News For July, 2000

Microsoft Corp. announced the official beta release of its newest XML parser, which is available for immediate download from the MSDN XML Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/general/msxmlprev.asp). This version of the parser, MSXML3, increases XML conformance over previous releases by achieving a pass rate of over 98 percent using the OASIS XML Conformance Test Suite. It also extends support for the Simple API for XML (SAX2) programming interface, making SAX2 accessible from the Visual Basic development system. This version of the parser marks the transition from "technology preview" to full beta, with general product availability scheduled for Web release in fall 2000. XML is a key technology of the Microsoft.Net Platform, and MSXML3 lays the groundwork for that vision by allowing developers to rapidly build and deliver XML-based Web services today. Since the last release just two months ago, when SAX2 support was added, one of the most requested features was access to SAX2 from Visual Basic. Extending access to developers using Visual Basic is a reflection of Microsoft's commitment to delivering the features its customers demand in "Internet time." SAX2 is designed to enable fast and efficient processing of XML by allowing programs such as the Visual C++ development system, and now Visual Basic, to read, review and process XML files without having to load the entire document into memory. Microsoft released the first version of the new XML parser in January 2000 with updated versions posting in March and May. www.microsoft.com

Nextron Ships New Release of Web Content Management Platform for SME Market
7/31/2000

Nextron, Inc. announced the availability of Nextron Phase 4, the newest version of its Web content management platform for creating, editing and managing large numbers of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) Web sites. The company also announced the availability of Nextron Applications, a family of e-business applications powered by Nextron Phase 4 that deliver low-cost e-commerce, e-marketing, and mobile business solutions for SMEs worldwide. Nextron Phase 4 and Nextron Applications are tightly integrated and packaged with high-touch professional services from Nextron to deliver a complete e-business solution to the SME marketplace. Nextron sells its products and services to global partners -- including carriers, directory publishers (Internet, wireless and print), Internet and Application Service Providers, franchises and multinational corporations -- that serve the SME market. Nextron's global partners integrate the Phase 4 platform into their Internet infrastructure to deliver low-cost, easy-to-use Internet and wireless solutions to their SME customers. Nextron Phase 4 (formerly "ICAS") is a software platform optimized for addressing the enormous size and demographic complexity of the SME global market. Nextron Phase 4 runs on Solaris servers and Oracle databases, supports multiple languages and currencies, and delivers design, administration and management functionality. Today Nextron also announced that it acquired ImpulseSale.com, a leader in location-based mobile applications, which will allow Nextron to develop and deliver mobile commerce applications for the SME market. Nextron plans to announce the availability of its first mobile application, code-named "Neo," later this fall. www.nextron.com

Eprise Announces Adaptive User Interface Technology
7/31/2000

Eprise Corporation announced that Eprise Participant Server fully supports wireless devices including those using Windows CE, Palm devices, and WAP phones. Eprise's adaptive user interface architecture allows many of these devices to not only receive content, but also participate in key content management processes, such as content contribution and user management. Eprise customers and partners alike will reap the benefits of Participant Server's ability to deliver and manage content for wireless devices the same way they may already be applying Participant Server to their current intranets and extranets. Participant Server operates as a Web server plug-in providing event-driven services for controlling content contribution, management, and distribution. No specialized server scripting language is required as all functions are accessible via easy-to-use Web browser forms. Integration agents for Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), Allaire ColdFusion, and Java technologies are standard. Enhanced LDAP support is included as are advanced features such as QuickForms content and style sheet management, and Workflow, which manage content update and approval status. www.eprise.com

Bristol Announces eXactML 1.2; Support for XHTML & Sun SPARCompiler C++
7/31/2000

Bristol Technology Inc. announced eXactML 1.2, a new release of its software product that is a fast way for developers to XML-enable their C++ applications. The latest version of eXactML now supports Sun Solaris SPARCompiler 4.2 and XHTML. eXactML XML-enables C++ applications by generating object-oriented interfaces for reading and writing valid XML content based on any DTD or schema. Using new parsing technology that claims to be at least 3 times faster than DOM, eXactML drastically reduces the time and expertise needed to support XML. eXactML 1.2 runs on Microsoft Windows platforms; the resulting source code can be compiled on Windows, Sun Microsystems Solaris and Red Hat Linux. A single developer license, including support and upgrades, starts at $695 and can be purchased online at http://store.bristol.com. An evaluation version can also be downloaded at http://www.bristol.com/exactml/erf.htm. www.bristol.com

