January 2007 Archives

Exalead announced the general availability of the newest version of its enterprise search software, exalead one:enterprise, designed to provide users with a unified access point to content and data, both structured and unstructured, regardless of format or location. exalead one:enterprise 4.5 offers a new, simpler user interface with greater search refinement options, improved performance for both 64-bit and 32-bit system environments, expanded language and file format support as well as new management tools for administrators. With this release of exalead one:enterprise, customers will have the opportunity to select from three user interfaces to meet the needs of employees. These include: The UI available in exalead one:enterprise 4.0; The new, streamlined UI found on Exalead's Web search engine for business-related searches inside the firewall and; A white label version for organizations hoping to customize the look and feel from top to bottom. exalead one:enterprise automatically returns a list of related terms and categories for each search query that are extracted from the indexed data. This allows users to broaden or narrow a search, for example, by a document's author, location or format. For a more personalized experience, users can choose to expand or condense the list of options for refining a search, or how the results are pre-viewed and displayed. exalead one:enterprise 4.5 offers expanded language support for Dutch. The company's proprietary, native support covers more than 54 languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese and other major Asian languages. exalead one:enterprise now supports more than 320 file formats, including native support for Microsoft Office 2007. In addition to indexing these file formats. The new version of exalead one:enterprise also offers an updated connector for Microsoft Exchange. There are also new exalead one:search APIs available so that administrators can add custom capabilities using XSL (eXtensible Style Language). New reporting tools are also available to allow system administrators to learn about users' search patterns to optimize performance and relevancy of results. A default set of reports and charts are available and administrators can also use the reporting tools to define the reports or charts they need. http://corporate.exalead.com/

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) - Google announced that the Google Mini now offers sophisticated search features for finding and sharing information within small businesses and departmental groups, including document and user-level security, as well as access to any business content through Google Onebox for Enterprise. Google's access control capabilities integrate with existing security systems, helping to ensure that employees can access only information they are authorized to view. With Google OneBox for Enterprise, employees can search across a greater variety of corporate information stored in such business systems as Business Objects, Cognos, Cisco, Employease, Microsoft Exchange, Netsuite, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP, SAS, and others. Organizations can also create OneBox modules to access applications built in-house. Site administrators can now link the Google Mini search results page with Google Analytics to provide more detailed information about how people use search on their site. The new Google Mini also automatically generates sitemaps - allowing webmasters to expose more public content for crawling and indexing by Google.com. The Google Mini is offered in versions that search from 50,000 up to 300,000 documents, includes a year of support and is available for purchase online. http://mini.google.com

Bluespring Software announced the general availability of BPM Suite 4.5. Technical highlights include Microsoft Office 2007 integration, WSS 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 integration, PDF Form support, and SQL reporting services adoption. Expanded Microsoft integrations enable users to dynamically create Excel 2007 files, Word 2007 documents and InfoPath 2007 forms with any data moving throughout the process, including reading from Excel, Word, InfoPath, Adobe PDF files, ODBC-compliant databases and Web Services. In addition, Bluespring Web Parts enable users to embed work list management, process monitoring and reporting inside SharePoint pages as well as trigger processes off of SharePoint events and actions on any SharePoint entity. The release also expands the product's "in-flight" Process Editing capability, delivering process agility by allowing users to edit or change "in-flight" processes resulting from unexpected business cases without requiring code changes, server restarts or needing to wait for all "in-flight" processes to complete. Bluespring's BPM Suite is 1 of 2 Microsoft Gold Partners whose software products are being featured in the Microsoft Office 2007 launch kit, provided to attendees at 75 North America launch events.

Near-Time, Inc. announced the launch of a paid membership service, Near-Time Premium. Near-Time Premium is a hosted service that enables users to create revenue opportunities with customers and business partners. It offers an alternative to ad supported Web content, giving organizations a way to package and sell expertise and content via paid access to online collaborative spaces. With integrated Wiki and weblog authoring tools, and file sharing and task management capabilities, groups can foster rich environments for commercial interaction. The platform offers a range of tools to support and build customers' brands via a broad range of tools for customizing the look and feel of collaborative spaces as well as domain name mapping. Near-Time Premium spaces can be private, semi-private or public. Users are free to decide which content to monetize, and which to make publicly available. Roles and permissions services enable users to set different levels of interactive relationships at different price points. Near-Time spaces can be configured to offer members complete interaction, limited authoring and editing capabilities, or to simply allow members to read and comment on content. From collaborating with experts on Wikis to merely charging a reader to access premium content and files, users can create as many premium spaces as they would like, each with different interaction and economic models. Near-Time is available as a preview application. http://www.near-time.com/

W3C and OASIS have published WebCGM 2.0, a new industry standard for technical illustrations in electronic documents. WebCGM, which is widely deployed in the defense, aviation, architecture, and transportation industries, has reached new levels of interoperability thanks to this joint effort between OASIS and W3C. Computer Graphics Metafile, or CGM, is an ISO standard for a tree-structured, binary graphics format that has been adopted especially by the technical industries (defense, aviation, transportation, etc) for technical illustration in electronic documents. As the Web emerged as the environment for sharing and creating documents, it became apparent that the best way to use CGM on the Web needed to be clarified, particularly for interactivity such as hyperlinks and hotspots. WebCGM 2.0 adds a DOM (API) specification for programmatic access to WebCGM objects, and a specification of an XML Companion File (XCF) architecture, for externalization of non-graphical metadata. WebCGM 2.0 also builds upon and extends the graphical and intelligent content of WebCGM 1.0. The design criteria for WebCGM aim at a balance between graphical expressive power on the one hand, and simplicity and implementability on the other. A small but powerful set of standardized metadata elements supports the functionalities of hyperlinking and document navigation, picture structuring and layering, and enabling search and query of WebCGM picture content. http://www.oasis-open.org, http://www.w3.org/

Information Builders announced the release of WebFOCUS Magnify, a search navigation tool that dynamically categorizes search results and supplements them with analysis and reporting capabilities. Magnify uses the metadata from Google or other search engines to index structured data records and provide access to all WebFOCUS capabilities through the search interface to provide improved relevancy of results. A feature of WebFOCUS Magnify is that it captures data on a message bus. Using integration technology from iWay Software, an Information Builders company, it adds metatags, and submits it to the search engine indexing mechanism. This avoids the need for crawling data stores, particularly database records, combining structured data in databases with unstructured search. WebFOCUS Magnify leverages the metatags and provides results in a navigation tree to guide users to the information they need. Features of WebFOCUS Magnify include: Dynamic categorization of search results - provides enhanced ways to narrow down your search; Search-driven parameterized reports; Dynamic directories - uses search to data mine; and is search engine agnostic - can work with Lucene and Google. http://www.informationbuilders.com

