News For May, 2000

SyncML, the initiative founded by mobile technology industry companies Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Motorola, Nokia, Psion, Palm, Inc. and Starfish Software, has released its first specification and reference toolkit. Delivered months ahead of schedule, the Specifications and Reference Toolkit source code are available in the Supporter area of the SyncML Website located at www.syncml.org. With the immediate availability of the first set of released SyncML specifications and development code, Supporters can deliver feedback directly to the SyncML initiative and start product development work. Bringing SyncML-based products one step closer to the public, the specifications include a full description of the XML based SyncML format, and a first look at the SyncML synchronization protocol. The toolkit will also include information on using SyncML over HTTP, WAP and OBEX. Since the announcement of its formation in February 2000, nearly 200 companies have announced their support for SyncML. The goals of the initiative are to develop a universal synchronization standard for the mobile computing industry. SyncML compliant products will be able to exchange information seamlessly across a wide range of operating platforms and communications technologies. Supporters of the initiative now include the founding eight companies and organizations such as Symbian, Excite@Home, PUMATECH, fusionOne, Xircom, and BT Cellnet. A complete list of the Supporters can be found on the Website. www.syncml.org

Newmarket's Meetingbroker.Com Delivers XML Schema for Biztalk Framework
5/31/2000

Newmarket International, Inc. announced the submission of a complete, end-to-end XML schema for MeetingBroker.com, its new Web-based service that facilitates the open exchange of sales information among meeting planners, site selection or e-RFP sites, hotels, and destinations. The schema will work with the BizTalk Framework, an e-commerce framework that provides a set of implementation guidelines that facilitate open integration using Internet standards. MeetingBroker.com translates leads sent from e-RFP sites and deposits them directly into sales automation applications installed at individual hotels and destinations. MeetingBroker.com employs an open bi-directional architecture based on XML. In 1999, the HITIS (Hospitality Industry Technology Integration Standards) Advisory Committee and the OTA (OpenTravel Alliance) endorsed XML as the primary standard for platform mapping. The MeetingBroker.com schema utilizes XML and is available on the BizTalk web site at: www.biztalk.org, www.newsoft.com

Lutris Announces Professional Version of Enhydra Java/XML Open Source Application Server
5/30/2000

Lutris Technologies, Inc. announced Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0, the latest Lutris-certified and supported version of the Open Source Enhydra Java/XML application server. The product includes an integrated suite of development and deployment tools for consultants, system integrators and corporate IT departments building Internet and wireless applications. Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0 is the latest addition to the Lutris product family, which includes Lutris Enhydra Standard currently available from Lutris, and Lutris Enhydra Enterprise scheduled for release in the fall. The professional version includes an integrated suite of tools that speed overall development and deployment of Enhydra applications, enhanced support for development of wireless applications, comprehensive documentation, and additional customer support. Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0 supports wireless development with the inclusion of a wireless development tutorial, and a wireless development kit that includes versions of the YoSpace WML browser--an all Java Nokia phone emulator, and the WAPtor WML editor. Using these tools, developers can build applications that transparently support varied devices such as PCs, phones, PDAs, and kiosks. Integrated development and deployment technologies include InstantDB, Inprise's JBuilder Foundation 3.5, and PostgresSQL 6.5.3. InstantDB, an Open Source all Java relational database provides developers with the convenience of an easy to install, standards-based development database. The comprehensive set of award-winning development tools in JBuilder Foundation 3.5 offer developers an integrated environment from which to develop their entire application. Forte for Java Community Edition 1.0 from Sun is also included on the product CD. Pricing for Lutris Enhydra Professional 3.0 has not yet been announced. The product is scheduled for release next month. www.lutris.com

Quadralay Announces WebWorks Publisher Professional 6.0
5/30/2000

Quadralay Corporation announced the general availability of WebWorks Publisher Professional Edition 6.0. WebWorks Publisher Professional automates the conversion of FrameMaker documents for online delivery. WebWorks Publisher Professional, an upgrade to Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher 2000 product, adds support for XML and XHTML. It also introduces WebWorks Help 2.0, a fully-XML-based online help system. WebWorks Publisher Professional provides a set of simple-to-use functions for mapping FrameMaker documents and converting their content and graphics into a selection of online delivery formats. WebWorks Publisher Professional creates online output that is immediately usable, with no editing or post-processing required. WebWorks Publisher Professional also provides comprehensive template creation, re-purposing and customization capabilities. WebWorks Publisher Professional scales to accommodate any size of enterprise online publishing project. Its collapsible tree views now afford project management and structural flexibility because they provide the ability to manage any number and size of books within the scope of a single project. In addition, they allow enterprise-wide projects that blend FrameMaker-based documents with other formats such as Microsoft Word, and other publishing tools such as Robohelp. WebWorks Publisher Professional is priced at $995 for Windows platforms and $1,295 for UNIX platforms. Pricing for shared UNIX systems and international versions and for upgrading from WebWorks Publisher 2000 or WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition, a version shipped with Adobe FrameMaker 6.0, is available from Quadralay. Quadralay also offers a full set of training, consulting, technical support and template customization services. www.webworks.com

Arbortext Announces Launch of Newest E-Content Software
5/30/2000

Arbortext, Inc. announced the launch of Epic 4.0. Principal among Epic's enhancements is the introduction Epic E-Content Engine (E3), a server-side system that enables e-businesses to attract and retain more customers by providing more personalized, dynamic and easily searchable content for improved pre-sale and post-sale interactions. In addition, Epic 4.0 adds compatibility with Oracle 8iFS to the list of repositories that Arbortext supports. E3 forms the centerpiece of a Web-based system to assemble, process and personalize business-critical content for delivery to the Web, print, wireless devices and other media. Running under a Web server, E3 offers powerful content processing capabilities that can be triggered through commands sent over the Web. Developers can write processing routines in a choice of several programming and scripting languages including C, C++, Java, TCL and Perl. Developers gain access to E3's capabilities through its support for the Web-standard Document Object Model (DOM) Application Programming Interface (API). E3 can convert Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker and Interleaf content to XML through the Epic Interchange option. In addition, E3 can capture XML from Web forms with the Forms Engine option. E3 is capable of transforming XML for many different purposes, including HTML for Web browsers, WML for cellular phones, Open Electronic Book (OEB) for eBooks, PostScript and PDF. Through stylesheets based on XSL E3 adapts content to the capabilities and limitations of each device. For example, customers can control the size and font of text, the amount of text that fits in a single page, and the format of an automatically generated table of contents. Available as a new standard feature of Epic Architect, graphical DTD development for XML DTDs is the starting point for quick development of a DTD. This feature, along with Arbortext's free form editing, enables rapid prototyping and helps reduce development time substantially compared to traditional DTD development. Epic 4.0 adds DOM Level 2 core support to existing DOM Level 1 support along with Range interface. Epic Editor, Epic Editor LE and E3 may be programmed using C, C++, Java, Perl, TCL and Arbortext Command Language (ACL). Epic Editor's "Tag Alias" feature lets customer present alternate tag names to authors, which allows authors working in different language to create content based on the same DTD. With this release, all versions of Arbortext software support 16-bit Unicode. Epic 4.0 will ship in July 2000. All Arbortext customers on maintenance are eligible to receive the Epic 4.0 upgrade at no charge. www.arbortext.com