JetForm Introduces Web Tools for Dynamic E-Documents
7/31/2000

JetForm’ Corporation announced the JetForm Web Output Pak for creating and presenting real-time, dynamic electronic documents. This unique product enables companies to present e-documents in a Web-browser environment by efficiently transforming existing data from legacy systems into the Web-server environment. The Web Output Pak leverages ERP, legacy and line-of-business applications to produce professional-looking e-documents such as invoices, purchase orders, statements and more and presents them on the Web for a fraction of the printing and mailing costs typically associated with business documents. The Web Output Pak now gives the market both the ability to deliver documents in real-time, with up-to-the-minute information, and to dynamically control the look and feel of any document based on the data. This means information delivered is based on a customer's request, rather than relying on traditional paper batch processes that only offer snapshots in time. Dynamic forms can incorporate personalized messaging and targeted marketing into customer documents to up sell additional products and services. The Web Output Pak provides both the tools to create e-document presentment applications and the run-time environment to present documents on the Web. The Web Output Pak combines document templates with data to generate real-time, personalized documents, which can be presented in either HTML or PDF on a Web browser. The JetForm Web Output Pak is available immediately from JetForm and its authorized resellers. Pricing begins at US$25,000 per server. www.jetform.com

NetObjects & Lotus Team on Collaborative E-Business Applications
7/27/2000

NetObjects, Inc. and Lotus Development Corp. announced a two-part agreement that will enable the rapid deployment of Web applications and e-Services. Under the first part of the agreement, Lotus will bundle NetObjects Fusion 5.0 with Domino Designer R5, an integrated development environment for building secure e-business applications. The scalable, easy-to-use and flexible drag-and-drop extensions of NetObjects Fusion 5.0 combined with the application development and delivery strengths of Domino Designer will enable enterprises to rapidly create and deploy powerful dynamic Web applications. To enhance the integration features, NetObjects will develop a custom version of its Online View, which provides dynamic instant access to complementary e-services, Lotus and Domino resources, as well as other content from within the NetObjects Fusion application. NetObjects will also develop new Domino Design Components that leverage the features available in Domino R5 and make Domino resources highly accessible within NetObjects Fusion 5.0. The components will enable developers to bring advanced Web design techniques to Domino-stored content by enabling developers to insert views, forms, lists, searches and links into pages that can easily be uploaded to and served from the Domino database. Under the second part of the agreement, Lotus has the license to bundle NetObjects enterprise technology and products with selected Lotus solutions. Lotus will leverage its collaborative and e-business applications with the open architecture, visual design, and dynamic content creation of NetObjects enterprise Web applications. NetObjects and Lotus will provide enterprises with enhanced Web application tools that allow easy integration with Javascript, HTML, XML and rich media content. The Domino Designer bundle of NetObjects Fusion will be available in Q4 2000. www.lotus.com, www.netobjects.com

Eprise & Kinecta Integrate Technologies
7/26/2000

Eprise Corporation and Kinecta Corporation announced that the two companies have integrated their respective technologies to enable Eprise Participant Server support for the Kinecta Interact platform. This integration will provide organizations with greater access to and management of diverse content distributed using the Kinecta Interact syndication platform. Integration with Kinecta Interact will allow content to be delivered to Eprise Participant Server’s data stores via the ICE protocol. Eprise Participant Server acts as a digital asset repository and management system, empowering companies to create, update, and manage Web content by giving business users across the organization the ability to submit, edit, approve, and post content on the fly and then have it presented to the right viewer at the right time. Kinecta Interact enables companies to manage syndication relationships and the exchange of content between a syndicator and its subscribers. Integration of the two technologies will provide business users with the ability to syndicate content and the necessary tools to constantly update that content on their Internet, extranet, and intranet sites. www.kinecta.com, www.eprise.com

Inxight Announces Categorizer
7/26/2000

Inxight Software, Inc. announced the immediate availability of Inxight Categorizer. Categorizer is an application that efficiently and automatically classifies unstructured information, such as web pages, e-mail, word processing documents, presentations and text, into pre-defined categories to significantly increase the quality and accuracy of online searches. Using patented technology, Categorizer takes classification beyond simple methods such as rule-based systems and pure pattern recognition techniques. Categorizer advances its technology by combining linguistic processing engines with patented mathematic algorithms. For example, the word "ground" can mean ground pepper, the ground that you stand on, or the ground for a wire. Categorizer is able to distinguish between the meanings of the three "grounds" in its context. Another example is the word "teach." Categorizer identifies and associates words that have the same meaning, depending on how the word is used, like teaches, teaching, and taught. Demonstrating contextual understanding of word "meanings" and relationships of words in sentences directly benefits the accuracy and speed of the categorization process. Moreover, Categorizer maintains its scalability even as the number of categories or documents grows. (For a detailed white paper on Categorizer, go to www.inxight.com/categorizer.pdf). Features of Categorizer include: Scalability to 100,000 documents per day with a single server; Supports over 70 major document formats including HTML, word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail files, Lotus Notes and plain text; True linguistic support for Western European languages; Out-of-the-box advanced natural language engine categorizes documents based on keywords, concepts and full language analysis; Accuracy improves automatically using an active category learning process; Built-in intelligence adapts to dynamic taxonomies; Supports Oracle data store for high-availability environments; and XML compatibility enables integration to most enterprise portal applications. Inxight Categorizer is available immediately through Inxight corporate sales. www.inxight.com

