products/framemaker

Jacada Supports WAP & Palm Wireless Devices
3/13/2000

Jacada Ltd. announced Jacada Wireless, a suite of solutions enabling wireless devices to quickly and easily integrate with existing applications. Jacada provides a complete software infrastructure to rapidly transform business critical systems into e-business solutions and to empower enterprise developers to build Internet applications. Jacada Wireless supports any WAP enabled device such as mobile phones, as well as PDAs such as the Palm VII. The newest addition to the Jacada product family bridges the gap between a company's mobile employees, partners and customers with its core enterprise applications. Using Jacada Wireless, any mainframe or AS/400 application can be delivered to WAP-enabled or Palm devices providing mobile users controlled access to valuable business applications and data. Jacada Wireless allows organizations to leverage existing business logic and data without requiring modifications to, or any special knowledge of, existing application code or data structures. Jacada Wireless automatically produces wireless markup language (WML) and HTML code that is interpreted by the wireless device. Jacada Wireless is based on the same e-business infrastructure software that supports Jacada's current offerings including Jacada for Java, Jacada for HTML and Jacada Connects. www.jacada.com

NCompass Labs Launches Resolution 3.0
3/13/2000

NCompass Labs announced the launch of NCompass Resolution 3.0, the out-of-the-box, Microsoft-centric Web content management solution that integrates site design, content authoring, publishing and site management. Resolution 3.0 extends the capabilities of version 2.1 to speed deployment and simplify distributed content management for worldwide e-business applications. The new release's highly visual browser-based authoring empowers non-technical users to create, manage, publish, and archive rich content while the open, object-oriented API permits rapid customization and integration of Resolution's Web content management capabilities. Resolution 3.0 is designed to integrate with an organization's existing infrastructure and allow content owners to be fully engaged in Web and e-business initiatives. Its new Web Client eliminates the installation and maintenance of desktop authoring software while allowing non-technical authors to use their browser interface and common desktop applications, such as Microsoft Word, to create Web content. Support for all of the world's major languages and time zone synchronization permit authors around the world to easily contribute up-to-date content regardless of their geographic location. The Resolution 3.0 Publishing API permits ready customization of the authoring interface and supports personalized, on-the-fly delivery of audience- appropriate content. New page version archiving and audit trail features permit rapid review of all site changes. Resolution 3.0 will be generally available March 31. www.ncompasslabs.com

X12 Cozies-Up to XML
3/9/2000

The Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 is accelerating its processes, expanding its reach to include XML and object oriented electronic data interchange (OO-EDI) and collaborating with related standards development initiatives. ASC X12's collaborative efforts with e-commerce organizations will help support the requirements of a broad base of users by bringing together the EDI foundation with XML development. To accomplish these objectives, the committee focused at its recent ASC X12 meeting on refining the goals of the newly created XML Task Group, which is charged with providing X12 input into complementary XML initiatives. This group covers the breadth of XML technical work and facilitates a forum for industry experts to address similar initiatives. In a parallel move, the X12 Committee actively participates in and formally endorses the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative, which is working to provide an open XML-based infrastructure enabling the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all involved parties. ASC X12 will pursue its XML development efforts within the framework being defined by ebXML. Furthermore, the committee encourages XML education and the development of emerging business requirements. By offering its expertise on "Procurement Using a Purchasing Card as Payment Method," the committee completed work on the OO-EDI standards pilot project, demonstrating a next generation of EDI utilizing unified modeling language methodology. The committee will continue to research and develop core components for plug-and-play solutions that utilize OO-EDI, XML, and other emerging syntaxes. www.x12.org

As we have argued before, this direction is inevitable. However it is good to see it acknowledged by X12. Standards groups sometimes bury their heads in the sand.

Vendors Join Pacific Edge To Define Project Management XML Schema
3/9/2000

Pacific Edge Software Inc. announced that eProject.com, Great Plains, Onyx Software, PlanView, Primavera Systems and Welcom have joined Pacific Edge Software to define the XML schema for project management. The flexible, business-to-business schema will enable intelligent project data exchange between an organization's information systems. The coalition of collaboration technology, e-business solutions, CRM, project management, workforce management and PKM companies will work together to forge an open industry standard by making modifications, extensions and enhancements to Pacific Edge Software's XML schema for project management. eProject.com, Great Plains, Onyx Software, PlanView, Primavera Systems and Welcom will work with Pacific Edge Software to update the Project Management XML schema on a regular basis. The schema and its source can be viewed at www.biztalk.org and www.pacificedge.com/xml

If the Workflow Management Coalition is still active they should get involved in projects like this.

PageFlex Signs License with HP for Mpower
3/9/2000

Pageflex, Inc., a subsidiary of Bitstream, announced that it has entered into a worldwide license agreement with Hewlett Packard Company. Under the agreement, HP will license Mpower, Pageflex's XML-based marketing on demand solution. Pageflex Mpower gives enterprise organizations the ability, from a Web browser, to design and produce customized marketing communications on demand. Mpower enables them to transcend the limitations of "one size fits all" communications by tailoring messages to an audience, whether that's a group or a single individual. Mpower incorporates Pageflex's NuDoc XML page layout engine to generate print output documents on-the-fly. www.pageflexinc.com

Interface Systems Adds Wireless Support to L2i
3/9/2000

Interface Systems announced that its L2i products will support WAP via WML (Wireless Markup Language) and HDML (Handheld Device Markup Language). The Company said its MyCopy software will be the first L2i application to take advantage of the emerging wireless technology, which will enable brokerage firms to deliver information contained in confirms, margin calls and other documents to their clients via wireless devices. Interface Systems, Inc.'s Legacy-to-Internet (L2i) technology allows any Internet application to access and make full use of information stored on legacy systems. The company specializes in Internet bill presentment and payment, as well as electronic delivery of statements and other legacy content to the Internet, fax, email, and other destinations. Interface helps its customers extend the life, the reach, and the value of their existing information systems. www.intface.com

Data Junction to Distribute XML Junction Free
3/8/2000

Data Junction Corporation announced general availability of XML Junction. This major new release enables e-Commerce and Business Integration professionals to XML-enable virtually any application or data source for a full range of e-Commerce integration, application integration and B2B data exchange projects. The product features automated creation of DTDs and XML documents as well as myriad data-mapping and data- manipulation capabilities. XML Junction is available only as a download at www.xmljunction.net, and is free to download until July 31, 2000. The product contains online documentation and tutorials. Once this promotion has ended, XML Junction will sell for $895. XML Junction leverages Data Junction's drag-and-drop interface and integration engine to rapidly map and transform more than 100 application and data formats to XML. DTDs and XML documents are automatically created with point-and-click ease, allowing data stored in any format (EDI, XML, SQL, Cobol, HL7, SAP, etc.) to be published to the web or exchanged with any external application -- even data stored in complex hierarchical structures. Furthermore, data stored in XML documents and traditional applications can be manipulated to ensure compliance with any standard, such as those utilized by BizTalk, Schema.net, Ariba's Commerce XML and Financial Products Markup Language (FpML), as well as non-XML business-to-business standards such as Open Buying on the Internet (OBI) and RosettaNet. www.datajunction.com