January 2008 Archives

Nstein Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: EIN) announced the creation of a formal partner program specifically designed for the system integrators and developers community, who want to help publishers who need to integrate legacy content sources without sacrificing the ability to take advantage of the powerful XML enrichment and publishing technology that is core to Nstein's application suite. Along with providing sales, technical and training support, Nstein also supplies its partners with the documentation and APIs that are necessary for successful deployments. Nstein's Partner Program is built to help ensure the partners will financially benefit from their partnership while offering their clients content management solutions for media, entertainment and online publishing. http://www.nstein.com/partner

Swedish software developer Polopoly releases the latest version of its Content Management system. Continuing the effort to launch more ready-to-use functionality, Polopoly version 9.9 marks an important milestone. By introducing a standardized way to build web sites and specifically how to break down pages into standardized and reusable elements, version 9.9 introduces out-of-the-box layout management functionality. Live layout editing is now as easy as dragging and dropping content and application components onto a page - allowing for full user customization on the fly. The Polopoly platform is built entirely in Java and has open and documented APIs. Like previous versions of the Polopoly system, version 9.9 provides enterprise level performance through Polopoly’s architecture and multi-level caching technology. The new release includes the addition of a new fragment cache, which automatically caches reusable page fragments.The new developer framework introduced in version 9.9 prescribes best practices for how to build web sites and web pages with Polopoly. Keeping this “developer contract” gives the editors benefits in the form of preview and editorial control over page layout. An editor may for instance rearrange the components within a page visually, using the modular interface with drag-and-drop capabilities. Page templating can still be used to control corporate graphical guidelines and accessibility demands, for example, while at the same time allowing for just the right level of editorial flexibility and creativity to ensure maximum use of content assets. For developers, the new Velocity integration will allow for dynamic update of website presentation logic, enabling hot deployment of new site functionality. The Polopoly Content Management system provides for multi-channel distribution of large amounts of content at high speed. The modular software includes tools for managing and editing multimedia, including user generated content, within one single system. Polopoly Content Manager Version 9.9 will be available from February 1, 2008. http://www.polopoly.com

Gilbane Group Inc. announced the launch of a new practice area dedicated to helping organizations of all types utilize XML technologies and best practices. Well-known industry expert and long-time Gilbane associate Bill Trippe will be the practice’s Lead Analyst. Trippe is joined by industry veterans and Gilbane senior analysts Leonor Ciarlone and Mary Laplante. Gilbane’s XML Technologies and Content Strategies Practice is designed for IT and business managers who need to gain control of critical content, increase collaboration across enterprise applications, improve efficiencies through faster and more flexible information distribution between business partners and customers, and implement new business models that can keep pace with today's internet-speed competitive requirements. The amount of XML content being generated today is staggering, as large infrastructure providers like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle, and others offer tools and technologies that generate and manage XML information, While many organizations are taking advantage of XML within departmental applications, most companies are not even close to taking advantage of the XML information being created and utilized by popular applications including office software and database repositories. Significantly, many executives are unaware of the XML content and data that are untapped assets within their organizations. To learn more about Gilbane Group’s XML Consulting and Advisory Practice, visit the group’s new blog at http://gilbane.com/xml/ or send an email to xml@gilbane.com http://gilbane.com

Systems Alliance, Inc. announced the launch and general availability of SiteExecutive 4, the latest version of its Web content management application. SiteExecutive 4 offers advanced capabilities for classifying and delivering content, stronger compliance with industry standards, and expanded deployment options. SiteExecutive 4 provides enhancements include: Classification Engine and Content Intelligence Module: A taxonomy building system now lets clients classify all content types, including HTML, images, pdfs, and all other binary files included in a site. Once classified, The Content Intelligence Module can be added to any page or template, where it will automatically display relevant content; Improved support for mobile devices: SiteExecutive 4 incorporates a new page attribute which assigns style sheets based on CSS 2 media types. In addition to supporting handheld devices, SiteExecutive supports a range of other media types including screen readers, projectors, Braille, print and even TV; Stronger standards compliance: SiteExecutive 4 is compliant with XHTML and CSS 2. It features a new WYSIWYG editor that provides flexibility for assigning and editing header tags, further enhancing compliance with accessibility standards; More search engine friendly: Content contributors now have built-in capabilities for optimizing content, including control over H1-H6 tags and browser title, as well as a page comparison utility for evaluating content revisions; Binary versioning: SiteExecutive 4 provides automated version control for all binary files, providing a mechanism for rolling-back to prior versions as needed and assisting with document retention policies; Expanded platform support: SiteExecutive 4 now allows content authoring on Windows XP and Vista PCs using IE 6 and 7, as well as Mac OS-X computers running Firefox 2.x browsers. Server deployment options now include Apache on Windows, in addition to IIS, and Apache on Solaris and Red Hat Linux. SiteExecutive 4 is available immediately from Systems Alliance and its authorized resellers. The software is licensed by the server or as a hosted service. GSA pricing is also available for government agencies. More information is available at: http://www.siteexecutive.com/, http://www.systemsalliance.com