Documentum & Starbase Announce Partnership
7/25/2000

Starbase Corp. and Documentum Inc. announced a formal integration partnership. The combined solution of Starbase's StarTeam and Documentum's 4i eBusiness Edition will enable cross-functional Web site teams to manage their code and content in an integrated environment. This partnership marks the first in a series of planned technology integrations as part of Documentum's Open Source Code Integration (OSCI) initiative. Documentum's OSCI initiative facilitates integrations with application development vendors, enabling delivery of e-business solutions. The alliance calls for both companies to adopt each other's solution in their own environment. Starbase is currently implementing Documentum's 4i eBusiness Edition for the ongoing management of the Starbase Web site utilizing 4i's dynamic content personalization and management capabilities to manage and enhance the experience of Web visitors. Documentum uses StarTeam as its development management solution, managing its projects and releases within the StarTeam object-linking repository. www.documentum.com, www.starbase.com

HR-XML Consortium Works to Standardize Payroll Transactions
7/24/2000

The HR-XML Consortium, a non-profit organization dedicated to human resources (HR) data exchange, announced the formation of a new workgroup to standardize payroll transactions using XML. The first priority of the workgroup will be to develop a set of XML schemas to standardize communications between HR and payroll systems and also between payroll systems and third-party (e.g., 401K plan) administrators. Payroll providers, employers and HR companies are all encouraged to take part in the development of the new standards. Membership in the HR-XML Consortium and participation in the Payroll Workgroup is open to anyone involved in the payroll and/or HR industries, employers and vendors alike. Since the announcement of the workgroup at the HR-XML members meeting in Chicago last week, more than 20 HR and payroll providers came forth to contribute to this effort. Organizations and individuals interested in joining the Consortium, should visit http://www.hr-xml.org/join.html

Novell Announces Availability Of DirXML
7/24/2000

Novell, Inc. announced immediate availability of DirXML, new integration software that makes possible new business solutions to accelerate a company's transformation to eBusiness. DirXML extends the capabilities of NDS eDirectory, allowing companies to fully integrate business processes and existing applications across the enterprise. By combining directory technologies with XML, DirXML powers secure cross-platform and cross-network information exchange. Through its ability to deliver centralized control over a company's eBusiness processes, DirXML reduces network management costs and drives new opportunities to elevate relationships with clients and customers over the unified global network -- one Net. Novell is offering a complete developer program on-line to train consultants and developers in the practice of developing drivers for DirXML. This training can be found at http://developer.novell.com/education. Additionally, Novell is creating a comprehensive training and certification program that will be designed to ensure the correct deployment of DirXML-based solutions through qualified channel partners. Novell plans to make this available in the fall. DirXML is platform independent and only requires eDirectory, Novell's cross-platform directory service. It is available immediately through Novell Consulting Services and consulting partners. Novell plans to make DirXML available through Value Added Resellers in the near future. Pricing for DirXML includes the cost of eDirectory, which is $2 USD per user, and is structured based on individual customer requirements. More formal pricing will be announced at a later date. Novell Consulting Services is available to help customers design and implement eBusiness solutions based on DirXML and eDirectory. www.novell.com

RioLabs Announces EDI to XML Translation Tool
7/21/2000

RioLabs announced Version 1.8 of its B2B supplier enablement product suite, Proximal, with new support for two-way EDI transactions. Using Proximal, suppliers can integrate complex EDI purchase orders, pricing, and inventory transactions with exchanges such as CommerceOne and Ariba. RioLabs is able to support all domestic and international standards recommended by Rosetta, CommerceNet, and ebXML. www.riolabs.com