Reveal Technology, Inc. announced that it will launch a new peer-to-peer enterprise application. The application enables a workgroup of users to securely search and share documents and unstructured data across multiple machines, without the use of a central portal or server. Reveal's new software is lightweight and self administering, and allows users to create shared workgroups in minutes. Reveal aims to increases productivity by providing real-time access to relevant information inside or outside of the enterprise. Users can quickly and easily set up workgroups to share selected emails and documents, such as Microsoft Office and pdf files, with colleagues on a permission-only basis. Users can belong to multiple, overlapping workgroups, and can selectively share just the information relevant to each workgroup. Reveal's application can search hundreds of file types encompassing text, data, audio and video formats. Advanced security features ensure that only the information designated is accessible to fellow workgroup users. The beta version of the Reveal product will be available in March. http://www.revealtechnology.com/

Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) announced that it has expanded its existing relationship with strategic business and technology consultants, Morse Plc. Morse has chosen Autonomy as its preferred vendor for the provision of meaning-based computing technologies and information infrastructure software for the enterprise. Moving forward, Autonomy and Morse will partner to deliver business-centric information management services focused on specific verticals in the UK such as telecoms, finance and government, maximising Morse's expertise in these markets. http://www.autonomy.com/

Fast Search & Transfer (OSEAX: FAST.OL) (FAST) unveiled the FAST Adaptive Information Warehouse (AIW), a new approach that lets users capitalize on their entire universe of information to make better informed decisions for competitive advantage. Built on a search platform, FAST AIW integrates an end-to-end framework of products that unifies search and Business Intelligence. FAST AIW puts the Business Intelligence solutions on top of the search platform to integrate and orchestrate all of the information needed to make BI more effective. Users can directly search and navigate Business Intelligence data in an ad-hoc manner, then display relevant, usable information to users without the need for predefined report creation. The FAST AIW platform includes FAST Radar, a Web-based Business Intelligence portal and tool that brings actionable information and statistical analysis to decision-makers throughout the organization by means of a familiar search and navigation interface. FAST Radar provides insights into data through personal, flexible dashboards that move intelligence in the enterprise from IT and business analysts to every business user. Also included is the FAST Data Cleansing Solution, which provides up-to-the-minute access to all information, structured and unstructured, regardless of its source or location. It uses linguistics to improve data quality, enabling organizations to match, merge, and cleanse data automatically. The FAST AIW platform, including FAST Data Cleansing and FAST Radar, is available immediately. FAST Data Cleansing and FAST Radar may also be purchased as individual products. http://www.fastsearch.com

Techbooks announced the re-naming of the company as Aptara, Inc. The company has selected this new identity to represent the company's expanded content transformation services and entry into new industry verticals. Aptara inherits a 20-year history offering a suite of services that allow global customers to digitize and manage content in re-usable formats, uncovering new revenue opportunities. http://www.aptaracorp.com/

Content management vendor Polopoly and Infomaker, a Swedish supplier of editorial systems, have entered into a partnership to integrate Polopoly’s content management system with Infomaker’s editorial system Newspilot. The collaboration aims to simplify co-ordination and updating of content in the paper edition with the web site. By integrating Polopoly and Newspilot, editors who use both systems will benefit from an automatic update of the content. For example, a journalist who updates an article in the editorial system will have the article automatically updated also in the content management system, and vice versa. Also, advertising departments and printing offices will benefit from the integration. http://www.polopoly.com, http://www.infomaker.se

McLaren Software announced that it will extend its software to function with AutoCAD P&ID 2007 software, Autodesk’s new application for plant design. By extending the McLaren Enterprise Engineer application suite to support AutoCAD PP&ID 2007, McLaren will help process and power customers manage the creation and use of engineering content. The new Enterprise Engineer functionality will manage all AutoCAD P&ID 2007 plant design documents and all other forms of engineering content on one standard enterprise content management platform, which includes EMC/Documentum and IBM/FileNet. The new solution will allow users to create, collaborate, modify and manage all of their plant design content through the built-in process and control provided by Enterprise Engineer. http://www.mclarensoftware.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced that it intends to release the full Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.7 specification to AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). PDF has become a de facto global standard since Adobe published the complete PDF specification in 1993. Since 1995 Adobe has participated in various working groups that develop technical specifications for publication by ISO and worked within the ISO process to deliver specialized subsets of PDF as standards for specific industries and functions. Today, PDF for Archive (PDF/A) and PDF for Exchange (PDF/X) are ISO standards, and PDF for Engineering (PDF/E) and PDF for Universal Access (PDF/UA) are proposed standards. Additionally, PDF for Healthcare (PDF/H) is an AIIM proposed Best Practice Guide. AIIM serves as the administrator for PDF/A, PDF/E, PDF/UA and PDF/H. Adobe will release the full PDF 1.7 specification as defined in the PDF Reference Manual to AIIM for the purpose of submission to ISO. The joint committee formed under AIIM will identify issues to be addressed, as well as proposed solutions, and will develop a draft document that will then be presented to a Joint Working Group of ISO for development and approval as an International Standard. AIIM holds the secretariat for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 171 and 171 SC2 for Document Management Applications, and is the administrator for the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to ISO TC 171 that represents the U.S. at international meetings. www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html

Day Software (SWX:DAYN) (OTC:DYIHY) announced availability of a comprehensive range of services supporting Apache Jackrabbit including training, support, consulting and development services. Since its launch in 2005, Apache Jackrabbit has become a popular Java Content Repository (JCR) for the open source industry. Day Software is the initiator of the underlying JSR 170 standard. Day Software has initiated the development of Java Content Repositories (JCR) such as Apache Jackrabbit. Day’s service and support offerings for Apache Jackrabbit will enable enterprises as well as other technology vendors to accelerate the development and deployment of applications that leverage JCR technology. http://www.day.com, http://jackrabbit.apache.org/