ADAM Software announced full breadth XPS-functionality. XPS stands for XML Paper Specification. ADAM’s provider model allows third party developers to co-engineer on emerging opportunities. As for XPS, ADAM software joined forces with the Belgian company NiXPS to build an XPS-engine for ADAM. The 'NiXPS Library v2.0' widens the scope in which ADAM can handle data. Thumbnails of XPS files are shown in ADAM, the previewing of XPS files starts here. Metadata can be read by ADAM when importing. ADAM handles a conversion of XPS files to Adobe PDF. http://www.adam.be, http://www.nixps.com

Fast Search & Transfer ASA (FAST) announced it has selected Informatica's (NASDAQ:INFA) PowerCenter to help enable new data interoperability. Under the terms of the agreement, FAST will embed Informatica's data integration software within the FAST Adaptive Information Warehouse (AIW) to simplify access to structured enterprise information. In addition, FAST has developed a PowerCenter adapter to capture extracted metadata in AIW using linguistic analysis techniques. The ability to deliver trustworthy data collected from disparate systems enhances AIW, making AIW, with its flexible retrieval-centric architecture, a platform for Business Intelligence (BI). FAST's Business Intelligence Built on Search allows business users to simply, explore and analyze enterprise data. The addition of Informatica's complementary data integration software eliminates some of the complexity associated with accessing information from various enterprise systems. http://www.fastsearch.com/, http://www.informatica.com/

Liferay, Inc. announced plans to standardize its products on jQuery, an open source JavaScript Library used to simplify the writing of JavaScript code. Liferay, Inc. will now also provide business support for jQuery technology. While other libraries may still be used, Liferay, Inc. will be standardized to use jQuery and its plugins. As part of its focus on jQuery technology, Liferay, Inc. is now also offering three levels of support for jQuery and jQuery UI, the highest of which features 24-7, one hour response times. http://www.liferay.com/

Recommind and iCONECT Development, LLC jointly announced a strategic alliance that will combine Recommind’s Axcelerate eDiscovery application with iCONECT’s nXT and eXT Web-based review platforms to create a new litigation review and analysis solution. With the integration of these two products, customers may benefit from the extensive use of automatically generated insight into a document collection, including each document’s responsiveness, priority, privileged nature and relationship to issues and subject codes. iCONECT will utilize the rich data about people, documents, concepts and phrases that is automatically generated by Axcelerate eDiscovery throughout the nXT EDD platform, greatly extending the utility of this data throughout the review process. Axcelerate eDiscovery provides language-agnostic tools like conceptual search, First Pass Review and One Click Coding functionality to expedite document review. Axcelerate eDiscovery offers law firms and enterprises more accurate and extensive document culling and filtering of virtually all document types, including both structured and unstructured data. For example, the solution automatically filters duplicates and near-duplicates between and across custodians and parties, and offers contextual email thread analysis, reducing the number of documents to be reviewed. http://www.iconect.com, http://www.recommind.com

Ektron unveiled the Ektron Intranet which uses the social networking to enable the controlled, collaborative creation and managed distribution of business documents on the corporate intranet. Once distributed the Ektron Intranet enhances workforce productivity by allowing employees to create personalized information architectures that allow them to find the assets they need. Documents can be constantly enhanced through a feedback loop which takes advantage of discussion boards to gather observations from the employees using the documents. On the Ektron Intranet, “social” networks become “business-focused” networks, “friends” become colleagues, and “groups” become collaborative workspaces. http://www.ektron.com

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML Core Working Group has published the Proposed Recommendation of "Canonical XML 1.1." The specification establishes a method for determining whether two documents are identical, or whether an application has not changed a document, except for transformations permitted by XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML. Canonical XML 1.1 is a revision to "Canonical XML 1.0" designed to address issues related to inheritance of attributes in the XML namespace when canonicalizing document subsets, including the requirement not to inherit xml:id, and to treat xml:base URI path processing properly. Comments are welcome through 07 March. Learn more about W3C's XML Activity. http://www.w3.org/XML/Core/, http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-xml-c14n11-20080129/

Silobreaker announced the official release of its new service. More than a news aggregator, Silobreaker provides relevance by looking at the data it finds like a person does. It recognizes people, companies, topics, places and keywords; understands how they relate to each other in the news flow, and puts them in context for the user. The graphical search results enables users to understand connections, trends and topics or navigate deeper into the most relevant stories for them. Silobreaker pulls content on global issues, science, technology and business from approximately 10,000 news, blog, research and multimedia sources. With the engine’s focus on finding and connecting related data in the information flow, Silobreaker’s user tools and visualizations are meant for bringing meaning to content from either today’s Web or the evolving Semantic Web, or both. http://www.silobreaker.com