Forecross Releases L2X SmartXML
7/20/2000

Forecross Corporation announced the release of its L2X SmartXML Suite of software products and services to provide legacy to web data exchange without middleware. SmartXML provides the native software plumbing to enable large-scale e-commerce projects to succeed with a true second generation technical solution. SmartXML inserts the functionality for XML data exchange directly into mainframe programs, eliminating middleware, decreasing costs and increasing business flexibility. SmartXML consists of a suite of software modules applicable to mainframe CICS programs, batch programs, reports, data file exchanges and support for mainframe programmers. SmartXML is available now as a part of Forecross service offerings. www.forecross.com

Starbase & NexusGroup Announce Partnership
7/20/2000

Starbase Corporation and NexusGroup announced a strategic technology and marketing partnership. The partnership is designed to deliver eBusiness solutions to NexusGroup's list of Global 1000 customers. NexusGroup adopted StarTeam to manage their own portal development and will now market StarTeam as part of an integrated solution to manage the portal and Internet development efforts of its customers. NexusGroup will utilize Starbase's StarGate SDK to deploy complete portal solutions designed to integrate with eBusiness solutions from companies such as SilverStream and Macromedia. StarTeam enables NexusGroup to deploy the eVOLVE methodology and business processes without complicated configuration changes at customer sites. NexusGroup's custom StarTeam implementation enables efficient management of the portal's code, as well as the entire knowledge base, including proposals, marketing information and document templates. www.nexusgroup.com, www.starbase.com

Running Start Adds Java/XML/WAP Support to Web Content Management
7/19/2000

Running Start Inc. announced it has added platform support for Java, XML, and WAP to its ArticleBASE Web content management, workflow, and dynamic publishing system. This next generation of ArticleBASE is scheduled to ship later this summer. Designed to leverage the latest technological capabilities in the Apple WebObjects 4.5 development platform, ArticleBASE adds support for Java, XML, and WAP. ArticleBASE 2.1's newly integrated XML and WAP support will allow data exchange with other XML-based applications and enables site access from any browser, PDA, or cell phone. www.running-start.com

Worldweb.net Supports Oracle8i for Content Management
7/18/2000

Worldweb.net, Inc. announced that it now supports Oracle8i and its predecessor, Oracle8. Through Expressroom I/O, users will be able to manage, deploy, and disseminate e- business assets residing in Oracle databases, and deliver information to a wide variety of devices including traditional web browsers, Net appliances, cell phones, pagers, Palm and BlackBerry wireless handheld devices. In addition, Worldweb.net announced that it is now a member of the Oracle Partner Program. This will allow Worldweb.net to better leverage the breadth of technical resources necessary to offer Oracle customers with a well-integrated XML/WML content management solution. www.worldweb.net

Trados Announces Enhancements to Translation Solution
7/18/2000

TRADOS Incorporated announced a service release for Translation Solution Edition 3. The TRADOS product suite now offers a variety of new, mainly Web-driven, features. Translator's Workbench, TagEditor and WinAlign now support Active Server Pages as well as Java Server Pages. XSL stylesheets are used to transform XML information into various layouts and are a necessary prerequisite for developing Web-driven electronic documentation. The Translation Solution now provides support for Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 and Adobe FrameMaker+ SGML 6.0 documents through the S-Tagger component. Other features include support for QuarkXPress 4.1 in Filter Pack. To provide further enhanced support for Asian languages, IME level 3 has been implemented in TagEditor. This means that users can type Asian characters and words with the same ease of use as in, say, Microsoft Word. New API functions and further enhanced support for Word 2000 offer more seamless integration and flexibility than before. www.trados.com

Factiva Introduces Solution to Integrate Global Content into Intranets
7/18/2000

Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters company unveiled Factiva Publisher. Part of a suite of content integration tools, Factiva Publisher integrates Factiva's global content into an organization's intranet. Factiva Publisher offers nearly 5,000 external information sources including The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires as well as other content published in 12 different languages and stock quotes from 10 exchanges around the world. Factiva Publisher uses more than 1,300 XML-based Factiva Intelligent Indexing codes to tailor information from hundreds of sources across the globe. With the Editorial Interface, an organization has complete control of what is being posted to the corporate intranet. Articles can be tagged as "hot" and annotated with relevant commentary. The Administration Interface quickly and easily allows a content manager to monitor and measure usage. Factiva Publisher will be rolled out globally this month. Corporate Communication Managers, Information Professionals and CIOs -- those responsible for managing and disseminating corporate intelligence throughout an organization -- are the primary targets for this service. www.factiva.com

Provenance & Intranet Solutions to Provide Web-Content Records Management
7/18/2000