Dan Bricklin's Software Garden announced the release of wikicalc 1.0. In Dan's words: "After over a year and a half of work (part-time), I'm finally releasing the wikiCalc web authoring system as a "1.0" product. This means it has a pretty complete set of features for producing the quality output for which it was designed, has been relatively stable for a period of time, and has a reasonable amount of documentation. People who have held off testing or using the product until this point should now start taking a look. This is the code that will be the starting point for the SocialCalc project. You'll find the new documentation, and a link to the downloads, on the new wikiCalc Product Home Page. This new documentation includes a "Features" page giving an overview of the product, a news page with an RSS feed, an "If you are new to wikiCalc..." page, and more. The documentation on the website is much more extensive than before. There are separate pages with details about setting up "Edit This Page", "Live Viewing", and other technical topics. The product Help files are reproduced, too. It is written from the point of view that many users will be setting up remote-access to hosted versions of wikiCalc. I designed it to be localizable into other languages, and reportedly Russian and Polish are far along, with more on the way including German, Italian, and Japanese. (I used Zbigniew Lukasiak's rather complete Polish translation to test a lot of the localization code and catch bugs.) One person has written code for parsing and searching the edit log audit trail that wikiCalc keeps. As I fire up the Open Source project with the Socialtext people I'll include places to post and keep track of these things." ... http://danbricklin.com/log/2007_01_25.htm#wikicalc1_0

Inmedius, Inc. announced the release of Inmedius S1000Dimpact, the "missing link" between Logistics Support Analysis Record (LSAR) and ASD S1000D data that enables users to easily synchronize the two. This change management solution ensures that changes in engineering data are tracked and implemented by technical publication departments, so that documentation is up-to-date. Information from various sources – LSAR data, technical publications, product data models, engineering drawings – can be maintained, tracked and acted upon. Impact, fully integrated with the Inmedius S1000D Publishing Suite, is compatible with MIL-STD-1388-2B, MIL-PRF-49506 and DEF STAN 00-60, the standards that describe LSAR data. This enables Impact users to connect their LSAR data directly to publications in Inmedius S1000Dmanager. Impact enhances the efficiency of providing initial Data Module (DM) content and managing changes from the logistics source. Users map technical publishing structures to the logistics source, track and manage change, and create Data Module Requirements Lists (DMRLs) for S1000D projects. Impact also provides workflow capabilities, audit trails and reporting functions to maintain controls and manage changes. http://www.inmedius.com

Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) announced its Meaning Analytics Warehouse, a new IDOL module and a data warehouse that performs bulk analysis and mining of information contained in the enterprise including video, voice, email, applications, databases and hundreds of other file types by understanding the concepts, context and patterns contained in the information. The Meaning Analytics Warehouse module provides insight into information stored in silos across an enterprise by indexing, transforming and analyzing this information based on its meaning and relationships. It complements Autonomy's IDOL platform, which allows enterprises to search and process relevant data in real-time across all data types, with the addition of historical bulk analysis capabilities. This new capability makes mining of information from all information sources available for applications including top end business intelligence, electronic discovery, security and surveillance, and other applications requiring insight created as a bi-product of real-time or transactional systems. http://www.autonomy.com/

Ipedo announced major enhancements to the XQuery Views capabilities in Ipedo XIP. In conjunction with the W3C’s formal establishment of the XQuery standard, Ipedo now provides organizations with enhanced XML query processing and data virtualization in their EII platform. Ipedo’s XQuery Views – a data virtualization approach that allows data to be combined without the need to copy, stage and transform it – also enables queries across combinations of data from remote XML and relational sources. This feature increases access to data and content across organizations. Ipedo’s XQuery can be used in conjunction with the XML processing and XQuery now available in Oracle 10g, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server. Ipedo XIP allows XQuery Views results to be cached natively in XML. The new XQuery engine implements query operators that stream data values, so that query evaluation is memory efficient. XQuery Views can now be invoked directly via a Web Services API. Ipedo XIP can automatically generate the WSDL file needed for a particular XQuery View. In addition to standard data sources, Ipedo’s XQuery extension framework now makes it possible for users to make custom data sources, such as in-house applications accessed using custom APIs. In addition to the above features, Ipedo has developed further enhancements to XQuery in Ipedo XIP’s Dual-Core Query Architecture, including access to stored procedures in relational databases with support for parameterization of the XQuery Views that access them, and extended query plan description that will allow deeper drilldown of the steps involved in XQuery execution. These enhancements are available immediately for Ipedo XIP version 4.2 on Windows 2000, Windows NT, Sun Solaris, Red Hat Linux and SuSE Linux. Pricing is on a per-CPU basis. http://www.ipedo.com

Version 5.7 of publishing solution SoftCare K4 is now available. The new release of the editorial system includes several enhancements that can help publishers using Adobe InDesign and InCopy. Among these features are a new scripting interface for automating customer-specific processes, and the optional K4 Web Editor 2.0, which allows users to write and edit articles to fit in a Web browser and offers more flexibility in including the staff in the work processes. An improvement in Version 5.7 enables functions specific to the K4 system to be accessed automatically through scripts (JavaScript, AppleScript or Visual Basic), improving speed and productivity by allowing users to automate certain tasks within the editorial workflow. K4 Web Editor 2.0 lets users write, edit and copyfit Adobe InCopy articles in K4 from any computer with nothing more than a Web browser and an Internet connection. Articles checked out with K4 Web Editor are locked in the database; check-in from Web Editor unlocks the file and updates the database. Accurate representations of K4 articles, complete with styling, font mapping and layout geometry, are generated by Adobe InDesign Server and made available via a password-protected browser interface. It also allows users to work offline. Other improvements include the new easy query mode which allows quick searching for document names, and improved accessibility with larger fonts in the job lists. SoftCare K4 version 5.7 is available from K4 System Integrators worldwide. Customers using K4 version 5.0 or higher with valid maintenance agreements are eligible for a free upgrade. The K4 Web Editor is available for purchase as an option for K4 5.6 and 5.7 installations. K4 supports Mac OS X and Windows clients in mixed-platform environments. The server software is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Sun Solaris and Linux. http://www.softcare.de

Near-Time, Inc. announced that its hosted collaboration platform has been upgraded to include task management. The feature allows users to assign tasks around the content contained in Near-Time spaces. Integrated task management along with existing Near-Time features give departmental workgroups and teams spanning geographies and organizations ways to get on the same page with tasks, schedules and content, leading to improved productivity, information sharing and organization. Task management capabilities are integrated with Near-Time's Wikis, Weblogs and file sharing services. Users can organize tasks by milestone or project. A dashboard view offers a consolidated, color-coded view giving users an easy way to access tasks and coordinate activities by deadlines and priorities. Users can subscribe to RSS feeds to stay up-to-date on their projects. As a hosted service, Near-Time task management brings dispersed workers, and teams spanning organizations together, making it easier to coordinate activities with customers, prospects, suppliers, dealers, authors and publishers beyond the firewall. Task management is available now for Power and Premium plans only. Near-Time Power and Premium plans cost $699.95 and $1,999.95, respectively. Each plan enables users to create as many collaborative spaces and invite as many members as they would like. Sixty day free trials of the Near-Time Premium plan are available at http://www.near-time.com/