Attivio announced the launch of their new software venture, Attivio, Inc., which will offer an "Active Intelligence Engine (AIE)". AIE is a universal repository for injecting information into business processes, weaving data, content, and applications together for a variety of uses such as ecommerce, eDiscovery, and operational business intelligence. Its intended innovations are integrating structured data and unstructured content into one repository without compromising the richness of either, and using the information to automatically update, manage, and enrich business systems. Attivio's strategy is "mashing up technologies for today's collaborative world where online presence, multi-channel alignment, and end-to-end integration are critical factors. We believe that search results from unstructured content or query results from structured data alone always sub-optimize the business process. By delivering answers based on all corporate information to the right person at the right time, we drive the shift from finding information to using information and help companies conduct better business." http://www.attivio.com/

Intrasphere Technologies announced the launch of PharmaCM, a comprehensive content management solution, powered by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). The solution enables users to overcome ineffective content authoring, management and distribution processes. PharmaCM helps organizations manage drug product information that is critical to patient safety more effectively, including the content for drug labels, clinical trial protocols, and drug safety reporting helping business users to create, manage, submit to regulators and intelligently reuse their information. PharmaCM provides an interface for generating a series of regulated documents including protocol disclosure forms required for registration on www.clinicaltrials.gov as well as structured product labels (SPL) as required by the DailyMed on the National Library of Medicine. http://www.intrasphere.com/

EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) announced its newest distributed document capture solution that offers advances in Web-based distributed capture, EMC Captiva eInput 2.0. eInput 2.0 ia designed to make the scanning and indexing of paper documents from remote offices faster and easier, automating the classification of documents, extraction of data, and validation of information directly from a Web browser. Captiva eInput works as an extension to the Captiva InputAccel platform, delivering distributed capture with the EMC Documentum platform to address transactional content management (TCM) applications, such as loan processing, insurance claim processing, invoice processing, new account enrollment, and case management. In addition, working with InputAccel, eInput integrates with a wide array of back-end systems, including enterprise content management (ECM), business process management (BPM), and other enterprise applications. Together, these solutions enable organizations to add distributed capture capabilities to their existing business processes and information infrastructure. http://www.emc.com/

Docudesk announced the launch of deskUNPDF Professional for Mac. deskUNPDF for Mac will provide users with functionality and conversion formats to address a wide array of PDF document conversion needs on both Intel and PowerPC OS X systems. deskUNPDF for Mac is a solution for converting, transforming, and automating PDF workflow. The application utilizes technology for converting PDF's to multiple output formats for editing, business-grade table-detection that enables extracting table information into Microsoft Excel (.xls), and batch conversion. The output formats support conversion for document, web, image, and data-based needs. Supported document-based formats include the Open Document Format (.ODT) and Excel (.XLS). Supported data-based formats include Comma Seperated Values (.CSV) and Extensibile Markup Language (.XML). Supported web-based formats include Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), Extensible HyperText Markup Language (.xHTML), and Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG). Supported image-based formats include Bitmap (.BMP), Portable Network Graphics (.PNG), Tagged Image File Format (.TIF or .TIFF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (.JPEG). With enhanced Accu-Text rendering technology, deskUNPDF Pro for Mac provides a faithful reproduction regardless of the chosen output format. deskUNPDF Professional for Apple Macintosh is currently available for $69.95. A free trial is also available. http://www.docudesk.com

Vivisimo announced a new technology, remix clustering, to help users find new topics and gain insights related to their search queries. Vivisimo’s standard clustering organizes search results into topical folders on the fly, without any pre-processing of source documents. Clustering gives a quick overview of the main topics, enables access to valuable but low-ranked search results, and groups together related documents for joint consideration. Vivisimo’s Remix clustering helps searcher’s productivity. It works like this: The user first sees clustered results in the usual style. Then, a single click on Remix reveals submerged or secondary topics that were not generated in the initial clustering. It works by feedback: cluster the same search results again, but explicitly ignore the topics that the user already saw. Remix clustering functionality is built into Velocity 6.0. It is also now available on Clusty.com, Vivisimo’s online web search site. Test the Remix on a familiar topic and see how unfamiliar or subtler topics emerge by repeated clicking on Remix. http://clusty.com

Bamboo Solutions Corporation announced the User Management Solution Accelerator for Microsoft SharePoint, a new product that lets SharePoint administrators manage, maintain and organize user information through a unified interface. The User Management Solution Accelerator is designed to simplify the complex provisioning of user information access privileges across multiple sites, lists and subscriptions in a SharePoint environment. Bamboo’s User Management Solution Accelerator lets administrators create, modify or remove both users and groups, reset passwords and clone user accounts. It provides group control, multiple group access and secure data integrity with a single interface. Users across a SharePoint portal can be viewed by site, user name, organizational structure and group. The User Management Solution Accelerator is available at Bamboo’s Online Store. Pricing starts at $1,000 for a 50 user license. http://www.bamboosolutions.com