Provenance Systems, Inc. and IntraNet Solutions, Inc. announced a partnership to deliver an integrated solution for managing Web content and records. With this agreement, Provenance Systems and IntraNet Solutions provide a combined solution to government and commercial sectors that effectively manages Web content and the lifecycle of each associated record. Provenance's latest product, ForeMost Enterprise Enterprise makes it possible, easy, and affordable to provide a scalable records management infrastructure. Once deployed, it captures official business records from a variety of sources, such as e-mail, electronic document management systems, and Web sites. E-Businesses create records at a staggering rate, and though regulated industries, for example, have strict legal and business requirements for managing records, previously they could neither categorize nor manage such documents over the Internet. With Provenance's experience in records management and IntraNet Solutions' Web- content management capabilities, the two companies together solve the problem of preserving Web content as official records. Additionally, Provenance and IntraNet Solutions are pursuing certification of ForeMost Enterprise and Xpedio to meet the Department of Defense Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (DoD 5015.2-STD). This standard outlines mandatory ERS software requirements for all DoD agencies. www.intranetsolutions.com, www.provsys.com

SilverStream xCommerce Now Shipping
7/17/2000

SilverStream Software, Inc. announced the general availability of xCommerce, a family of B2B integration server products that leverages XML, enabling companies to quickly build, integrate and deploy powerful eCommerce applications. xCommerce is a unified, complete product line that allows business analysts and developers to use XML to combine online business applications with legacy systems and data - and extend these applications across organizations and their external trading communities. xCommerce solutions help companies streamline B2B processes by managing enterprise applications and transactions across extended supply chains. xCommerce provides a number of advanced capabilities that make it easier for organizations to develop and rapidly implement e-commerce applications. Its visual integration features allow non-programming users to quickly and effectively manage highly customized trading partner relationships. xCommerce offers application connectivity so organizations can easily integrate e-commerce solutions with any XML-enabled application, as well as proprietary, host-based systems. xCommerce deploys B2B solutions into J2EE application servers, delivering enterprise-level security, scalability and reliability. xCommerce consists of: xCommerce Designer, a highly visual XML development and integration environment; xCommerce Server, a Java framework for XML integration deployment and management; and xCommerce Enterprise Enablers, a suite of adapters that provide XML-based enablement of business systems running on a variety of platforms, including IBM mainframes, AS/400 systems, relational databases, and Java-based business logic. xCommerce Server is can be deployed with J2EE application servers running on Windows NT and Unix. In addition to supporting the SilverStream Application Server, xCommerce will also support IBM's WebSphere and other commercial application servers. These deployments exploit all native server capabilities, including thread management, connection pooling, transactions, load balancing and failover. Additionally, xCommerce supports all emerging XML vocabulary standards such as RosettaNet, OAG, ebXML and cXML. xCommerce is priced at $35,000 per server CPU. Each server CPU includes a 5-user license of xCommerce Designer, a runtime license to the SilverStream Application Server and the xCommerce Enterprise Enabler for JDBC. xCommerce is available immediately. Other Enterprise Enablers will be released during the remainder of 2000 and will be priced separately. www.silverstream.com

News Industry Announces Beta of NewsML V1.0
7/17/2000

The news industry's technical standards body has launched v1.0 (beta) of NewsML and has called for trial implementations. At its Annual General Meeting in Geneva, over 50 participating members of the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC, approved the public release of the first version of NewsML, an XML-based standard for the management of multimedia news. The news industry is now encouraged to start development implementations while final support documentation is prepared ahead of a planned ratification of the DTD at the IPTC's October meeting in Amsterdam. NewsML is the result of an IPTC initiative which started in October 1999, when the membership established a new work program designated IPTC2000. The goal of IPTC2000 was to deliver an XML-based standard to represent and manage news through its life cycle, including production, interchange and consumer use. Basing their discussions on original working papers from both Reuters and Agence France Presse, and earlier research studies from dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur, the details of NewsML have been developed over the last nine months at a series of intense working group meetings held in Europe and America. NewsML is an XML-based standard for all aspects of multimedia news creation, storage and delivery. At the heart of NewsML is the concept of the NewsItem which can contain various media - text, photos, graphics, video, - together with all the meta-information that enables the recipient to understand the relationship between components and understand the roles of each component. Everything the recipient might need to know about the content of the news provided can be included in NewsML's structure. For example, NewsML enables publishers to provide the same text in different languages; a video clip in different formats; or different resolutions of the same photograph. NewsML's rich metadata concept can help with things like revision levels that make it easy to track the evolution of a NewsItem over time, status details (publishable, embargoed, etc.) and administrative details, such as acknowledgements or copyright details. NewsML has default metadata vocabularies to ease implementations but it does not dictate which metadata vocabulary is used (IPTC subject codes, ISO country codes etc.) - providers just have to indicate which vocabulary they are using. Multiple vocabularies can be utilized within the same NewsItem. For text objects in a NewsItem, the IPTC's News Industry Text Format (NITF) can be utilized. The DTD for NewsML v1.0 (beta), together with a functional specification, supporting documents and background papers can be found at www.iptc.org/NewsML. The DTD is available as a rights-free standard but it remains the intellectual property of the IPTC. www.iptc.org