IBM Posts XML Messaging & Intelligent Agent Technologies on alphaWorks
5/24/2000

IBM alphaWorks has posted two new Java tools in XML messaging and intelligent software for developer feedback -- SOAP for Java Q and ABLE -- as part of IBM's ongoing efforts to promote open standards on the Internet. SOAP for Java Q XML-based messaging technology has better synergy with other Internet standards than its predecessor. ABLE provides a framework and graphical editor for constructing intelligent software agents in Java. The SOAP specification defines a simple, Internet-friendly way of using XML to send messages and to access services. SOAP is important to e-business because it provides a flexible, natural way of building applications of which pieces are distributed across networks. With XML and SOAP, each business can choose its own internal implementation technology, such as Enterprise JavaBeans, Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM), or traditional languages such as COBOL. In addition to HTTP, SOAP services can now be accessed through a variety of message transports. For example, bindings could be defined to IBM's MQseries, or to electronic mail messages (SMTP). SOAP data representations and structures have been aligned with the proposed W3C XML Schema language, and it is now possible to apply those encodings in a much broader range of message patterns (e.g., streaming, one-way, multicast, etc). Using SOAP, any business can access a service, such as a parts catalog, or send a purchase order, to or from any other business. SOAP makes it easy to bind to the programming language or object system of the developer's choice. SOAP's built-in support for Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) also makes it easy to invoke methods on remote objects, using XML and HTTP, so developers can use SOAP to create distributed systems within their own organizations. This posting on alphaWorks is in Java, and is designed to work well with Websphere and other servlet-based systems. IBM and Tivoli's ABLE is an agent construction toolkit based on the JavaBean architecture. Targeted to the needs of Java application developers, academicians and researchers working on intelligent agent software, ABLE provides an extendable library of JavaBean software components, called AbleBeans, that includes inferencing and learning algorithms. ABLE's graphical Agent Editor allows users to quickly construct and test intelligent agents. The library of reusable AbleBeans provides forward and backward chaining inferencing, fuzzy reasoning, genetic search algorithms, and neural network learning capabilities. Application developers can focus on the unique requirements of their application and use the intelligent AbleBean components to create solutions. ABLE is designed to allow Java application developers to easily construct hybrid intelligent agents out of IBM and third-party software components. ABLE provides a flexible mechanism for integrating software agents with Java client and web applications. www.alphaWorks.ibm.com

SOAP seems to be gaining momentum. It was rela-tively uncontroversial when first announced, and now all kinds of vendors, including Microsoft, are anxious to talk about their contribution to it.

Poet Announces Major Upgrade to eCatalog Suite
5/23/2000

POET Software announced a third major release of its popular B2B eCatalog management solution. Targeted specifically for the emerging class of eSuppliers, POET eCatalog Suite Supplier Resident Edition is a comprehensive supply-side solution for creating, managing, and distributing custom eCatalogs to customers, eProcurement networks and eMarketplaces. The release of POET eCatalog Suite Supplier Resident Edition expands catalog management with a browser based interface for online access by buyers to manage their eCatalog requirements, an expanded schema for multi-supplier aggregation, and complete scheduling capabilities across POET eCS' range of functions. For suppliers using SAP's R/3, tailored data extraction has also been added. POET eCS supports all major eCatalog exchange formats as well as data export to websites and print catalog applications. Using POET eCS, suppliers import content to a central eCS data repository, or "master catalog" of products. Buyer profiles store each recipient's preferred catalog content, contract pricing, and preferred commodity codification system, which are customized to reflect the supplier's specific attribute, media, and industry requirements. A powerful transformation engine creates custom eCatalogs in all major catalog formats, including xCBL, cXML, and BME-CAT. For other XML and flat file formats, the Catalog Developer's Kit (CDK) facilitates rapid creation, customization and deployment to ensure all customer requirements are met. With POET eCS, each eCatalog is customized for the user, destination, and protocol. POET eCS Supplier Resident Edition will be available in mid- June with pricing starting at $60,000. www.poet.com

webMethods to Acquire Active Software
5/22/2000

webMethods, Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Active Software, Inc. in an all-stock transaction. This acquisition brings together two vendors whose software solutions address the integration requirements of global companies and industry trading exchanges, both within the enterprise and across B2B trading networks. The companies expect that the transaction will close during the third quarter of 2000, pending completion of customary closing conditions and receipt of Active Software and webMethods stockholder and required government approvals. Under the terms of the agreement, Active Software's stockholders will receive 0.527 of a share of webMethods common stock in exchange for each share of Active Software common stock. The transaction, valued at approximately $1.3 billion based upon the Friday, May 19, 2000 closing price of webMethods common stock, is expected to be accounted for as a pooling-of-interests. Approximately 13.6 million shares of webMethods stock will be exchanged for all outstanding shares of Active Software. webMethods was advised by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Active Software was advised by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Thomas Weisel Partners. Until now, companies have been forced to adopt separate solutions for uniting internal business processes, and then sharing and integrating these processes with external trading partners, either directly or via B2B marketplaces and trading exchanges. Upon completion of the acquisition, Active Software's products and operations will be combined with webMethods. Phillip Merrick will continue in his role as president, CEO and chairman of webMethods, with Jim Green, Active Software's CEO, joining the team in the role of CTO and executive vice president, product development. Green will also join the webMethods Board of Directors. Other members of the Active Software management team will join the webMethods management team. Active Software's Santa Clara, Calif. offices will become the West Coast headquarters of webMethods. The combined companies will have nearly 600 employees worldwide. www.webmethods.com, www.activesw.com

Vignette to Acquire onDisplay
5/22/2000

Vignette Corporation and OnDisplay, Inc. announced that they have signed a definitive merger agreement under which Vignette will issue 1.58 shares of its stock for each outstanding share of OnDisplay. The combination of Vignette's V/5 suite and OnDisplay's XML-based business-to-business infrastructure products will create a comprehensive offering for companies building businesses online. OnDisplay's B2B infrastructure products enable organizations to integrate more closely with their customers, suppliers and business partners through the real-time exchange of information and transactions. OnDisplay's XML technology allows critical business information -- such as purchase orders, inventory status checks, invoices and product catalog data -- to be integrated, aggregated and exchanged between multiple suppliers and distribution partners quickly and efficiently. This functionality increases a business's online selling effectiveness and extends its trading networks to suppliers and vertical marketplaces through secure, guaranteed online connections. Together, Vignette and OnDisplay will offer eBusiness applications that power automated cross-enterprise transactions and highly personalized end-user interaction. B2B commerce requires automation of business transactions between trading partners and integration of back-office systems with Web-based commerce systems. For example, purchase orders implemented as cXML based transactions or connections to ERP systems using standard XML interfaces will increasingly be required for online marketplaces and the companies who wish to participate in them. Combining the business process automation capabilities of OnDisplay with the real-time personalization, analysis and content management capabilities of Vignette's V/5 eBusiness platform will enable companies to tightly coordinate their suppliers and distributors to create true "collaborative" commerce. With the acquisition, Vignette will have approximately 2,000 employees, 870 customers and global operations -- from the U.S. to South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. In a stock-for-stock, tax-free transaction, each outstanding share of OnDisplay will be exchanged for 1.58 shares of Vignette. Based on fully diluted shares outstanding and both companies' closing price as of Friday, May 19, this transaction represents a purchase price of approximately $1.7 billion. Vignette will account for the transaction using purchase accounting and expects to close the transaction in the third quarter, subject to approval by OnDisplay's stockholders and other customary closing conditions. www.vignette.com, www.ondisplay.com

This is an important move for Vignette. There is a bit of a rush among vendors to provide more pieces of e-commerce solutions. Customers are increasingly reluctant to deal with a large number of overlapping applications from vendors who may not compete directly from a functional point of view, but do compete for account control and market mindshare. Vignette is making a platform play.