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that it plans to ship Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.1 in February with several updates. Included in 8.0.1 is a "Web 2.0" feature, My Widgets, that can be used to execute actions such as retrieving real time flight arrival information simply by clicking on a flight number in an email. This is accomplished through a new technology called Live Text that can identify patterns and phrases and associate them with an appropriate widget. Users can drag and drop, or import, various kinds of widgets such as Google Gadgets, feeds, and Web pages or their own custom programs onto their new widgets panel in the Lotus Notes sidebar. Planned for delivery with Lotus Domino 8.0.1, is IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, which will provide automatic, real time wireless replication of email including attachments, calendar, contacts, personal journal and the "to do" list for Microsoft Windows Mobile devices. New features planned for IBM Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 will allow applications to utilize AJAX, style sheets, and RSS or ATOM feeds. IBM is introducing a new email security appliance called IBM Lotus Protector for Mail Security, an anti-virus and anti-spam solution based on the IBM Proventia Network Mail Security System. Lotus Protector for Mail Security will block spam at the appliance before it reaches the Lotus Notes server or affects Lotus Notes software users. Lotus Symphony Beta 4 software, the next version of the suite of no charge desktop productivity tools, features an open programming model that transforms the basic document into a portal to the Web 2.0 world. Ready for download by the end of January, Lotus Symphony Beta 4 allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to wire capabilities into the documents that access and manage business applications such as issuing a shipping order or an invoice directly from a spreadsheet. Also Available from the Symphony community Web site will be a set of IBM plug-ins including IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting, Lotus Sametime Unyte Share, and IBM WebSphere Translation Server which will provide on-the-fly translation of Lotus Symphony-generated content, greatly easing the effort to work across multiple languages. IBM will offer an integrated Lotus Open Collaboration Client Solution with support for Ubuntu. In addition, IBM announced a new agreement with Red Hat to combine Red Hat Linux Advanced Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop, IBM Lotus Notes client with Lotus Symphony and the IBM Lotus Domino server. http://www.ibm.com

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS) announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire all outstanding shares of BEA for $19.375 per share in cash. The offer is valued at approximately $8.5 billion, or $7.2 billion net of BEA's cash on hand of $1.3 billion. The Board of Directors of BEA Systems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close by mid-2008, subject to BEA stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. www.oracle.com www.bea.com

CrownPeak announced its web Content Management software as a service (SaaS) now supports many of the new social networking standards, especially Google's Open Social, Google Gadgets and other content published for inclusion on social networking sites such as Salesforce.com, Ning, orkut, Facebook, MySpace, and others. A city magazine publisher, for example, can publish a Google Gadget of the top ten rated restaurants from their magazine, and their subscribers could include this content on their own portals, blogs, communities or social networking profiles. Or, CrownPeak customers wanting to create their own social networking communities can utilize low cost alternatives to communities such as Ning or Orkut and have fully integrated content, completely managed by CrownPeak CMS. Social networking sites that have announced their intention to support Open Social include LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.penSocial. http://www.crownpeak.com

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of open source databases for approximately $1 billion in total consideration. The acquisition accelerates Sun's position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. With millions of global deployments including Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile, MySQL will bring synergies to Sun that will help drive new adoption of MySQL's open source database in more traditional applications and enterprises. The integration with Sun will extend the commercial appeal of MySQL's offerings and improve its value proposition with the addition of Sun's global services organization. MySQL will also gain new distribution through Sun's channels including its OEM relationships with Intel, IBM and Dell. MySQL's open source database is the "M" in LAMP - the software platform comprised of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl. Sun is committed to enhancing and optimizing the LAMP stack on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows along with OpenSolaris and MAC OS X. The database from MySQL, OpenSolaris and GlassFish, together with Sun's Java platform and NetBeans communities, will create a Web application platform across a wide range of customers shifting their applications to the Web. Following completion of the proposed transaction, MySQL will be integrated into Sun's Software, Sales and Service organizations and the company's CEO, Marten Mickos, will be joining Sun's senior executive leadership team. In the interim, a joint team with representatives from both companies will develop integration plans that build upon the technical, product and cultural synergies and the best business and product development practices of both companies. MySQL is headquartered in Cupertino, CA and Uppsala, Sweden and has 400 employees in 25 countries. As part of the transaction, Sun will pay approximately $800 million in cash in exchange for all MySQL stock and assume approximately $200 million in options. The transaction is expected to close in late Q3 or early Q4 of Sun's fiscal 2008. Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. The deal is expected to be accretive to FY10 operating income on a GAAP basis. http://www.mysql.com, http://sun.com