Sonic Foundry Inc. (NASDAQ:SOFO) has enabled advanced search capabilities for Mediasite.com, a searchable Website focused exclusively on offering expert information via rich media presentations with video, audio and graphics. The site enhancements combine phonetic search, optical character recognition, language processing and contextual analysis. Mediasite.com aggregates nearly 13,000 rich media presentations, including over 250,000 slides and almost 9,500 hours of analyzed audio on topics ranging from the treatment of contagious diseases and general health-related issues to robotics, business start-ups, sociology, ethics, financial advice, personal improvement and career advancement. Mediasite.com provides visitors with a directory of these publicly available presentations created by hundreds of experts around the globe. Optical character recognition allows for word and phrase spotting within slide content or visual aids. Advanced phonetic search algorithms coupled with language processing and contextual analysis provide the ability to locate specific spoken words or phrases within a rich media archive, based on algorithms developed by Sonic Foundry. Sonic Foundry customers can now take advantage of these advanced search features for their own Mediasite content through new hosted services offered through Sonic Foundry's professional services group. http://www.mediasite.com/, http://www.sonicfoundry.com/

Syncro Soft Ltd, the producer of oXygen XML Editor, has announced the immediate availability of Syncro SVN Client, a platform-independent Subversion (SVN) client aimed at giving Subversion repository users a high quality user interface. Syncro SVN Client is released under the 2.0 version because it was initially developed as an embedded component in oXygen XML Editor and starting with version 8.1 of the editor it is available also as a separate product. Syncro SVN Client makes easier the document and code sharing between content authors or developers. It offers full SVN repository support: checkout, export, import, copy, mkdir, rename, branch, tag and delete. The front-end allows you to browse repositories, check for changes, commit changes, update your working copy and examine the revision history. There is no need to install separate applications like a Subversion command line client or a file compare tool. Syncro SVN Client is composed of several views allowing you to browse the Subversion repositories and your local working copies, compare and merge modifications, check the revision history. All the views are dockable, this means you can position them to create the optimal layout for your use case. The Subversion Repository Browsing view allows you to add multiple SVN repositories to the list and browse them in parallel. In this way you can identify the resources you need to checkout, or even create branches or tags directly in the repository. Other features include a SVN Properties view that allows you to change all the standard SVN properties and also to define your own properties, support for multiple communication protocols like SSL and HTTP/HTTPS, a visual diff/merge tool for comparing images. Syncro SVN Client with One Year Maintenance Pack costs $59. Syncro SVN Client Site License with One Year Maintenance Pack costs $2970. Volume discount rates are available starting with 5 licenses. http://www.syncrosvnclient.com

MindTouch unveiled MindTouch Deki, a business wiki implemented as a virtual appliance. MindTouch Deki is a business software that installs quickly, giving different workgroups in organizations the ability to share information and collaborate with colleagues almost instantly and securely on their own network. MindTouch Deki is a complete pre-installed, pre-configured application and operating system that runs on any Windows or Linux machine. Scalable from small workgroups to large enterprises, it runs atop VMplayer, a free virtual appliance player from VMware. MindTouch Deki enables users to create, edit, share, search and store documents, emails, files and images securely behind a company's firewall. With an interface that looks and works like a word processor, MindTouch Deki offers a WYSIWYG rich-text editing experience in a web browser. With the Outlook Connector, a user can work in MindTouch Deki and pull all the necessary emails in one place, convert them to wiki pages in one click and share the contents. Every wiki page in MindTouch Deki is stored in XML, which enables content to be integrated into existing web services, knowledge management, web publishing or any standards-based enterprise application. MindTouch Deki is free for the first five users and is designed for on-demand scalability; customers simply purchase more user licenses online when they are ready. The free license does not include software updates and fixes, support or certain advanced features such as Outlook Connector. A full license (for five users) starts at $995. http://www.mindtouch.com

W3C has published eight new standards in the XML Family to support the ability to query, transform, and access XML data and documents. The primary specifications are XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XSL Transformations (XSLT) 2.0, and XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0; see the full list below. These new Web Standards will play a significant role in enterprise computing by connecting databases with the Web. XQuery allows data mining of everything from memos and Web service messages to multi-terabyte relational databases. XSLT 2.0 adds significant new functionality to the already widely deployed XSLT 1.0, which enables the transformation and styled presentation of XML documents. Both specifications rely on XPath 2.0, also significantly enriched from its previous version. W3C's XSL Working Group and XML Query Working Group, who created these specifications, have addressed thousands of comments from implementers and the interested public to ensure that the specifications meet the needs of diverse communities. The eight Recommendations published today that together increase the power of the XML family are: 1. XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, 2. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, 3. XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, 4. XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX), 5. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM), 6. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, 7. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, and,8. XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization. http://www.w3.org/

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced IBM WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0, the collaborative portal solution that provides a pre-built intranet and extranet experience out of the box for immediate use. WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0 is a new solution that allows businesses of less than 1,000 employees or departments within large organizations to be more productive and more responsive to their customers. WebSphere Portal Express provides integrated portal, document management, Web content management and collaboration capabilities in a single package with flexible pricing options. WebSphere Portal Express includes IBM Lotus Component Designer Version 6.0, a development tool that script developers, IBM Lotus Domino application designers, Visual Basic developers and others can use to create applications. IBM WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0 will be available on January 30, 2007, and is priced at $2,300 per 20 user pack, limited to 1000 registered users, or $39,999 per processor (100 processor value units). http://ibm.com/websphere/portalexpress6, http://ibm.com/lotus/smb

Global 360 announced the general availability of G360 Case Manager 10.0. G360 Case Manager combines the capabilities of BPM and optimization tools, collaborative content and records management applications into a single solution. Case Manager 10.0 incorporates the ability to graphically model organizational data and deploy human processes, with enterprise content management functionality for a complete management platform. With self-contained application configurations, IT can enforce configuration lifecycle management policies for each independent process or content application and simplify the deployment features. Case Manager 10.0 features integration with Global 360's Business Optimization Server (BOS), providing a complete view of an organization's processes and data. G360 Case Manager can leverage BOS capabilities to test drive relevant business processes, such as mortgage lending or underwriting, with actual business data to assess risk and compliance before implementation. http://www.global360.com/