Market-Touch Adds XML to Update
5/22/2000

Market-Touch Corporation announced the latest release of its hosted Web solution, Market-Touch version 2.5. Market-Touch Corporation integrates XML technology with its DataGem Server to fully enable personalized, 1-to-1 marketing and sales collateral creation. The latest version of its software includes simplified content management features, usability enhancements, and improved Internet performance. With the introduction of the DataGem XML Tag Language, marketing departments can now empower their sales forces with automatically generated, personalized documents that are consistent with the look and feel of any collateral they have traditionally used. When a sales representative generates a dynamic document, Market-Touch retrieves relevant information from the DataGem Server and structures and formats it according to the rules in the XML template. The result is a professionally written, corporate-standard document that conveys exactly the right message for each and every prospect. Prior to version 2.5, Market-Touch provided ten templates for dynamic documents. Now, customers can create any number of document templates. As a hosted Web application, all enhancements to Market-Touch 2.5 are free to current customers, and do not require upgrades, updates, or customer-side IT or administrative support. Using the Market-Touch SMART implementation methodology, new customers can be up and running in as few as 3 weeks. Market-Touch 2.5 includes mobile support for the Palm VII Connected Organizer and integration with leading SFA solutions. www.market-touch.com

Overdrive, Microsoft Announce Authoring Tools for Microsoft Reader
5/22/2000

OverDrive Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced a comprehensive set of authoring tools and services to enable publishers to easily create eBook titles based on Microsoft Reader with ClearType display technology. A beta version of the initial product, ReaderWorks Standard -- which enables individuals to convert content from Microsoft Word, HTML, ASCII, OEB or image files into Microsoft Reader format -- is available via free download from the ReaderWorks Web site. Through its ReaderWorks family of products, OverDrive offers publishers tools and services to join the eBook revolution. Individual authors, as well as large-scale production houses and datacenters, are able to easily and economically build eBook titles and repositories for Microsoft Reader. ReaderWorks Standard is a free Microsoft Windows-based application that enables users to build and customize Microsoft Reader-enabled eBooks from Word documents and HTML, ASCII, images or Open eBook Specification files. ReaderWorks Publisher is an upgrade that prepares Microsoft Reader-compatible titles for sale and distribution by eBookstores. With ReaderWorks Publisher, eBook authors can answer a few questions about their title and create XML files that contain marketing and copyright protection data in ONIX, XrML and Microsoft Digital Rights Management architecture. ReaderWorks Software Developers Kit includes developers tools for integrating the automated production of eBooks in Microsoft Reader format. ReaderWorks SDK also permits software applications to add "save as Reader" support. ReaderWorks Professional is a suite of eBook conversion and quality control tools for volume producers of LIT files (Reader format) in a batch environment. OverDrive and its network of VARs offer publishers a range of education, training and conversion services, including turnkey systems. The ReaderWorks Standard beta version is available free of charge at www.readerworks.com. The other products in the ReaderWorks suite are expected to be commercially available within the next 90 days; pricing has not yet been announced. www.overdrive.com

We're still skeptical that e-books will have a significant affect on the commercial publishing market anytime soon (long term, definitely). However, there is not only increased activity among technology developers, but also a rapidly growing interest from the big commercial publishers.

Worldweb.net Announces Expressroom I/O
5/22/2000

Worldweb.net announced their third generation content management solution, Expressroom I/O, which enables content to be entered from and delivered to multiple formats and devices. Because of its XML and Java-based open architecture, Expressroom I/O expands content management beyond just managing and delivering content on the Web. It enables syndicated content, live news feeds, and legacy information to be managed and delivered to multiple sources including web pages, cell phones, and other wireless devices. Expressroom I/O provides a reliable and scalable foundation for obtaining and creating content from multiple sources. Expressroom is then able to manage the interaction and deliver the content across fixed and wireless communication channels such as those using Wireless Markup Language (WML). Expressroom I/O uses XML to provide a highly sophisticated content management solution that is targeted to both web professionals and everyday users. It is designed to create, manage, deploy and deliver web content. Non-technical contributors effectively control content input and design/layout issues by using Graphical User Interfaces that provide a collaborative environment for managing XML-described site components. Content input and design/layout issues are separated from web site administration in Expressroom I/O, empowering non-technical end-users with the ability to make real-time content changes 'on the fly'. Expressroom site components are managed within a versioned, access-controlled, and XML-aware asset manager. It is then deployed to a page server that performs just-in-time transformation of XML-described content into any delivery format needed. By fully separating the web site development environment from the deployment environment, Expressroom I/O supports distributed content delivery for thousands of users and millions of page views. Newly supported inputs and outputs of Expressroom I/O include: WML, Kinecta Syndication Server. ScreamingMedia, QuarkXpress, and Oracle 8 and 8i databases. Expressroom I/O will be available at the end of Q2, 2000. Expressroom is sold on a monthly or annual subscription basis. www.worldweb.net

Bookface to Provide Secure Delivery for Online Content
5/22/2000

In response to growing demand for quality content over the Internet, Bookface, Inc., announced its development of proprietary technology to deliver valuable content online securely. The Bookface delivery solution offers content providers a secure method for publishing their content directly on the Internet, enabling them to reach the entire Internet audience while protecting the integrity of their work and gaining appropriate credit and compensation. Internet users also benefit by being able to access content directly from their browser -- without installing software or buying special hardware. Prior to Bookface, utilizing the simplicity and installed base of the Internet for displaying digital content was hindered by piracy. Websites either posted warning notices to reduce copying, alteration, and unauthorized redistribution, or packaged their content into secure files for delivery. File downloads represent an extra step that reduce convenience -- online delivery allows content creators to place secure content on the web, so that users will not need to interrupt their reading to download. Slow modems and firewalls may also prevent downloads and installation of files or reader software. The Bookface protected, yet direct, avenue for delivering content also has the advantages of a centralized delivery system. Since content is served from one central location, publishers can easily control or limit access and track usage. The Bookface delivery solution will work flexibly with any business model. Content providers can charge access fees, subscriptions, per use charges, or leverage ad revenues to gain compensation from their content. Bookface technology will first be applied to their own web destination, www.Bookface.com. This website will deliver the ultimate reading experience to Internet users -- actually opening books online. Regardless of whether they are logging in from a Mac, Windows, or Unix machine, Internet users will be able to read whole books via the site. Targeted towards providing a new marketing and distribution channel for the U.S. trade book market, the branded web destination will be launched in the summer of 2000. www.Bookface.com

VoiceXML Forum Submit VoiceXML 1.0 to W3C
5/22/2000

The VoiceXML Forum announced that the W3C has acknowledged the submission of Version 1.0 of the VoiceXML specification. At its May 10-12 meetings in Paris, the W3C's Voice Browser Working Group agreed to adopt VoiceXML 1.0 as the basis for the development of a W3C dialog markup language. The Forum's founding members, AT&T, IBM, Lucent Technologies, and Motorola made the W3C submission. Acknowledgement by the W3C will help to accelerate and expand the reach of the Internet through voice-enabled Web content and services. The VoiceXML Forum will host the next meeting of the W3C Voice Browser Working Group in September 2000. Since the release of VoiceXML 1.0 in March 2000, the Forum has nearly doubled its supporter membership to more than 150 companies. Based on XML, Version 1.0 of the VoiceXML specification provides a high-level programming interface to speech and telephony resources for application developers, service providers and equipment manufacturers. Standardization of VoiceXML will: simplify creation and delivery of Web-based, personalized interactive voice-response services; enable phone and voice access to integrated call center databases, information and services on Web sites, and company intranets; and help enable new voice-capable devices and appliances. More information about VoiceXML can be obtained at www.w3.org/Submission/2000/04/ or www.voicexml.org. The complete W3C Note, Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) version 1.0, can be obtained directly at www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-voicexml-20000505/.