FileNet & ATG to Partner
7/13/2000

FileNET Corporation announced a joint sales and marketing relationship with Art Technology Group, Inc. (ATG). By working together, FileNET and ATG will be able to help joint eBusiness customers leverage real-time Web content for sophisticated online e-business solutions. This partnership brings together FileNET's Web Content Management and eProcess technologies to organize and access massive amounts of enterprise content and data, and integrate this information into eBusiness strategies using ATG Dynamo. By combining FileNET's Web Content Management with ATG's e-commerce and personalization applications, eBusiness customers will be able to leverage the vast amount of data that is continually being updated by FileNET-managed applications, and incorporate that data into dynamic Web sites powered by ATG Dynamo. In addition, using ATG's sophisticated business rules-based personalization-engine, eBusiness customers will be able to design targeted Web-based marketing applications that match profile and preference information with FileNET-managed information for advanced content targeting. www.FileNET.com

ATG now partners with a host of content management vendors. This could provide them some leverage into existing application environments (as opposed to Vignette and BroadVision who have their own content management solutions).

IBM Announces Web Site Publishing Software for Linux & Windows
7/12/2000

IBM announced the availability of software for the Linux operating system that helps people create and publish professional-quality Web sites. The announcement is IBM's latest initiative to support Linux throughout its portfolio of e-business software, servers and services. WebSphere Homepage Builder includes the necessary templates, tools and multimedia tutorials for creating and publishing Internet and intranet Web sites and pages in minutes. The software's easy-to-use features are designed to appeal to the ever-growing community using Linux as both a development platform and a Web server environment. WebSphere Homepage Builder for Linux will be available in North America and supports major commercial distributions of Linux. In addition, IBM announced the availability of WebSphere Homepage Builder for Windows, which was previously only available in parts of Asia. WebSphere Homepage Builder is the newest addition to IBM's WebSphere software platform -- Web infrastructure software that helps companies at each stage of e-business development, from startup to handling high volume Web transactions typical of B2B e-marketplaces. Key features of WebSphere Homepage Builder for Linux and Windows include: A complete package for creating and publishing Web pages and sites; Over 100 pre-built, drag-and-drop templates; Over 2,000 ready-to-use images and sounds; Multimedia tutorial; WebArt Designer, a graphic design tool; and Web Animator, a graphic animation tool. WebSphere Homepage Builder Version 4 will be available in North America on July 31 for distributions of Linux including Caldera OpenLinux, Red Hat Linux, TurboLinux and SuSE Linux. IBM list price will be $69.95, or $59.95 without hardcopy documentation. WebSphere Homepage Builder Version 5, which includes new site design capabilities, will be available in North America on July 31 for Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000. IBM list price will be $69.95, or $59.95 without hardcopy documentation. IBM list upgrade price for competitive offerings like Microsoft's Frontpage, will be $29.95, or $19.95 without hardcopy documentation. www.ibm.com/websphere

Dublin Core Releases Metadata Qualifiers
7/11/2000

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), an organization leading the development of international standards to improve electronic resource management and information discovery, announced the formal recommendation of the Dublin Core (DC) Qualifiers. The addition of the DC Qualifiers enhances the semantic precision of the existing DC Metadata Element Set. The DC Qualifiers build upon the DC Metadata Element Set, which provides 15 categories to describe resources on the Web - a catalog card with new dimensions. Known as the Dublin Core, the metadata model has become the de facto standard for description of information on the Internet. For the past year, working groups of the Dublin Core developed these newly agreed upon refinements to the catalog card to give better access to information we seek. In essence, the new recommendations for Dublin Core Qualifiers increase the effectiveness of metadata by giving it finer granularity. For example, a publication's date, which would be the Dublin Core Metadata Element, may be further detailed as a particular type of date by using a Dublin Core Qualifier such as date last modified, date created, or date issued. The DC Qualifiers improve interpretation of metadata values and can be easily recorded or transferred into HTML, XML, RDF or relational databases. The evolution of DC Qualifiers draws from the input of many individuals across a broad array of disciplines. Users include museum informatics specialists, archivists, digital library researchers, libraries, and government information providers and a variety of content providers. Their efforts have led standards organizations, such as NISO (National Information Standards Organization) in the U.S. and CEN in Europe (European Committee for Standardization) to view the DC Metadata Element Set as a benchmark candidate for simple resource description on the Internet. More recently, new sectors, such as education and industry, have been attracted to Dublin Core's simplicity, multilingual scope, consensus philosophy and widespread adoption. http://purl.org/dc/documents/dcmes-qualifiers, http://purl.org/dc/