Oracle announced that it has agreed to acquire Captovation, a provider of document capture solutions that streamline the process of capturing content for access from within business applications and processes. The acquisition will be added to Oracle's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software portfolio to provide an integrated and automated solution for overall transactional content management. Captovation's software is expected to be a core component of Oracle Enterprise Content Management, which provides capabilities for managing dynamic, transactional and historical content. Oracle Enterprise Content Management is a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The transaction is expected to close by February 2008. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. http://www.oracle.com/captovation

Coveo Solutions Inc. announced that it has added new capabilities to its Coveo Enterprise Search technology. The following new capabilities are now available: Greater scalability with support for Windows 64-bit operating systems that improves search indexing and query performance and expands access to more powerful servers; New connectors for Symantec Enterprise Vault v2 offers more flexibility and controls; Out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft Exchange and Symantec Enterprise Vault email archives allows for integrated search across all corporate email content; Re-factored connector enables indexing and search of massive email archives; enhanced connector for salesforce.com improves performance and overall user experience; easier to deploy and delivers a CRM search interface out-of-the-box; and improved performance and precision of indexing and searching. http://www.coveo.com

Daybreak Intellectual Capital Solutions, Inc. announced the availability of its latest release of eCapture Suite. eCapture Suite 2.0 is an integrated solution that combines distributed document capture with the ability to deliver content to multiple ECM repositories from a single interface. This release supports EMC Documentum 5.3 and 6, as well as eRoom. Support for additional ECM repositories is under way. eCapture Suite is built on a modular platform that consists of the core capture engine and ECM platform plug-ins. Additional plug-ins can be added, making it easy to capture, manage, and deliver documents into various ECM repositories. The software provides security features including secure communications, user authentication and access control to appropriate content repositories. eCapture Suite is built from the ground up for Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to facilitate interoperability with legacy systems within an organization. eCapture Suite is available immediately. Pricing starts at $18,000 and is based on the number of concurrent users and type of ECM plug-ins licensed. http://www.daybreakICS.com

EditGrid, the online spreadsheet, is now available to customers that use the hosted versions of Confluence, the enterprise wiki from Atlassian. The EditGrid Plugin for Confluence allows for real-time collaboration of spreadsheets within Confluence Hosted or Confluence Enterprise Hosting. With EditGrid, users can create or insert spreadsheets into Confluence pages. They can also edit the spreadsheet collaboratively. The resulting spreadsheet is saved as an attachment within the Confluence pages in Microsoft Excel format, allowing Confluence to manage the revision history. Some of the features of the EditGrid plugin include: Real-time updates - allows multiple users to see dynamic changes to a spreadsheet; Remote data update - retrieves live financial data on the Web and stores it in a spreadsheet; Import and export: accepts file formats such as Microsoft Excel, CSV, HTML, Gnumeric, Lotus, OpenOffice and assigns fine-grained access control; and Live chat - enables multiple users to discuss changes from within EditGrid, no need to switch to another chat application. EditGrid is free for Confluence Hosted and Confluence Enterprise Hosting customers, and it is available starting today. For more information please visit, http://www.atlassian.com, http://www.editgrid.com

W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) announced the publication of SPARQL, the key standard for opening up data on the Semantic Web. With SPARQL query technology, pronounced "sparkle," people can focus on what they want to know rather than on the database technology or data format used behind the scenes to store the data. Because SPARQL queries express high-level goals, it is easier to extend them to unanticipated data sources, or even to port them to new applications. Many successful query languages exist, including standards such as SQL and XQuery. These were primarily designed for queries limited to a single product, format, type of information, or local data store. Traditionally, it has been necessary to formulate the same high-level query differently depending on application or the specific arrangement chosen for the relational database. And when querying multiple data sources it has been necessary to write logic to merge the results. These limitations have imposed higher developer costs and created barriers to incorporating new data sources. The goal of the Semantic Web is to enable people to share, merge, and reuse data globally. SPARQL is designed for use at the scale of the Web, and thus enables queries over distributed data sources, independent of format. Because SPARQL has no tie to a specific database format, it can be used to take advantage of "Web 2.0" data and mash it up with other Semantic Web resources. Furthermore, because disparate data sources may not have the same 'shape' or share the same properties, SPARQL is designed to query non-uniform data. The SPARQL specification defines a query language and a protocol and works with the other core Semantic Web technologies from W3C: Resource Description Framework (RDF) for representing data; RDF Schema; Web Ontology Language (OWL) for building vocabularies; and Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL), for automatically extracting Semantic Web data from documents. SPARQL also makes use of other W3C standards found in Web services implementations, such as Web Services Description Language (WSDL). http://www.w3.org/