It is definitely time for this kind of a standard, and we are glad to see the W3C involved. We hope the standard will get the vendor participation it needs, and that the U.S. centric founding membership makes sure others, especially the Scandinavians, areinvolved.

eHelp Corporation & Informix Partner to Support ALURe
5/22/2000

Informix Corporation and eHelp Corporation announced a partnership in a joint effort to support the ALURe specification. ALURe, the Aggregation and Logging of User Requests, is an open implementation of XML that tracks and reports usage patterns in Help and customer assistance systems on Web sites. Led by eHelp, the ALURe Partner Program is designed to bring industry leaders together with a shared interest in promoting user assistance standards for the Web. The open ALURe specification defines how companies identify, track and modify trouble areas on their Web sites. By adopting this specification, companies can easily obtain valuable feedback and usability data about their site when using data mining, analysis and reporting tools. The ALURe specification and Informix Object Translator are for capturing and analyzing critical customer care information to improve customer service on the Web. Informix Object Translator, a data integration tool for mapping the relationships of XML objects to the Informix Foundation.2000 database server provides two-way transparent mapping between the ALURe XML model and the data collection model in the database. Informix Object Translator generates Java components to handle ALURe XML documents, making it easy to integrate ALURe transcripts with common business analysis tools. Any data mining and analysis tool that recognizes XML can use data gathered through ALURe. Adopting the ALURe standard allows developers to make continual Web site improvements that ALURe data point to, and alleviates the need to implement data gathering and reporting technologies into their online User Assistance Systems. www.alurexml.org, www.ehelp.com, www.informix.com

Rational & Commerce One Collaborate
5/18/2000

Rational Software and Commerce One, Inc. announced a UML (Unified Modeling Language) for XML schema mapping specification. The Rational Software and Commerce One joint collaboration provides a standard method to dramatically reduce the development time and increase the quality of schema-based, XML e-commerce applications. UML is poised to become the industry-standard language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting software systems. XML schema is emerging as a W3C recommendation for the definition of XML and is believed to provide a safer and more reliable way to define XML messages for use in e-commerce systems. By adding mechanisms for strong data validation, inheritance and other object-oriented structures not present in the DTD, developers can have a more efficient way to visually model e-business solutions. The UML profile announced today would provide developers with a systematic, graphical methodology for creating XML schemas. The UML for XML Schema Mapping Specification is available at Commerce One's Web site at www.commerceone.com/xml/sox/index.html and Rational's Web site at www.rational.com/uml/index.jtmpl

webMethods to Embed B2Bi in TradeMatrix Marketplace
5/18/2000

webMethods, Inc. announced that i2 Technologies, Inc. has selected webMethods for integrating participating companies' systems with i2 TradeMatrix marketplace solutions. In this arrangement, i2 will resell and market webMethods B2B as the B2Bi solution to companies interested in integrating with i2's TradeMatrix. webMethods B2B will be embedded in TradeMatrix to provide TradeMatrix marketplaces with a comprehensive business solution that enables companies to deploy business-to-business portals. webMethods B2B will allow the secure integration of a company's in-house planning and execution systems, across Internet firewalls, with TradeMatrix marketplace solutions. This automatic system-to-system integration will allow participating companies and their trading partners to achieve integrated business workflows. Through this partnership, TradeMatrix customers will benefit from webMethods' rapid development and deployment capabilities. www.i2.com, www.webMethods.com

Microsoft Unveils Latest Version of XML Parser
5/17/2000

Microsoft Corp. announced the newest version of its MSXML parser with built-in support for version 2.0 of the Simple API for XML (SAX2). The decision to implement the SAX2 programming interface, rather than develop a new one, is a reflection of Microsoft's commitment to deliver the features its customers demand. SAX2 is designed to enable faster and more efficient processing of XML by allowing programs to read, review and process XML files without having to load the entire document into memory. The latest version of the MSXML parser, the third in a series of XML parser technology previews Microsoft began releasing in January 2000, provides another programming interface for building Web-based distributed applications based on standard XML messages. These releases allow Microsoft to achieve its goal of providing new features and updated support for standards in "Web time." In addition to the new SAX2 support, this release also adds more support for XSLT and Xpath. Development of SAX began in December 1997; its first release was in May 1998. SAX was a collaborative effort developed entirely by the members of the XML-DEV mailing list. The SAX interface is free for commercial and noncommercial use. Although the list of contributors credits over 80 people, including some of the original developers of XML, David Megginson of Megginson Technologies Ltd. (www.megginson.com/) is considered to be the primary developer and maintainer of SAX. SAX 2.0 was released on May 5, 2000. The new release is available for immediate download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/

Latest Release of Interwoven TeamSite Delivers Multi-Lingual Capability
5/17/2000

Interwoven, Inc. announced the availability of the latest version of TeamSite, which now serves the needs of content developers in Europe and Asia by allowing easy content entry for languages based on both single-byte and multi-byte characters such as French, German and Japanese. This means faster time-to-Web and reduced development costs for multi-lingual sites. With the latest version of Interwoven TeamSite software and XML-based TeamSite Templating, non-technical users can easily enter content and metadata on content for multiple languages. This makes it easier for organizations to extend the responsibility for content development and management throughout the global organization. Because metadata can also be in the local language, content can be more easily syndicated across multiple sites and can be easily searched and shared with other applications. Development costs associated with multi-lingual sites will also be reduced because local teams are now empowered to manage content in local languages. The entire task-based workflow process, from content development, to quality assurance, and approval through deployment can now be directed in local languages, which reduces the cost and decreases the time required to manage content. The latest version of TeamSite Templating now has improved database integration and content re-use functionality. TeamSite Templating enables content reuse by separating content from presentation, which allows content creators to more easily contribute without having to worry about the details of presentation. This release extends TeamSite Templating's XML-based architecture by providing the ability to "nest" page components which extends content reuse capabilities. The TeamSite Templating page generation engine combines content elements and Interwoven OpenDeploy can then be used to automatically deploy these pages to the production environment including application servers for dynamic delivery. TeamSite 4.2.1 is available immediately. www.interwoven.com/products/teamsite

This is an example of what we need to see a lot more of. After-the-fact-translation is not a sufficient multi-lingual strategy. We need tools that support the creation and management of multi-lingual content – tools integrated earlier on in the process.

Oracle Ships Internet File System
5/16/2000

Oracle Corp. announced availability of Oracle Internet File System (iFS), which combines the simplicity of the Windows file system with the powerful information management features of Oracle8i. Now with iFS, companies can easily manage all their content in a single repository, content which is currently scattered across PC desktops, document management systems and web sites. This innovation yields tremendous gains in efficiencies for e-Businesses faced with the mounting problem of managing the variety and high-volume of content -- not just data -- being generated by the Internet, business-to-business exchanges, e-commerce and enterprise portals. In spite of the proliferation of the Internet and tremendous innovation within the software industry, the file system has been virtually unchanged in the past 20 years. Oracle iFS is a file system designed for the Internet. It brings order to today’s document chaos, supporting the storage and management of over 150 different file types, including documents created using XML. Independent software vendors (ISVs), especially XML and image document management application vendors, are embracing iFS as a means to innovate their applications rapidly—delivering advances in functionality which were for all intents and purposes impossible to achieve under the primitive architectural constraints of the Windows file system. The availability of Oracle iFS marks a number of software innovations. Firstly, iFS breaks the link between the file system and operating system. iFS frees files from the operating system so that they can be accessed from any popular computer in much the same way that the Web browser freed applications. iFS delivers long overdue files system features such as versioning, check-in, check-out and advanced searching. Secondly, Oracle is first to provide native XML support in the file system, providing companies with the first secure and scalable means of managing high-volumes of XML files. Thirdly, Oracle is the first to offer completely open Java APIs to the file system allowing ISVs and developers to add, modify or override iFS’s default features. Oracle iFS includes: Drag and drop filing, Management of over 150 file types, Browser-based access from any operating system, Advanced search and version control, and an iFS Developers Kit. With general availability of Oracle iFS, comes availability of iFS-based services from Oracle. Oracle Consulting now offers Oracle iFS Quick Start for rapid implement iFS and Oracle8i in five business days or less. Oracle University will be offering two Oracle iFS courses in Summer 2000: "Oracle iFS Administration" and "Developing Applications with Oracle iFS." Oracle iFS is generally available worldwide and is free with Oracle8i. iFS is available for immediate download to developers at Oracle Technology Network (OTN). www.oracle.com

We are very curious to see how this fares. We have pushed for the convergence of database and file system capability since the early days of "compound document architectures" (remember those?). The problem has always been one of transition (as Microsoft has argued).