Interwoven to Acquire Neonyoyo
7/11/2000

Interwoven, Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Neonyoyo, a developer of wireless technology which delivers targeted XML content rendered appropriately, regardless of device type. This acquisition supports Interwoven's strategy to accelerate time to wireless Web for its blue-chip customer base. Under the terms of the agreement, an aggregate value of approximately $70 million in Interwoven common stock and cash will be exchanged for the assets, liabilities and capital stock of Neonyoyo. This transaction will be accounted for as a purchase and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of Interwoven's fiscal year 2000. The acquisition has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is subject to various closing conditions. Neonyoyo's technology strengthens Interwoven's product set by both enhancing and accelerating its wireless content management offering. Interwoven expects to make available products incorporating Neonyoyo technology in Q4, 2000. Neonyoyo was founded in 1999 by Vikram Nagrani, Arjun Khanna and Arun Chatterjee. The 20 employees, primarily engineers, will be integrated into the Interwoven organization as a separate wireless division, located in Austin, Texas. Vikram Nagrani, Neonyoyo founder and CEO, will become vice president and general manager of this newly formed division. Arjun Khanna and Arun Chatterjee will continue to spearhead the division's technology development effort. www.interwoven.com

Inso Sells Information Exchange Division to IntraNet Solutions
7/10/2000

Inso Corporation announced that it has sold the Company's Information Exchange division ("IED") to IntraNet Solutions, Inc. for approximately $55 million in cash. The exact net cash proceeds to the Company and net gain from the transaction will not be finalized until both parties have agreed to the post-closing balance sheet for IED. However, based upon the Company's preliminary post-closing balance sheet for IED, estimated transaction-related costs and income taxes, the Company's net cash proceeds are expected to approximate $48 million, and the Company's net gain from the transaction is expected to be approximately $38 million. www.ebt.com.

Bluestone Acquires Arjuna
7/10/2000

Bluestone Software, Inc. announced that it has acquired Arjuna Solutions Limited of Newcastle, England for $13.23 million. The acquisition of Arjuna adds to Bluestone's Internet Operating Environment an embedded, high-performance, pure Java Transaction Service. Transactioning technology is essential to ensuring the absolute completion and accuracy of business processes when a transaction is performed. Most traditionally associated with financial and telecommunications applications, a transaction engine is now increasingly required for virtually all e-business services to ensure that a company's multiple systems, from order management to shipping to billing, are accurately updated as a single complete transaction, and that the customer is readily informed of the transaction status. Bluestone plans to embed JTSArjuna into its Total-e-Business platform, as well as offer it as a standalone product, in the fall of this year. Initially launched as a think tank at the University of Newcastle, and later funded by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Marconi, and Nortel, Arjuna researched and developed distributed object systems for transactioning and workflow in 1989. Arjuna became an independent software company in 1998, operating out of Newcastle and London. www.bluestone.com