OrcaTec LLC announced the release of Version 2.0 of the OrcaTec Information Retrieval Toolkit. The Toolkit will be distributed as an rPath-based software appliance, to make it simple to install and maintain. This software appliance provides an integrated collection of information analysis and management services, including concept search, near-duplicate clustering, language identification, and an interesting-phrase finder. These services are ideal for building scalable, reliable, and effective information analysis and management applications. The OrcaTec Information Retrieval Toolkit is designed to be a key component of systems for enterprise search, legal discovery, business intelligence, text data mining, content management, email archiving, knowledge management, and many other applications. OrcaTec Concept Searching learns the meaning of words from the documents that it reads. Concept searching allows users to find information even when they may not know exactly the specific words that a document's author used. Built on top of Lucene, the Toolkit also includes the full complement of Boolean and proximity searching. Version 2.0 supports data ingest rates as high as two million documents per day per system. These documents can be in any language from any source. The Toolkit is based on language modeling, which is the process of analyzing the patterns of language usage in a text and using these patterns to organize and retrieve it. The Toolkit has a REST-based API. http://www.rpath.com

GridIron Software today announced GridIron Flow, new digital content management software for creative professionals working on graphic design, web, and video projects. Flow automatically tracks the design process from idea to end result and manages assets and applications for the most complex workflows. Flow uses a system to automatically track workflows by recording all Import/Export, Save/Save As, and Copy/Paste actions in a project. It understands the file formats for creative professional applications from Apple and Adobe, and maintains the relationships between stills, movies, sound clips, fonts, plug-ins, and color swatches on all local, network, and removable storage devices. Using Real-Time Asset Tracking technology, Flow automatically builds Workflow Maps for every project. A Workflow Map shows the files used in the workflow and how they are connected to one another. Workflow Maps display all related application project files, media assets, and internal structures such as comps and layers. By selecting any file in the Workflow Map, users can view its fonts, color swatches, and the application plug-ins used to create it. Flow can capture a point in time snapshot of any project that tracks everything that went into its creation, including media files, fonts, color swatches, applications and plug-ins, which can easily be archived to save or hand-off to the client. Project Archives include a Workflow Map showing how everything fits together, so when a project is sent to the printer, client or colleague, or burnt to disk, everything needed to reproduce it is there. Other features in Flow include a Workflow Calendar that displays the time, date, and duration of projects for up to a year; Visual Versions which automatically track versions of media files, including thumbnails and metadata, as a project evolves allowing users to revert to a previous version of a file anywhere in their workflow; and Tags and Annotations, which provide tags and sticky-note style annotations to assets or projects and support custom tags and metadata standards. In addition, GridIron offers the Flow SDK to tool vendors. Flow will be available this summer for Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard and for Windows XP and Vista. To sign up for the upcoming Public Beta visit http://www.gridironsoftware.com

SoftCare announced the new version of K4 includes its new “Layout-in-Layout” functionality. Designers are now able to place InDesign documents from K4 in other InDesign documents as often as they like. This will benefit newspapers in particular, as they can use this new feature to produce regional and complete editions at the same time. This function is also especially useful for the production and placement of advertisements: Once the ad layout is complete, they can be placed in several positions in the paper using K4. SoftCare fully supports this Adobe CS3 function. Release 5.9 is available worldwide via SoftCare system integrators. K4 5.9 also comes with a new InDesign plug-in: SoftCare Content Activator. This new feature reactivates the contents of locked frames for further processing, for example, by freelancers or external printing service providers. SoftCare Content Activator is also available as a free download. Several items, such as pictures, Word files or Excel spreadsheets can now be checked in and out at the same time using K4 File Manager. In addition to the issue-based mode, K4 Admin now enables users to export items, such as layouts, articles or pictures based on a query. http://www.softcare.de

MadCap Software announced MadCap Lingo, an XML-based, integrated translation memory system and authoring tool, aimed at eliminating the need for file transfers in order to complete translation. Document components, such as tables of content, topics, index keywords, concepts, glossaries, and variables all remain intact throughout the translation and localization process, so there is never a need to recreate them. MadCap Lingo also is integrated with MadCap Flare and MadCap Blaze, and it is Unicode enabled to help documentation professionals deliver a consistent user experience in print, online, and in any language. MadCap Lingo is being announced in conjunction with the new MadCap Analyzer, software that proactively recommends documentation content and design improvements. MadCap Lingo works with MadCap Flare, the company's native-XML authoring product, and MadCap Blaze, the native-XML tool for publishing long print documents, which will be generally available in early 2008. A user creates a MadCap Lingo project to access the source content in a Flare or Blaze project via a shared file structure. Working through Lingo's interface, the user accesses and translates the content. Because the content never actually leaves the structure of the original Flare or Blaze project, all the content and formatting is preserved in the translated version. Once a project is translated, it is opened in either Flare or Blaze, which generates the output and facilitates publishing. At the front end of the process, Flare and Blaze can import a range of document types to create the source content. Following translation, the products provide single-source delivery to multiple formats online and off, including the Internet, intranets, CDs, and print. MadCap Lingo is available and is priced at $2,199 per license, but is available at an introductory price of $899 for a limited time. MadCap Lingo also is available on a subscription basis for $649 per year. Fees for support start at $449 per year. http://www.madcapsoftware.com/

IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled new software and research aimed at improving the way employees across an organization collaborate in a globally integrated enterprise. The challenges of globalization are forcing companies to become more nimble, using an increasingly geographically-dispersed and virtual workforce to remain competitive. In the world of software development, this means 24x7 collaboration with specialized teams around the globe to pick up where another left off. IBM is also examining how virtual worlds can help software development teams break down the barriers caused by globalization. IBM is announcing it is opening up its development platform based on Web 2.0 technologies for developers to collaborate and contribute to software under development at jazz.net. Jazz.net is an open, commercial community designed to help companies globally and transparently collaborate on the development of Jazz-based technology. Previously only available to IBM customers, academics and partners, Jazz.net is now open to the greater software development community. IBM also announced IBM Rational Team Concert Express, available later this year, which will help small and mid-sized development teams enable real-time collaboration across a geographically dispersed software delivery team. IBM will also offer IBM Rational Team Concert Express free of charge to qualified open source projects and to academic institutions for use in accredited course programs or academic research projects. IBM Rational Team Concert Express beta 2 includes Web dashboards to help software project teams see real-time project status data such as the status of work items and project health. IBM Rational Team Concert Express beta 2 allows software development teams to use DB2 and other databases to host the IBM Rational Team Concert repository. IBM Rational Team Concert Express is based on middleware including IBM WebSphere, IBM Lotus Sametime, Apache Tomcat, Apache Derby and Jabber. To register for the Jazz project or download IBM Rational Team Concert, beta 2, visit http://www.ibm.com/

SpringCM announced the availability of SpringCM 4.1, the newest version of the company's document management and workflow software as a service. This new version includes major updates in search, advanced view and markup, preview mode and electronic signatures. SpringCM's Electronic Signature feature enables documents to be signed electronically, even by people who are not SpringCM licensees. Documents may be sent for electronic signature with a single click in SpringCM the recipient receives an e-mail containing a link to the document and the steps required to complete the electronic signature. SpringCM now supports CAD, MS Project, Microstation and 85 other drawing, document and imaging formats. Advanced View and Markup expedites the review and comment cycles by extending the annotation capabilities of SpringCM beyond hand-editing printed copies or the "sticky notes" annotation, already available within the system. Areas of concern can be circled, or marked with a variety of "stamps" (like directional arrows and names) and highlight points that need further development. SpringCM's Document Preview features have been upgraded to better serve collaboration and indexing needs. Lock Zoom enables the user to focus on a fixed area of a document as pages are scrolled. To allow for more horizontal workspace, the left and right panes are now collapsible. The Information Panel buttons are wired with hot keys to further expedite indexing. New collapsible and expandable menu options display only the Advanced Search options that are relevant to specific business needs. SpringCM retains the Advanced Search display options after every modification. Basic, Personal and Account views are provided to introduce a new level of configuration to the Search menu. A selection process is used to include and exclude specific attribute groups in search results. http://www.springcm.com/

NetXposure, Inc. announced the availability of NETXPOSURE 5, a new enterprise digital asset management (DAM) system that combines the flexibility of the Web with the responsiveness of the desktop. Re-architected as a rich Internet application utilizing Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex technologies, NETXPOSURE 5 delivers a user experience that runs identically in all major browsers and operating systems. It also provides real-time, seamless interactivity with digital assets from virtually any application, including built-in integration with Adobe Creative Suite 3. NETXPOSURE 5 helps streamline the creation, management and delivery of marketing assets and brand imagery. New features and capabilities include: Adobe Flex-powered user interface including cascading pull-down menus, slider resizing capabilities, and the ability to visually sort thousands of files; Automatic offline synching capabilities enabled by Adobe AIR, including the ability to drag-and-drop between the DAM repository and desktop applications and bulk upload- and download capabilities; Adobe Creative Suite 3 Connector, an add-on module that transparently links the DAM repository and Creative Suite 3, allowing users to access and interact with NetXposure from within their production applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and others; New support for Digital Negative (DNG) specification; and Enhanced support capabilities for the latest Macintosh, Windows and Linux operating systems. NETXPOSURE 5 is available now. http://www.netx.net

NewsGator announced the general availability of NetNewsWire 3.1, FeedDemon 2.6, and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0. The public beta of NewsGator Inbox 3.0 also began. The products for PC (FeedDemon), Mac (NetNewsWire), Microsoft Outlook (Inbox), and mobile (NewsGator Go!) deliver an RSS reading experience that synchronizes through NewsGator's online platform. All of the new product versions deliver a better user experience with the inclusion of significant performance, usability, and relevance enhancements. NewsGator also announced that all of its client RSS reader products are now available free of charge and include free synchronization along with other services. Users can now enjoy the great features and performance of all of NewsGator's Web, desktop and mobile readers for iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry (powered by FreeRange), all synchronized to provide the same view of their RSS content no matter when or where they read it. Enterprise customers will continue to enjoy the extended value of having all these clients synchronize with NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES). The combination of innovative client reader features and the ability to leverage core platform data and capabilities have made NewsGator products dominant in the enterprise. All client products are available for free download from the NewsGator website. http://www.newsgator.com