Arbortext to Provide XML Content Management Software Based on Oracle iFS
5/16/2000

Arbortext, Inc. announced the availability of Arbortext's Epic Editor and Epic Editor LE now with new support for Oracle Internet File System (iFS). Customers can use the combination of Arbortext's technology and Oracle iFS as a content repository, allowing companies to deliver more personalized, dynamic and easily searchable content for e-publishing, e-commerce and B2B e-marketplaces. The combination of Arbortext's industry-leading XML technology and Oracle Internet File System means that customers now have access to a complete XML content management solution. Arbortext's Epic Editor and Epic Editor LE support Oracle iFS through the addition of both server-side and client-side components and will be available July 2000. Arbortext's pricing for the Repository Adapter to connect Epic Editor and Epic Editor LE to Oracle iFS starts at $400 per user. www.arbortext.com

Artesia to Offer Oracle Internet File System for TEAMS
5/16/2000

Artesia Technologies announced its plans to support Oracle Corporation's Internet File System (iFS) within Artesia's TEAMS software. Users of Artesia Technologies' digital asset management solution will be able to utilize iFS to migrate streaming media into the Oracle 8i database, to gain added transactional control over heterogeneous rich media content, and to enact a single backup and recovery scheme for all content. Artesia Technologies' customers will benefit from iFS and its automatic XML parsing, as it extends TEAMS' support for the XML family of functions for extensible metadata handling, information exchange, and structured content management. Artesia Technologies' customers using Oracle iFS will also continue to benefit from TEAMS support for both file system-based as well as in-line storage. www.artesiatech.com

Intelisys Partners with Mercado to Offer Multi-Catalog Search
5/15/2000

Intelisys Electronic Commerce Inc. and Mercado Software announced an e-marketplace infrastructure that enables intuitive search across multi-supplier catalogs without the need for supplier data normalization. Mercado Software's IntuiFind technology enables the normalization of multiple suppliers' data into a single virtually aggregated catalog, relieving suppliers and trading exchange sponsors from the expensive and lengthy rationalization process. This supplier-managed content process allows suppliers to quickly and easily post their products to the trading exchange. IntuiFind provides user-friendly interaction, allowing users to easily browse comprehensive offerings, compare items and instantly make purchases from any of the participating suppliers. Mercado Software's IntuiFind technology will be integrated into all Intelisys-Powered communities. Mercado Software's IntuiFind complements Intelisys ConnectTrade for electronic marketplaces because it is uniquely suited to searching complex, multi-supplier environments. IntuiFind helps customers find exactly what they want regardless of spelling, terminology or how products are categorized. By using a series of knowledge banks and linguistic tools, the software allows free-form text queries that are correlated with all product information stored in a database or across multiple data sources. www.mercado.com, www.intelisys.com

This is one approach to a problem we discuss in the main article this month. It could be useful, but notice that "multi" does not necessarily mean "any". Also, see our discussion on content control.

SoftLock.com Acquires Chili Pepper, Inc.
5/15/2000

SoftLock.com, Inc. announced that it has acquired Chili Pepper, Inc., an advertising agency and consulting firm. The acquisition enables SoftLock.com to leverage Chili Pepper's online marketing expertise to further expand SoftLock.com's existing eMerchandising capabilities. SoftLock.com will capitalize on Chili Pepper's expertise in strategic brand consulting, direct marketing, consumer research, media buying and creative services, intensifying SoftLock.com's position as a market maker for premium content. The integration of Chili Pepper's marketing services with SoftLock.com's existing services, digital rights management and commerce-enabled distribution, positions SoftLock.com to be a comprehensive solution for publishers of premium content. Packaging, positioning and promoting digital goods online requires highly targeted direct marketing expertise. The SoftLock.com market making approach allows customers to merchandise their premium digital goods to highly targeted consumer segments quickly and efficiently. SoftLock.com's patented combination of technology and services provide a comprehensive solution to marketing valuable digital goods, combining content security, targeted content merchandising and a complete multi-channel eCommerce distribution system. The combination of SoftLock.com and Chili Pepper teams will result in a strategic fusion that increases the bandwidth of the total organization and further differentiates SoftLock.com as a market maker for premium content versus its technology-based, security-focused competitors. www.softlock.com

eXcelon Introduces Portal Server
5/15/2000

eXcelon Corporation introduced two new products that lower the barrier to participate in B2B eCommerce and create information-rich B2B portals. eXcelon's B2B Portal Server is a new platform that automatically collects and publishes business content from anywhere in a partner network to a central, interactive eBusiness site. Xpress, part of the eXcelon B2B Integration Server product family, is new B2B technology that quickly connects an organization to thousands of partners to create cross-organization business processes that increase revenue, improve operational efficiency and allow end-to-end visibility and control of business operations. To provide a central location for products, services and information stored in a partner network, organizations can deploy eXcelon's new B2B Portal Server. The Portal Server aggregates, manages and publishes content from the partner network to create highly interactive, personalized eBusiness sites that connect partners to live business information. Highly customizable, the Portal Server enables organizations to create a central, customizable location for viewing anything from product catalogs to more industry-specific content such as insurance policies and financial records. Based on XML technology, the Portal Server quickly integrates with a B2B network, providing a central viewing point for critical business data. With its data aggregation, search and personalization capabilities, users across the entire partner network gain increased efficiency, the means to make better business decisions and the ability to collaborate with partners all over the world. By providing partners with multiple levels of integration with the hub organization, eXcelon Xpress enables partners of all sizes and technical ability to integrate with a partner network with little or no investment in additional technology. When installed at the hub organization, as part of eXcelon's B2B Integration Server, Xpress enables partners to log into the partner network with only a browser or handheld device. With the browser, partners can submit sales forecasts, initiate purchase orders and participate in any cross-business processes defined by the partner network. This option requires no technology investment from partners. For partners that would like to increase their level of integration and automation with the hub organization, Xpress can be installed on the partner side. eXcelon Xpress and the B2B Portal Server are available now for Windows NT and Solaris. The B2BPS is expected to be available for AIX and HP-UX in Q2 2000. www.exceloncorp.com

IONA & Others Submit SOAP Specification to W3C
5/11/2000

IONA Technologies announced that the W3C has acknowledged its submission of the latest version of the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) specification. IONA was joined by Ariba, Commerce One, Compaq, DevelopMentor, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lotus Development Corp, Microsoft, SAP and UserLand Software (most of whom had their own similarly worded press release) in submitting the specification and proposing the formation of a working group in the area of XML-based protocols. SOAP is an XML-based interoperability protocol that links applications and services together via the Internet, regardless of operating system, object model or programming language. IONA's iPortal Suite is a platform for integrating software applications and transforming them into B2B enterprise portals, which are unified points of access connecting an organization's corporate business to the web. The iPortal Suite's support for SOAP facilitates direct B2B interaction by enabling organizations to connect their enterprise portals to the e-business systems of their customers, suppliers and partners. IONA will continue to collaborate with the other submitters on the development and enhancement of SOAP to help it become the industry-standard mechanism that enables organizations to define enterprise portal services and transparently connect them with other enterprise portals. IONA is also developing SOAP mappings for CORBA. www.iona.com