IXIASOFT announced an OEM partnership with 3Squared, a provider of web content management solutions and consultancy based in the UK. As part of this agreement, 3Squared has developed Arca, a document management solution based on TEXTML Server, IXIASOFT’s XML database. Aimed at organizations looking for a complete document management solution, Arca enables management for growing enterprise content. Arca features complete document and content management capabilities providing users with a collaborative solution allowing them to better control their content, store and retrieve documents and manage and compare versions. By selecting TEXTML Server as the main repository for their content management offering, 3Squared was able to quickly develop and go to market with its solution. http://wwwixiasoft.com, http://www.3squared.co.uk

Mi-Co announced the availability of the Mi-Forms Integration Module to PureEdge/Workplace Forms as part of the Version 6 Mi-Forms product line. This integration module allows PureEdge users to import their form designs directly into the Mi-Forms environment for use with a wide range of mobile data capture devices (including Tablet PCs, Digital Pens and Pocket PCs using Windows Mobile 5). Mi-Co signed an agreement with IBM earlier in 2006 that facilitates the seamless integration of Mi-Forms and IBM Workplace Forms software and makes it available to users worldwide. The new Version 6 integration component is a part of the Mi-Forms System for IBM Workplace Forms which solution providers can use to implement Mobile Wizards for IBM Workplace Forms solutions. http://www.mi-corporation.com

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced: IBM Lotus Connections - a business-ready social software platform, IBM Lotus Quickr - a new Web 2.0 collaborative content platform offering, IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 - featuring expanded unified communications capabilities and increased interoperability with Microsoft software, and IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 open beta program starting this February. The new Lotus Notes client includes major upgrades to core applications and expanded integration with the new collaboration tools. http://www.ibm.com/

ISYS Search Software announced support for the newly released Microsoft Office 2007 document formats, offering immediate enterprise search functionality across core Office 2007 applications. ISYS also announced full support for Microsoft Windows Vista. Microsoft Office 2007 includes new document types for all main Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access. Microsoft has also included enhancements in the form of XML Paper Specification (XPS), its new alternative to the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Congruent with enhancements in the Office product, Microsoft Windows Vista also comes with built-in support for XPS. To ensure a seamless transition for its customers moving to Office 2007 or Vista, ISYS has incorporated support for these new formats into its ISYS 8 platform. In addition to support for new Microsoft file formats, ISYS 8 also introduced support of .wma and .wmv. formats. http://www.isys-search.com/

Inmagic, Inc.and WebFeat announced a partnership that will enable Inmagic Presto customers to conduct federated searches across virtually unlimited external data sources. Inmagic Presto is a Web-based enterprise application that enables organizations to provide authorized end users with immediate and consolidated access to the right information, even when it appears in varied formats and multiple locations across and outside of the organization. WebFeat users can simultaneously search across unlimited numbers of resources from a single interface. WebFeat’s translator authentication and session management technology enables WebFeat to search virtually any searchable database. WebFeat maintains a library of over 6,000 database translators. http://www.webfeat.org,
http://www.inmagic.com

JustSystems, Inc. announced plans to launch its “xfy adapter” for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. The adapter enables organizations to handle data stored in Lotus Notes and Domino databases in xfy, an application development and mashup platform for XML data. The new xfy adapter can access data stored in a Lotus Notes or Domino database, allowing organizations to leverage existing infrastructure investments and information. By combining this data with XML data from an XML database, XML documents within an organization or through Web services, it unlocks the information by presenting it visually with the xfy platform. xfy offers a wizard-like process to allow users to access external systems and applications. The XML data obtained from these sources is analyzed automatically, and displayed in a visual presentation that also enables end-users to switch the view and analyze the data from different angles. The original data is not edited or altered, so it enables organizations to comply with data security requirements. The adapter is scheduled for availability later this year. http://www.justsystems.com, http://www.xfy.com

The Gilbane Group, Lighthouse Seminars and CMS Watch announced that the second annual Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies Washington D.C. will take place at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington D.C. June 5-6, 2007. This is the industry’s most comprehensive forum for bringing together both government and industry executives to share content management best practices. The Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies will focus on concrete lessons learned and best practices for industry and government specialists alike. The Conference will be chaired by Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, an authoritative, vendor-neutral source for comparative evaluations of content management and search technologies. Content technologies for managing documents, websites, and records have grown in utility and sophistication. New technologies can enable searchers to find and retrieve information on a scale unheard of just five years ago. In the meantime, emerging standards in industry and government are supporting greater content exchange and systems interoperability. By attending The Gilbane Conference on Content Technologies, attendees will learn about: Enterprise Content Management technologies, business applications, and solutions; How to get your Content Management project funded; Best practices in content governance and web operations management; Content technologies and 508 compliance; New standards in content interoperability; Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Content Management; Latest Search and text-mining technologies: beyond the hype; Comparative approaches for using XML to manage authoritative content; How different enterprises have successfully implemented records management solutions; What lessons can be drawn from hard experience; Role of new media technologies - blogs, wikis, and RSS; The future of web publishing; How non-profits, associations, publishing, and other firms are managing growing volumes of content successfully. Speaking proposals are due January 29th. http://gilbanedc.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced Adobe RoboHelp 6, a system to create, manage and publish software help systems, knowledge bases and documentation for desktop and Web-based applications. As a key element of Adobe’s technical communications product line-up, which includes Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe Captivate and Adobe Acrobat, RoboHelp 6 provides all the desktop functionality that authors need to create Help content, including table of contents, index, glossary, graphics, special effects and context-sensitive Help. Adobe RoboHelp Server 6, also introduced, provides server features that ensure the delivery of up-to-date online content, with real-time tracking of how end-users engage with the help system that provides feedback to Help publishers. With this release, Adobe has consolidated the Adobe RoboHelp product family into two choices - Adobe RoboHelp 6 for authoring and Adobe RoboHelp 6 Server for the delivery of online content. Users of RoboHelp 6 also benefit from the integration of Adobe Captivate 2 for improved workflow and more engaging content with simulations and demonstrations. In addition, users can automate the building of their help at a predetermined time using command line compilation. Conditional Table of Contents (TOC) allows for greater control and customization of table of contents. With User Defined Variables, changes can be made just once, but seen everywhere in Help. Updated Adobe RoboSource Control provides a source document and version control system for Windows and Web development for both individual users and collaborative teams. Adobe PDF creation generates support for hyperlinks & bookmarks and enables accessible PDFs. RoboHelp 6 and RoboHelp 6 Server are available for purchase for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Support for Windows Vista will be added in 2007. The estimated street price for Adobe RoboHelp 6 is US$999 and US$1999 for Adobe RoboHelp 6 Server. Previous users of RoboHelp and RoboInfo can upgrade to Adobe RoboHelp 6 and RoboHelp Server 6 for an estimated street price of US$499 and US$999, respectively. http://www.adobe.com