Poet Announces eCatalog Solution for Emarketplaces & ASPs
7/10/2000

POET Software announced the release of the POET eCatalog Suite-Service Provider Edition (eCS-SP). The new application, which began shipping at the end of June, is a multi-supplier solution designed specifically for ASPs and eMarketmakers. POET eCS-SP enables eMarketmakers and ASPs to provide suppliers with a user-friendly application for aggregating, cleansing and customizing their eCatalog content, using no more than a browser. The resulting eCatalogs, which are customized for each buyer or eMarketplace, are then distributed in any format, XML or legacy. This enables eMarketmakers to immediately connect thousands of suppliers and build instant liquidity for their eMarketplace. Until now, supplier access to eMarketplaces has required a significant investment creating a barrier to adoption for small- and medium-sized suppliers. POET eCS Service-Provider Edition lowers these barriers to entry, enabling small suppliers to compete fairly with the very largest suppliers. POET eCS-SP is an application that suppliers utilize through a Web browser. Each supplier logs into the system and is presented with a secure work environment where they manage their catalog data, pricing and buyer information. This information is then combined to create custom catalogs that are tailored to the needs of each buyer or eMarketplace. This supplier self-service model is analogous to the ATMs employed by banks. The consensus among industry analysts is that the growth and ROI projected for eProcurement solutions and eMarketplaces is being constrained by a dearth of eCatalog content. POET eCS-SP solves this problem by providing "instant enablement" by any supplier with a Web browser. POET eCS-SP enables the supplier and eMarketplace to share responsibilities based on their needs and their level of sophistication. For example, some suppliers may simply upload a catalog. While others may choose to create cleansing rules, map to various commodity codes, build sophisticated pricing schemes and more. Similarly, eMarketplaces can use POET eCS-SP to create and schedule cleansing rules across their suppliers to normalize data, cleanse individual supplier eCatalogs and more. POET eCS-SP provides the power, flexibility and ease-of-use necessary to support this sharing of responsibilities between eMarketplaces and suppliers. For ASPs, POET eCS-SP provides an attractive lure for new customers, and a supplemental revenue stream from existing clients. With the Fortune 1000 eProcurement implementations taking root, and B2B eMarketplaces gaining acceptance, the pressure on lower and middle tier suppliers to become eCatalog-enabled will continue to rise.  POET eCS-SP allows ASPs to offer a comprehensive eCatalog management solution to any supplier, with built-in format adapters for Ariba, Commerce One, and SAP. Highly configurable, eCS-SP can be tailored by the host Service Provider to reflect the attributes, conventions, and jargon of vertical industry suppliers, or targeted horizontally at the suppliers of a single enterprise. eCS-Service Provider Edition is available immediately. www.poet.com

Ingeniux Unveils XPower Integrator for Wireless Publishing
7/10/2000

Ingeniux Corporation announced the beta release of XPower Integrator, an XML application for publishing legacy data to the wireless web. The XPower Integrator pulls information from existing content management systems or databases and delivers it to wireless devices using Ingeniux's XPower Server. The XPower Integrator provides a set of tools for querying and aggregating data sources, converting the data to XML format and delivering it to wireless devices. Companies can use the XPower Integrator to pull information from existing content management systems and make immediate use of it, without going through a painful conversion process or throwing away investment in previous technology. The Integrator supports familiar XPower features like Dynamic Device and Dynamic Branding, putting existing content on new devices and sharing it with other brands. XPower is currently available for Microsoft Windows, and will soon be available with support for Java and Unix. The XPower Application Suite is available now from Ingeniux and XPower Partners. www.ingeniux.com

netLibrary Provides Free Off Line eBook Reader
7/7/2000

netLibrary Inc. announced the availability of the netLibrary eBook Reader, a free personal software application that users can download to their PCs to read eBooks without being connected to the Internet. netLibrary distributes full-length digital versions of publishers' books that can be searched, previewed, and accessed over the Internet. Currently, patrons of more than 1,000 academic, K-12, corporate, and public libraries around the world have access to eBooks through netLibrary. The netLibrary eBook Reader enables those library patrons to check out eBooks from their library's eBook collection, download them to their PCs, and read them offline. This capability is paired with netLibrary's online eBook reading solution, which enables searching, previewing, and checking out eBooks through a Web browser and live Internet connection. netLibrary also is working to make its publishers' eBooks available through additional eBook reading platforms such as the Glassbook readers for PCs and the Peanut Reader for Palm and Windows CE handheld computers. The netLibrary eBook Reader(TM) is available now as a free download from the netLibrary Web site. The software application requires approximately 5.5 megabytes of hard disc space, and takes about 20 minutes to download on a 56k modem. The hardware requirements for running the netLibrary eBook Reader are a Pentium 100 or equivalent processor, 32 megabytes of RAM, and 20 megabytes of free hard disk space, and Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 or greater. www.netLibrary.com

Cell Network Partners with Vioma for Content Management
7/5/2000

Cell Network and VIOMA AB are investing jointly in VIOMA's Content Manager--a new concept for managing and structuring information, design and function in complex web and mobile solutions. Cell Network will be responsible for consultancy work to implement and integrate business solutions based on VIOMA's products. VIOMA is a Swedish software company that develops dynamic, flexible Content Management solutions and mobile Internet platforms for companies and organizations. VIOMA's main product is VIOMA Content Manager, which gives companies and organizations the possibility of assembling, structuring and controlling information of many different formats in one database. The program is based entirely on XML and Java technology. The system is independent of the customer's graphic design and business logic, the format of the content and the distribution media, and gives the customer complete control over their information management. www.bit.se

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