Basis Announces Chinese Morphological Analyzer
5/10/2000

Basis Technology announced the release of its Chinese Morphological Analyzer (CMA), an accurate segmentation engine for search and retrieval of Chinese text. Chinese Morphological Analyzer combines dictionary-retrieval technology with syntactic analysis to yield accurate text segmentation results for both the simplified and traditional written forms of the language. CMA boasts a comprehensive online Chinese dictionary of nearly 1,000,000 headwords, incorporating phonological, lexical and grammatical attributes. This information is used by CMA algorithms to segment and accurately disambiguate Chinese text using contextual clues combined with syntactic analysis. Morphological analysis of the Chinese language is an inherently complex problem. Chinese is written without explicit word boundaries, and it lacks the script transition cues of Japanese and Korean scripts. Furthermore, each character can potentially function as an isolated word (free morpheme) or part of a compound word (bound morpheme) or phrase. For these reasons, maintaining online forms and databases, and facilitating effective search and retrieval, are particularly difficult in the Chinese language. Chinese Morphological Analyzer is written in portable ANSI C++ and has a pure Unicode (UCS2) internal architecture that handles every major Chinese encoding format. Chinese Morphological Analyzer is licensed as a royalty-free software development kit (SDK) or as a source code distribution on all major platforms, including Win32, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital UNIX and Linux. www.basistech.com

S.W.I.F.T. & FIX to Co-Operate on Securities Standards
5/10/2000

S.W.I.F.T. and FIX Protocol Limited (FPL) today announced that they are working with eight leading European Exchanges to define standards to harmonize access to the Pan European virtual blue chip market, planned to go live in November 2000. The European Exchanges who are involved include Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Madrid, Paris and Zurich. While the recent mergers between some of these exchanges may reduce the numbers of parties involved, their CEO's are committed to supporting this initiative and explicitly endorse the FIX-S.W.I.F.T. collaboration. The initial output will be a Common Interface Specification for trade orders and notice of executions based on current FIX 4.2 Protocol specification. FPL is providing the technical expertise surrounding the business flows, whilst S.W.I.F.T. is providing their standard expertise and methodologies to facilitate and expedite the development process. All the business elements will be added to the ISO 15022 Data Field Dictionary, for which S.W.I.F.T. is the Registration Authority. Functionally equivalent S.W.I.F.T. messages will also be provided within the Common Interface Specification. Direct collaboration between S.W.I.F.T. and FPL will give rise to convergence and interoperability of message standards. The initiative will also result in the common deployment of the ISO 15022 Data Filed Dictionary, which will pave the way towards straight through processing as both protocols adopt XML. F.I.X., the Financial Information eXchange, is a messaging protocol, which is the de facto standard for pre trade and trade messaging in the global equity markets. FIX is administered by FIX Protocol Limited, whose members are exclusively drawn from the Investment Management and Broker Dealer communities globally. FPL is committed to promulgating standards in order to achieve the industry's goal of Straight through processing. As part of this aim FPL has developed an XML grammar for FIX. www.swift.com

Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0 Application Server Shipping
5/10/2000

Lutris Technologies Inc. announced the immediate availability of Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0. Priced at $99, it is a supported and certified version of the Open Source Java/XML application server. The combination of Open Source software and commercial support and services provides the control and flexibility of an Open Source solution, plus the security of commercial support, training, and documentation. Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0 provides an affordable option to corporate departments, small companies, consultants, and system integrators who have been priced out of the application server market and who have been unable to build high-end, data driven Internet applications that require the support of an application server. Several enhancements and improvements have been implemented in Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0, including full support for building wireless applications for delivery on cell phones and PDAs. A new feature, Enhydra Director, which distributes user loads across multiple servers, significantly increases the product's scalability. Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0 is covered by the same Open Source licensing terms as the downloadable version, available at www.enhydra.org. Customers will continue to have complete access to source code, as well as the ability to deploy Enhydra applications with no licensing or royalty fees. Priced at $99, Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0 is available immediately for purchase from Lutris. Lutris' customer support options are available to customers who purchase and register Lutris Enhydra Standard 3.0. Registration entitles users to 15 days of free online installation support and access to the Lutris Knowledgebase. Customers may purchase incident-based support packages directly from Lutris online. Single-incident support is priced at $250 per-incident. Six- and 12-incident packages are also available for purchase, priced at $1,250 and $2,250, respectively. Customized support packages are also available. www.lutris.com

XMLSolutions Announces Vocabulary Builder for E-Business
5/10/2000

XMLSolutions Corporation announced the immediate availability of Vocabulary Builder for E- Business. Vocabulary Builder is a program designed to bridge a company's existing business vocabulary to today's e-commerce language while maintaining contextual definitions on both ends. XMLSolutions' Vocabulary Builder allows companies to conduct business using the same syntax it has always used by XML-izing existing business vocabulary, semantics unchanged, so that the company can communicate electronically. Vocabulary Builder extends business operations across the Internet without revolutionizing core business processes. XMLSolutions utilizes Schema Central and their META-X Methodology to identify corporate metadata crucial to the successful implementation of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and e-business initiatives. The Vocabulary Builder program pinpoints strategic business information and executes a crucial step in developing e-commerce solutions. Creating DTDs that represent key business information is a primary function of Vocabulary Builder. www.xmls.com

Sounds useful, but remember that keeping-up with vocabularies is an ongoing and never-ending process.

Canto Introduces Cumulus 5 - Enterprise Edition
5/9/2000

Canto announced Cumulus 5 - Enterprise Edition, designed to manage and archive all types of digital assets used in production, publishing, communication, and other workflows. The release of the Enterprise Edition completes the Cumulus product line, which also includes a Single User Edition and a Workgroup Edition. Varying Options exist for the different Editions. The Enterprise Edition embraces and extends the success of the Workgroup Edition. It offers the most complete set of functionality and benefits. Cumulus 5 - Enterprise Edition will be available this month to a number of pre-selected customer sites. Broad availability through System Integrators and Solution Partners will follow in Q3/00. The "starter kit" of the Enterprise Edition is priced at US$33,000 and includes the server application and 20 concurrent client licenses. It also includes the Cumulus Internet Client, the Browser, the Vault and URL AssetStore Options, and five days of technical service. Additional client licenses are available for US$400 per client. Additional service days are available at US$1,500. The Oracle Connect Module will be announced separately. Maintenance contracts and the Cumulus SDK will be offered separately. The Cumulus 5 - Enterprise Edition is a fully cross-platform solution. The server software will be available for Solaris, Linux, Windows 2000 and MacOS X. The client software is available for MacOS and Windows. It also includes Internet access through standard Web Browsers. www.canto.com

Ironside & Commerce One to Deliver Seller/Buyer Integration
5/9/2000

Ironside Technologies Inc. announced that they have reached agreement-in-principle with Commerce One, Inc. for the purpose of real-time seller/buyer connectivity. Commerce One and Ironside expect to finalize terms and execute definitive agreements by summer 2000. Ironside intends to integrate its Ironworks sell-side product suite and Ironside Network service offering into Commerce One MarketSite and Global Trading Web solutions. Ironside expects to support Commerce One's xCBL transactions within the Ironworks product suite and the Ironside Network service. XCBL is expected to provide Ironside Powered suppliers access to an extensive worldwide business-buyer community. The Ironworks 4.0 product suite will provide integration capability to the Commerce One MarketSite Global Trading Portal, as well as individual trading exchanges running on the MarketSite Portal Solution. Additionally, the Ironside Network "real-time exchange to the exchanges" is expected to provide suppliers on-demand real-time integration into the entire MarketSite community of exchanges. In addition, Ironside and Commerce One expect to collaborate to streamline and simplify content management functions, working together to homogenize supplier catalog information and automate content management functions. www.ironside.com, www.commerceone.com

"Real-time integration" is what we need all right, and the more many-to-many the better, even if it is not any-to-any.