MarketLive, Inc. announced that it has teamed with Endeca to introduce new MarketLive Intelligent Site Search and Navigation. Designed for online retailers, MarketLive Intelligent Site Search and Navigation includes search, Guided Navigation and Dynamic Merchandising capabilities powered by Endeca and will be offered as a component of the MarketLive E-commerce Platform. MarketLive Intelligent Site Search will be generally available to new and existing MarketLive v5 customers in Q1 2007. http://www.endeca.com, http://www.marketlive.com

QUMAS announced a partnership with PleaseTech Ltd., which adds collaborative review and authoring capabilities to QUMAS DocCompliance. The partnership provides out-of-the-box interoperability between the QUMAS DocCompliance software and the PleaseTech PleaseReview software. PleaseReview reduces version control issues and creates an audit log of changes to documents. The integrated solution is available now from QUMAS and PleaseTech. http://www.qumas.com, http://www.pleasetech.com

Vamosa has released version 2.9 of their content analysis and migration software, Vamosa Content Migrator. Vamosa Content Migrator version 2.9 has enhanced document migration capabilities and introduces ‘link cohesion’ for the document world. Link Cohesion has been a long-standing feature of Vamosa Content Migrator and has been used to great effect when migrating web content to translate all internal website hyperlinks. The extension of this functionality to incorporate documents will be beneficial to organisations with large document and content repositories. Link Cohesion for documents allows Vamosa Content Migrator to analyse organisation’s documents (Word, Excel or PDF etc) and examine links held within those documents. Where necessary the product will automatically and intelligently adjust these links to maintain their validity and ensure that the content referred to by the link remains accessible in the new content management system and architecture. http://www.vamosa.com

BrainKeeper has released it's Enterprise Wiki software. The BrainKeeper Enterprise Wiki enables the creation of community, and provides the features needed to manage corporate knowledge. As an example, creating training materials with BrainKeeper reduces the time needed for new employees or contracted staff to ramp up and become effective. These training materials can also be used to answer specific questions, be easily updated as the company grows and expands, and help to capture knowledge gained from outside resources. The features within the Enterprise Wiki are specifically designed and developed to work within established business processes. And getting knowledge out of the system can be done in a variety of ways: a search engine, content tags, shortcuts, and dynamic hierarchies. Free trial accounts are available at http://www.brainkeeper.com.

Prodiance Corporation announced the availability of the Prodiance Spreadsheet Compliance Edition for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007. This new solution helps organizations improve compliance and reduce errors in the financial closing process, tighten internal controls for critical spreadsheets. The solution combines spreadsheet discovery, inventory, migration, analysis, reporting, and auditing technologies from Prodiance with content management and workflow infrastructure from Microsoft. The Prodiance Spreadsheet Compliance Edition for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 incorporates an integrated suite of products from both companies, including: Prodiance Link Migration Manager - an application that migrates spreadsheets from uncontrolled desktops and shared drives into controlled SharePoint 2007 repositories while automatically updating any embedded links to map to their new web folder locations; Prodiance Spreadsheet IQ - an add-in for Microsoft Office Excel that automates spreadsheet discovery, inventory, risk-based analysis, multi-workbook reporting, dependency mapping, and documentation processes; Prodiance Spreadsheet Compliance Manager - a web service for Excel that automatically audits and compares formula, data, macro, and VB code changes for better reporting, alerting, and tracking of performance and risk indicators; Microsoft Office Excel 2007; and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Prodiance Spreadsheet Compliance Edition for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is available at http://www.prodiance.com/solutions/sharepoint.html

Interwise unveiled its second solution supporting EMC’s collaboration product platform, Interwise Connect for Documentum. The solution addresses the transformation of live business meetings into real time content that can be stored and managed to enhance project collaboration, compliance and other business activities. Designed to operate seamlessly with EMC Documentum, the solution has been awarded the “Designed for EMC” designation. Also, the company delivered enhancements to its Interwise Connect for eRoom solution that adds unlimited, live meeting capabilities to EMC Documentum eRoom workspace environments. Interwise Connect for Documentum allows enterprises to capture, manage and store the live information assets and records produced during voice, Web and video conferences and face-to-face meetings. It helps enterprise content management (ECM) capture and store the transactional content that comes from applications like e-mail, ERP (SAP/Oracle) and others. Users can schedule audio conferences and Web meetings, as well as upload materials and invite participants, directly from within EMC Documentum. All Interwise meeting components - telephone and online meeting discussions, whiteboard drawings, shared applications and documents, meeting invitations and participant lists - can be categorized as metadata within Documentum for later indexing, searching and playback. The solution also allows users to integrate their meeting assets into Documentum workflows and business processes. The assets are stored within Documentum’s secure content repository. http://www.interwise.com

Drupal 5.0, a popular open source CMS, has been released. Version 5.0 looks to be a fairly major release. From the Drupal site: "After 8 months of development we are ready to release Drupal 5.0 to the world. Today is also Drupal's 6th birthday, so the timing could not be more perfect. Drupal 4.0 was released in 2002 and finally we feel confident to increase the major version number from 4 to 5. There have been over 492 contributors to the Drupal 5.0 release submitting 1173 patches, which is 150 more people than our previous record with Drupal 4.7. These new contributions are seen in the major usability improvements, a new Drupal core theme, a web-based installer, and expansion of the Drupal development framework that will afford themers and contributing developers even greater flexibility and power." http://drupal.org/drupal-5.0

Vorsite Corporation announced the release of their new Connector Technologies for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search and the EMC|documentum Content Management Platform. For individual EMC|documentum platform owners that decide to utilize the new Microsoft Office 2007 System or begin to integrate using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 or adopt Microsoft Enterprise Search, this announcement means that their existing Documentum content management platform will still be able to take advantage of the experience Microsoft Technologies provide end-users. The Vorsite Connector Technologies were designed on the Microsoft .Net Platform and use standards based web services to provide true enterprise application integration. The Vorsite Connector Technologies currently consist of two main connector types: The Vorsite Content Connectors and Vorsite Search Connectors. Both provide a connection platform for Line-of-Business applications like the EMC|documentum and FileNet P8 Content Management Systems. These Connectors are designed to address four areas of integration: Content/document Sharing, Portal Integration, and content/document Migration. http://www.vorsite.com