SiberLogic announced SiberSafe On-Demand, a monthly subscription approach to XML content management for technical documentation teams who are looking for significant efficiency gains in producing long-lived, complex, evolving content. SiberSafe On-Demand delivers full SiberSafe functionality as an ASP service in a secure data center. Each team has full access/administrative rights to their server for system administration and configuration. SiberSafe On-Demand also includes daily content backups and SiberLogic’s technical support service. SiberSafe On-Demand “out of the box” configuration offers your choice of DTD – DITA, DocBook, or MIL-STD 2361 – with sample templates and stylesheets. Also included are SiberSafe Communicator (our XML authoring tool) and our integrated publishing tool. Alternatively, you can continue to use your own editor, such as XMetaL, Epic, or FrameMaker, or your own publishing tools. SiberSafe On-Demand costs only $799 per month for the first pair of users (one author and one reviewer) and as little as $275 per user monthly for 10+ users. There are no additional upfront costs. Anyone who signs up for SiberSafe On-Demand before the end of January 2008 will receive access for one additional author free of charge for the first year. http://www.siberlogic.com/

In.vision Research and Trisoft have announced a partnership to integrate their products to meet the needs of content management and publishing for a variety of industries including telecom, high-tech, software, mechanical equipment and automotive. The In.vision and Trisoft partnership will use In.vision's Xpress Author for Microsoft Word add-in to allow non-technical writers to create XML content in Word. When the non-technical writer saves the document into the Trisoft InfoShare Content Management System, technical writers will be able to incorporate the content into their documents with ease, and continue with the various review, translation, and publishing processes that InfoShare provides. http://www.tri-soft.com, http://www.invisionresearch.com

Mediasurface (UK, AIM: MSR) announced a new extension to its Morello web content management solution that adds benefits to allowing enterprise users to work together on content creation using MOSS 2007. The new Morello MOSS 2007 Connector makes it easier and quicker to find, organise and publish MOSS generated content through an enterprise web delivery infrastructure on one or more websites, intranets and extranets. Mediasurface addresses this with the new Morello MOSS Connector which integrates MOSS tools with Mediasurface's Morello enterprise web content management solution. Automated processes keep information synchronized, ensuring that websites always display the very latest, approved version of a document whilst SharePoint users will always have direct access to information captured on the websites. In addition, the Morello MOSS 2007 Connector plugs into the generally available standard collaboration and communication services of SharePoint (called WSS), so there is no technical setup required. Users can collaborate, create and review documents, images and pages using familiar tools such as MS Word and Outlook. The connection to Morello helps ensure users know which MOSS generated content is approved for use, avoiding duplication and speeding up the publishing cycle. http://www.mediasurface.com

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) announced that it will make an offer to acquire Fast Search & Transfer ASA (OSE: “FAST”) through a cash tender offer for 19.00 Norwegian kroner (NOK) per share. This offer represents a 42 percent premium to the closing share price on Jan. 4, 2008 (the last trading day prior to this announcement), and values the fully diluted equity of FAST at 6.6 billion NOK (or approximately $1.2 billion U.S.). FAST's board of directors has unanimously recommended that its shareholders accept the offer. In addition, shareholders representing in aggregate 37 percent of the outstanding shares, including FAST's two largest institutional shareholders, Orkla ASA and Hermes Focus Asset Management Europe, have irrevocably undertaken to accept the offer. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of calendar year 2008. In addition to bolstering Microsoft's enterprise search efforts, this acquisition increases Microsoft's research and development presence in Europe, complementing existing research teams in Cambridge, England, and Copenhagen, Denmark, with new capabilities in Norway. http://microsoft.com, http://www.fast.no/

eZ Systems announced support for eZ Publish running on Mac OS X Server v10.5 Leopard. In addition, eZ showed eZ Flow, a new extension for eZ Publish designed for media companies who need to build complex page layouts and pre-plan publication schedules to ensure a constant flow of rich content. Among other features, eZ Flow supports delivery of content to Apple iPhones. With support for the Mac OS X Server (which recently attained UNIX 03 certification), eZ Publish enhances the platform by providing an Open Source Enterprise Content Management System that enables organizations to create websites, intranets and extranets. Because content presentation is based on a template system, eZ Publish (and eZ Flow) can serve tailored content to mobile devices by using a template tuned for the devices' display. For example, a template customized for Apple iPhones tunes the display of content to the iPhone display size and iPhone-specific user interface elements. http://ez.no/ezpublish