adXML.org Goes Live With XML Schema for B2B Advertising Data Exchange
5/9/2000

adXML.org announced the successful transmittal of the first live digital insertion order "written" in the adXML vocabulary. Having launched its first beta in February of this year, adXML.org is this week proposing a 1.0 release of the online DTD section of the adXML specification. adXML.org's end-of-year goal is to include all media types in its final release. The first digital insertion order was transmitted by Mediaplex, Inc. and received on the publisher side by L90, Inc. Utilizing the adXML vocabulary, the order described all data specifications for the placement of an online campaign for a automobile advertiser. Mediaplex performed the campaign planning, buying and ad-serving functions on behalf of its client, Critical Mass, an interactive advertising agency. adXML.org was launched in December 1999 as a vendor-independent initiative to develop business practices and infrastructure standards for the full automation of the exchange of commerce and content data among all sectors of the advertising industry. Now composed of more than 140 participating companies, adXML.org has defined nine subcommittees representing traditional media including print, TV, radio and outdoor, as well as new media including online, e-mail, set-top box/broadband and the wireless market. www.adxml.org

Intranet Solutions Announces Availability of New Content Assembly Module
5/8/2000

IntraNet Solutions, Inc. announced the availability of Xpedio Merge. As an add-on to Xpedio Content Management System, Xpedio Merge features a component-based publishing module for assembling complex publications from a variety of managed source content. Xpedio Merge facilitates dynamic assembly and personalization of complex publications that allows multiple authors to use components managed in the Xpedio Content Server to create Web viewable and printable publications. Applications for this software include sales and marketing materials, personalized training manuals and responses to complex RFPs.  Xpedio Merge relies on the content management capabilities of the Xpedio Content Server to ensure that the appropriate version of content is being used. A user-defined template pulls the required content from the Content Server, automatically merges them, inserts pagination and routes the completed document to the specified location for viewing or printing. Watermarking and mail merge capabilities can be used for greater customization. Xpedio Merge is available now with list pricing starting at $50,000 USD for Windows NT and UNIX platforms. www.intranetsolutions.com

Software AG Launches Native XML Database In US
5/8/2000

Software AG USA has begun selling Tamino to U.S. companies. A native XML information server, Tamino is part of a full suite of native XML products coming from Software AG. Tamino provides a complete Web-enabled data management system for data exchange and application integration. Unlike relational databases, Tamino stores, retrieves and exchanges data in XML as its natural format, without the need for conversion to other formats. All of Software AG's products and services are specifically geared to the requirements of B2B solutions and work well to integrate front-and-back-office solutions, allowing e-business services to function as an integral part of a company's overall business. Tamino leverages the main benefit of XML: the dramatic increase in interoperability of data among applications. Using Tamino, data structures of any kind can be expressed in XML format and stored and treated as XML objects. XML data without a previously defined structure is also accepted and stored, unlike the classical database systems that require explicit structuring. Software AG's database technologies, including field compression and record caching, as well as high volume capabilities, provide an XML-based data management system capable of handling large volumes of data for high throughput which can manage concurrent user requests very efficiently for high performance. Tamino also supports single-sign-on, industry-standard security systems and existing methods of encryption (such as RACF, NTLM, Kerberos, and SSL), integrating security concepts at different lTamino is available immediately for Windows NT. A version for Unix will be available during second quarter 2000, with versions for Linux and IBM mainframes following later in the year. Tamino is designed to minimize the total cost of ownership, with prices starting at $25,000 per processor. www.softwareagusa.com

Delano Announces XML Support for B2B Document Exchange
5/3/2000

Delano Technology Corporation announced the release of the Delano Component Pack for XML, which extends the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite to provide native support for XML and the standard XML document formats used in B2B applications. By leveraging XML, the Delano Component Pack for XML increases the level of integration between Delano e-business applications and enterprise applications, including ERP and legacy systems, enabling enterprises to reduce the costs and increase the effectiveness of interacting with business partners over the web, e-mail, and other communication channels. The Delano Component Pack for XML, coupled with the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite allows companies to leverage existing databases, enterprise applications and systems infrastructure to automatically exchange data between disparate and/or legacy applications, as well as supplier and partner systems. Through the efficient use and integration of XML and e-business applications, an enterprise can significantly reduce the costs associated with B2B interactions via EDI or manual processes. The Delano Component Pack for XML facilitates commerce interactions between trading partners, enabling buyers and suppliers to tighten relationships and extend trading opportunities. Leveraging the open nature of the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite, the Delano Component Pack for XML provides support for all current and emerging B2B communication standards, including BizTalk, OASIS, cXML, xCBL, OBI, W3C XML, and RosettaNet. This enables enterprises to extract and understand data from these XML standards to further support the automated exchange of B2B documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, through electronic channels. The Delano Component Pack for XML is immediately available from Delano, or a Delano authorized reseller. www.delanotech.com

NextPage Launches Content Networking Platform
5/3/2000

NextPage announced the launch of a Web-based content delivery platform. This platform, the Content Network, enables users to simultaneously access Internet sites, databases, intranets and document repositories as if the data existed in a single location. NextPage solutions are targeted at companies establishing corporate portals as well as professional publishers seeking to publish high-value content to customers inside corporate intranets. The Content Network searches, navigates, categorizes and personalizes information across disparate content sources. Two core products form the foundation of this new technology: LiveEnterprise software for corporate intranets, and LivePublish software for Internet publishers. LiveEnterprise provides users a single point of access to retrieve and organize information from file types, such as XML, HTML, Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files, which are stored in relational databases, file systems and on the Web. With LivePublish, professional publishers can assemble and deliver content on the Internet and inside corporate intranets. Inside LiveEnterprise and LivePublish is a software adapter, called the Content Network Adapter, that creates a continuous link between all content servers within the Content Network. This live link, called LiveSyndication, connects users to information in almost any format and in any location. The technology overcomes today's practice of IT departments having to centralize content to make it available within a corporate portal. www.nextpage.com

Mediasurface Announces Upgrade to Content Management Product
5/2/2000

Mediasurface Limited announced availability of its third generation software. Mediasurface 3 has rules-based one-to-few personalization, high performance caching for dynamic content delivery, WAP support and e-services integration with localization and syndication providers. For most customers, Mediasurface 3 implements in 6-8 weeks, providing a boost in time to market for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and communities-based Web sites. Mediasurface 3 was designed as the hub of e-business to manage all interactions between people, content and applications with high levels of integration and support. Mediasurface 3 takes the ideal content management infrastructure and expands it to include customer features that enhance delivery of content. The dynamic caching capability enables customers to confidently increase site traffic and content bandwidths in line with demand. By separating content from presentation and structure, Mediasurface 3 returns the ownership of content to the business user. The software delivers ease of use and enables non-technical people to disseminate content with virtually no learning curve. Mediasurface 3 builds on Mediasurface's existing solution for Web content management. New features of Mediasurface 3 include: Group-based personalization out-of-the-box; Linux 6.1 & WAP support ,High performance caching, localization for multilingual sites, syndication for import and export of content via Mediasurface Integrator & Gateway, and full support for Macromedia Dreamweaver as a Mediasurface template design tool, including access enabled through an HTTP connection. Mediasurface 3 is an enterprise strength application suite - not a toolset or commercialized custom-developed software. Mediasurface 3 integrates with e-commerce, knowledge management, design, localization and personalization software, and is delivered through select, highly trained service partners. In addition, Mediasurface 3 follows previous versions by operating in a multi-server environment where content is shared in real time between multiple Mediasurface servers. This content sharing is controlled by workflow rules and allows content to be synchronized in multiple repositories on multiple physical severs. The three-tiered approach to the Mediasurface product also allows the data repository to be held on separate highly tuned database servers where disk is optimized for access speeds and volumes. Pricing for Mediasurface 3 begins at $100,000 and is available directly from Mediasurface, through alliance partners or through ASP partners including Andel Consulting. www.mediasurface.com