Emagine announced that it has released a new version of its emagiC CMS.Net framework. The new version v4.0, released early January 2007, is a targeted towards Enterprise Content Management and opens the way for e-Government applications. Version 4.0 now includes connectors for MS Office and MS SharePoint Portal Server. On security level, Emagine has partnered with Intesi Group for the integration of eID (Electronic IDentity Card) authentication and real-time identity card verification. And, the new version has extensive support for high traffic websites based on a load balancing system (web farms). The MS Office connector let you view and edit documents, stored in the emagiC CMS.Net document library, directly from within MS Office. No need to enter the emagiC CMS.Net administration interface, download the document, make changes and upload it again to the server. Just open MS Office and connect to the emagiC CMS.Net document library. The emagiC CMS.Net SharePoint connector adds the possibility to display content from MS SharePoint Portal Server into the emagiC CMS.Net website. SharePoint lists can be added to any page in emagiC CMS.Net. As with any emagiC CMS.Net module, you control the information that you want to be displayed and the way you want it to be displayed. The SharePoint connector uses SharePoint Web Services. This way, the security settings defined in SharePoint will apply to the credentials specified for the SharePoint connector. http://www.emagiccms.com

SearchInform Technologies Inc. introduced a new version of SearchInform, a program of full text search and search for documents with similar content, featuring new interface settings as well as an enhanced functionality. In the new version, owing to implementation of new auto searching servers, work with previously created indexes stored in the local network became less complicated. Now whenever you want to add a new index, SearchInform will automatically scan the network and show all existing indexes available for connection. SearchInform Server’s performance in the local network has been enhanced and the analysis function upgraded leading to improved performance. Main features of SearchInform 3.2.08: Phrase search with due consideration to stemming and thesaurus, New SoftInform Search Technology of search for similar documents, High indexing speed (from 15 to 30 Gb/hour), Index size of 15-25% from the actual size of the text data, Query caching system, and Support of over 60 text formats including Outlook & TheBat electronic messages, mp3 & avi tags, and logs of MSN and ICQ instant messaging programs. http://www.searchinform.com/

The Gilbane Group announced today that they have launched a new research and consulting practice covering content globalization technologies and applications. The new practice is led by Lead Analyst Leonor Ciarlone & Senior Analyst Mary Laplante, with contributions from guest blogger Kaija Poysti. The new practice complements existing Gilbane Group consulting services that cover a broad range of content technologies, as well as the Gilbane Group's Publishing Technology and Strategy consulting practice, and our Enterprise Search practice. The Globalization practice is supported by a new blog devoted to the topic as well as content at our Gilbane conferences in cooperation with the LISA (Language Industry Standards Association) Forum. The Globalization blog goes live on January 10 with an introductory entry by Lead Analyst Leonor Ciarlone. Visit the new blog at: http://gilbane.com/globalization/

Inxight Software, Inc. announced that that it has established a strategic business relationship with Iknow LLC to jointly develop and market advanced informatics solutions. Inxight’s federated search, extraction and visualization products enable enterprise, government and OEM customers to turn unstructured and structured text into actionable information. Inxight solutions allow its users to access, extract and be alerted to relevant information contained in the open Web, deep Web (patent databases, SEC filings), subscription sites, and internal data sources. Powered by Inxight’s ThingFinder entity extraction, search results are automatically clustered on the fly, enabling users to filter their search results by the people, companies, places, concepts and other information contained within them. This reduces time to information and enables users to locate hidden information and make better decisions. The companies will initially focus on three industry sectors: pharmaceuticals, legal and government. The companies anticipate announcing several joint solutions in 2007. http://www.inxight.com, http://www.iknow.us.com

WebMethods introduced version 7.0 of the webMethods Fabric product suite as well as a new component, webMethods BPMS. The company reports that these releases deliver a fully-unified environment for process development, automation, and monitoring. WebMethods Fabric 7.0 highlights technologies for service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance, while the new BPMS suite concentrates on business user features as well as integrated process monitoring and and enhanced real-time business analytics. Additional webMethods BPMS features include an Eclipse-based process modeling environment for ‘codeless’ development, extensive support for both human-to-human and system-to-system task flow, business rules management and a new semantic metadata library.

JustSystems, Inc. announced its new Xelerate Partner Program. The 4-tier program, whose categories include Strategic Partner, Premier Certified, Certified and Associate designations, has been created to reflect its focus on partners that will add value to its XMetaL Content Lifecycle Solutions. Whether partners offer content conversion, management, publishing, or localization software complementary to XMetaL, the program reaffirms JustSystems’ commitment to work in partnership with vendors to provide complete content lifecycle solutions and services to customers. The company also welcomes the first three partners to the program: XyEnterprise Inc., a developer of XML and content management and publishing software solutions, joins as a Premier Certified Solutions Partner; Ovidius GmbH, a provider of XML software for creating, managing, and publishing of technical information, joins as a Premier Certified Services Partner; Commandtext, Inc., a systems integrator specializing in structured content solutions, joins as a Certified Services Partner. XyEnterprise and Ovidius have also been designated as Strategic Partners based on their commitment to standards-based solutions and contribution to the XMetaL business. http://www.xmetal.com

Quark Inc. announced the release of QuarkXPress 7.1, the new Universal upgrade to the desktop design software. The latest upgrade adds performance enhancements, making the design software more responsive. Quark made performance improvements in several areas — including text selection, clipped images, and flattening features. Each feature has received a performance boost, resulting in faster production times. In addition, the Universal upgrade has provided performance improvements throughout the application. A fully functional 30-day evaluation version of QuarkXPress 7, including the new Universal release for Intel-based Macs, is available. To purchase or upgrade to QuarkXPress 7.1, visit the Quark Web site at http://www.quark.com/71update

Pegasystems announced the latest version of its award-winning SmartBPM(TM) Suite. Enhancements focus on providing business users with better access and more precise control over their business processes. New features include Flex-based interactive business visualization, complex business decisioning support, insurance-specific capabilities to manage multi-channel, multi-state policies and rules, SOA integration testing, AJAX and Flex automation, and accessibility features to support all users. The release also adds new accessibility support to meet the requirements imposed by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Disability Discrimination Act (UK) as well as other accessibility requirements in the EU.