PanaSite Announces Content Management Service Beta
5/2/2000

PanaSite Software Inc. announced the successful beta testing of its new Web-based content management service aids in establishing and managing a dynamic Web presence. PanaSite's new Web-based subscription service is an online application that helps businesses get -- and keep -- a handle on issues that are critical to the successful execution of a company's Internet strategy. Subscribers to the service have access to a customized turnkey Web content management solution that reduces the time and capital investment required to build and maintain a dynamic Web presence. The new PanaSite service eliminates the need for dedicated Web-focused technical specialists and puts control in the hands of the non-technical professionals who understand the content. It also eliminates the need for custom content management software. PanaSite's application platform contains a set of tools capable of importing assets from an existing Web site anywhere on the Internet and automating a client-specific publishing workflow that tracks new content from creation through approval and deployment. Beta testing is wrapping-up this month for the as yet un-named service. Value-add services include opportunities for expanded exposure and revenue generation via the display and/or resale of a company's original content to and through third-party Web sites and content distributors; opportunities to integrate interesting and dynamic content from a variety of content feeds for automatic publication to a subscriber's Web site; and easy-to-use credit card processing, survey and contact information forms for collecting and tracking marketing data and leads, and more. The new Web-based subscription service is expected to be available June/July 2000, and joins PanaSite's other content management solutions, PanaSite Enterprise and PanaSite Professional. There is a one-time set-up charge and a low monthly fee. PanaSite will also offer a 30-day free trial. www.panasite.com

ec-Content Launches Content Acquisition, Management & Maintenance Offerings
5/2/2000

ec-Content, Inc. announced the availability of its MRO content library, and content acquisition, management and maintenance offerings for B2B Net marketplaces, and introduced its Supplier Neutral Content methodology for managing and maintaining value-added content. A provider of comprehensive MRO content with a management and maintenance solution, ec-Content partners with Net marketplaces looking to increase the effectiveness of their online catalogs to attract and retain more buyers. Because no two suppliers, manufacturers or wholesalers collect, maintain and present content in exactly the same way, buyers often find there are many sources for price and product information coming from a single manufacturer or supplier, making it difficult to locate and purchase items. The acquisition and maintenance of electronic catalog content, and the ability to offer item cross-referencing are daunting tasks that require marketplaces to aggregate hundreds of thousands of items with different attributes, from different catalogs. ec-Content removes the burden of these tasks by providing Net marketplaces with access to a centralized content library of 5.2 million items, supporting tens of millions of SKUs, across 40,000 suppliers that can be customized to reflect buyers' negotiated prices for each supplier. The complex MRO content is cleaned, normalized and standardized, then maintained on a scalable database. By outsourcing content management to ec-Content, buying organizations eliminate the need to track their purchases through hundreds of paper catalogs containing items with different attributes and often outdated pricing. ec-Content's value-added content includes enhanced product descriptions, images, common identifiers, and current pricing information updated on a regularly scheduled basis. In addition, ec-Content provides quality assurance services including the ongoing tracking of anomalies, discontinued items and pricing changes, that improve Net marketplace content and in turn, makes the marketplace more valuable to its customers. To effectively manage the electronic catalog content needed by Net marketplaces, ec-Content assigns a universal number to each item in their database, and maps that identifier to corresponding supplier part numbers and commodity codes. The solution behind ec-Content's Supplier Neutral Content is the Content Overlay Process that essentially overlays supplier catalogs that include varying descriptions for identical products. This eliminates the need for Net marketplaces to input multiple product descriptions from multiples suppliers, establishing a scalable process for managing and maintaining customized catalogs. www.eccontent.com

Intel, Excalibur to Form Interactive Media Services Company
5/1/2000

Intel Corporation and Excalibur Technologies Corporation announced that they have signed an agreement to form a new company that will enable owners of branded high-value content, such as sports and entertainment, to produce and securely sell their audio and video content over the Internet. The new company will offer a compelling, one-stop solution with key Internet technologies. Under the terms of the agreement, Intel will contribute its Interactive Media Services division and invest $150 million in exchange for 60 percent of the new company's equity. Intel will take a 49 percent position in the voting stock of the new company and the balance of its investment in non-voting stock. Excalibur will combine its entire business operations with those of the new company, with Excalibur stockholders receiving 40 percent ownership in the new company in exchange for their Excalibur stock. Excalibur shareholders will receive one share of stock in the new company for each share they hold of Excalibur. Holders of 29 percent of Excalibur's outstanding voting stock have agreed to vote in favor of the transaction. Other financial details were not disclosed. Compatible technologies and business models do not exist from one company in a fully integrated way that enable branded, valuable content to be delivered to subscribers over the Internet. The new company will seek to solve this problem by combining Excalibur's market-leading content management technologies for producing valuable media archives with Intel's patented technology for content protection. The transaction is subject to regulatory review, Excalibur stockholder approval and other normal closing conditions. All other necessary corporate approvals have been obtained by Excalibur and Intel. Completion of the transaction and the new company's launch is expected in the third quarter of this year. Ronald J. Whittier will resign from Intel to become chairman of the board and CEO of the new company. Patrick C. Condo will become president and COO. www.intel.com, www.excalib.com  

Excalibur has had multimedia search technology for quite some time – certainly well before the market was ready for it. The merger with Intel should finally give it the resources required to continue development and push the market along.

Bluestone Announces J2EE-Based Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB
5/1/2000

Bluestone Software, Inc. announced General Availability for Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB Version 7.0, its 100% Pure Java Application Server deployment engine which is the heart of its Sapphire/Web and its Integration Server, Bluestone XML Suite, as well as the foundation of its newest product line, Total-e-Business platform. Based entirely on Sun's J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) specification and using XML as its internal communication vehicle, Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB establishes an infrastructure foundation for enterprise-class e-business applications. Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB is the next generation of the Sapphire/Universal Business Server, the application deployment architecture that powers the company's Sapphire/Web Application Server framework. As a result, the Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB brings performance, scalability, fault tolerance and XML services to the company's forthcoming Total-e-Business platform editions, including Total-e-Global, Total-e-B2B, Total-e-B2C, Total-e-Wireless, and Total-e-Server, scheduled for release later in Q2 of this year. The J2EE foundation fortifies Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB with implementations of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 1.1, Java Servlets 2.2, and JavaServer Pages (JSP) 1.1, including Taglib support. Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB also includes a complete implementation of Java Servlets API 2.2 to provide a standard mechanism for building dynamic Web applications that are portable across hardware, Web server, and Application Server platforms. Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB relies on XML for a number of services, including the persistence map that permanently stores the state of an application. XML gives the Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB high-performance support for fine-grained objects in an EJB. The Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB also employs a dynamic XSL engine that lets users automatically detect client device types and generate the proper delivery format, whether it is a cell phone, palmtop device, desktop browser, B2B application, or other client type. Bluestone Universal Business Server for TeB is available today in Sapphire/Web, Bluestone XML Suite, and Total-e-Business.www.bluestone.com

Remedy & Requisite Partner on eProcurement & Content Management
5/1/2000

Remedy Corp. and Requisite Technology, Inc. announced a strategic alliance to add Requisite's e-content tools to the Remedy Purchasing@Work eProcurement solution. Remedy will embed Requisite's patented BugsEye finding engine and eMerge content management toolset into Remedy Purchasing@Work. BugsEye is an intuitive, natural-language finding engine that lets users quickly find and select the products they need, without forcing them to learn the specialized rules of the underlying data structure. eMerge tools and services enable buyers and suppliers to create and manage dynamic e-catalogs. To help buying organizations realize bottom line savings in record time, Remedy will offer a "quick start" e-content program. Customers will be able to select suppliers for office products, paper, industrial supplies, software and other items from Requisite's eLeader supplier network. www.requisite.com, www.remedy.com

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