Mediasurface and Google have signed a distribution agreement in which Mediasurface will bundle the Google Search Appliance with Morello, its web content management system enabling the two organisations to provide web content management and corporate search facilities in one offering. As part of the agreement, an interface between Morello and the Google Search Appliance has been developed; enabling Morello to use the Google Search Appliance to deliver highly relevant search results. Mediasurface can now deliver the same Google search experience while searching content managed by Morello on public websites and intranets. The security model within Morello is fully maintained; a search will only retrieve and display content relevant to the access privileges of the user. The integration between Morello and Google Search Appliance ensures that a richer and relevant set of content is delivered than would have been available previously by adding in metadata such as the original content author, the date the content was first published, keywords, and so on, which is held separately within the CMS. The Morello content author can create "keymatch" terms that relate to an item of content and enabling certain content to appear at the top of a search result. Morello and the Google Search Appliance can now group and manage information for specific audiences so if, for example, someone searches for technical data on a product, they can select the technical collection and avoid the brochures. http://www.mediasurface.com

Atlassian Software Systems announced the availability of the newest version of Confluence, the enterprise wiki. Confluence 2.3 offers users an optional clustered configuration, Confluence Massive, that provides unlimited scalability, together with exceptional performance and reliability, for large deployments of the wiki. Confluence Massive provide the performance required for organisations with tens of thousands of users, or for those businesses with mission-critical applications that require high availability. Confluence 2.3 contains dozens of other new features and improvements, including a People Directory, which allows users to easily find other Confluence users' profiles and personal spaces; an activity-tracking plugin that generates statistics on application usage; and a WebDAV client plugin. Atlassian selected Tangosol and their Coherence product to deliver the clustering capabilities of Confluence Massive. Confluence 2.3 is available for evaluation and purchase. Release notes, pricing and licensing information are also available online. http://www.atlassian.com

Intalio, Inc. announced that it has signed OEM agreements with Diamelle and OperMIX for the embedding of Intalio|BPMS, its standards-based Open Source Business Process Management System (BPMS). Diamelle Technologies will embed Intalio|BPMS into its solutions in order to support the deployment of complex identity and access management processes, while complying with strict auditing and compliance requirements that are demanded by its financial services customers. OperMIX will use Intalio|BPMS to deploy custom business processes on top of Salesforce.com AppExchange and provide real-time integration with third-party applications such as SAP R/3 and mySAP Business Suite.http://www.diamelle.com, http://www.opermix.com, http://www.intalio.com

Google announced new features for the Google Search Appliance that give enterprise customers the ability to customize search results for their individual corporate environments. The Google Search Appliance now also offers improved integration with Google services as well as additional content sources. New features include Results Hit Clustering and Source Biasing. Results Hit Clustering are groups of dynamically formed sub-categories based on the results of each search query. These clusters appear at the top of search results and help searchers refine their queries from possible ambiguous terms. For example, if an employee searches for "customer" on the company network, a set of categories could appear at the top of the results with groups of topics such as "customer support" or "customer contacts" to help guide the search. Administrators can customize the location and appearance of Results Hit Clustering within search results. Source Biasing enables administrators to assign various weights to search results on their corporate network, based on source or type of content. For instance, if a company has multiple Documentum servers, the site administrator can strengthen the content from the one primary Documentum server. The same is true for types of content. If a financial services corporation values content in .pdf form more than content in a word processing document, administrators can use Source Biasing to increase the weight of .pdfs in the search results. A menu-driven interface allows weak or strong increases or decreases, and requires no complex coding or scripting. The new version of the Google Search Appliance also adds improved integration with Google Sitemaps export (for simpler export of information about web pages available for crawling), as well as open source connectors for indexing content in SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007. http://www.google.com/enterprise/gsa/

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of "Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 3.0)." This the third version of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"), an XML-based language that allows authors to write interactive multimedia presentations. This version will extend the functionality of SMIL 2.1, facilitate the reuse of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages, and define new SMIL profiles. Read more about the Synchronized Multimedia Activity. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-SMIL3-20061220/, http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

Recommind announced the next generation of its MindServer platform, featuring new eDiscovery functionality that enables enterprises to locate electronically stored information (ESI) that must be preserved for ongoing or anticipated litigation. In addition, MindServer 5.0 makes it easier for OEM partners and independent software vendors to embed MindServer enterprise search and categorization capabilities within their products and provide customers with richer capabilities for searching and managing critical information. MindServer 5.0 is able to find, within the enterprise, potentially relevant and responsive information that must be preserved as part of a litigation hold, a requirement of any legal proceeding. In many enterprise environments, the MindServer platform itself can lock down any document or other piece of information returned in a search query. Otherwise, MindServer 5.0 is able to pass the result set from any query to a separate application, such as a content management system or database, for immediate litigation hold lock-down. In addition, only MindServer 5.0 supports multi-selection filters within the user interface, a prerequisite for the highly comprehensive and detailed searches needed for effective litigation hold. The platform's improved APIs enable knowledge and content management, email archiving, and eDiscovery system vendors to incorporate Recommind's enterprise search functionality into their products. MindServer 5.0 also incorporates improvements to search relevancy and ease of use, delivers faster query performance, simplifies integration with Microsoft SharePoint Portal and other existing systems, and provides enhanced reporting capabilities. Recommind MindServer 5.0 is available immediately. http://www.recommind.com

Exalead announced an OEM agreement with Messaging Architects, a specialist in Risk Management software and services for enterprise e-mail systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Messaging Architects will integrate the unified, secure exalead one:search platform into its enterprise-class GWArchive 3.5 solution, which is designed to help organizations address the challenges of e-mail retention, regulatory compliance, storage and retrieval. By embedding exalead one:search technology into GWArchive, customers will be able to retrieve archived e-mails through a unified user interface. GWArchive, which is designed for Novell Groupwise Collaboration software users, offers enterprise-class storage management, policy-based retention, full information lifecycle management for e-mail and long-term data portability. The exalead one:search platform complies with an organization's existing security policy to prevent e-mail messages from being viewed or retrieved by employees without permission. Further, exalead one:search offers several advanced search capabilities that allows users to find relevant information quickly, even if they do not know its exact location or the content within the e-mail. Users can narrow or broaden the search for a particular e-mail message based on keywords, date range, author and recipient, whether it had an attachment, or based on the text within an attachment, among other parameters. Exalead also offers a fuzzy matching capability that allows users to search phonetically.
http://www.messagingarchitects.com/, http://exalead.com/

The Gilbane Group announced today that they have launched a new research and consulting practice covering Enterprise Search technologies and applications. The new practice is lead by industry veteran and research expert Lynda Moulton. The new practice complements existing Gilbane Group consulting services that cover a broad range of content technologies, as well as the Gilbane Group's Publishing Technology and Strategy consulting practice. While the Gilbane Group has covered enterprise search technologies since 1993, today's demand from a broad range of organizations for solid information and guidance needs to be met with a highly focused dedicated effort. The Enterprise Search practice is supported by a new blog devoted to the topic as well as the Enterprise Search track at Gilbane conferences. The Enterprise Search blog went live on January 1 with an introductory entry by Lead Analyst Lynda Moulton. Visit the new blog at: http://gilbane.com/search_blog/.

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