January 2009 Archives

The W3C XML Schema Working Group has published the Last Call Working Drafts of "W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 1: Structures" and "Part 2: Datatypes." This former specifies the XML Schema Definition Language, which offers facilities for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents, including those which exploit the XML Namespace facility. The schema language, which is itself represented in an XML vocabulary and uses namespaces, substantially reconstructs and considerably extends the capabilities found in XML document type definitions (DTDs). The latter defines facilities for defining datatypes to be used in XML Schemas as well as other XML specifications. The datatype language, which is itself represented in XML, provides a superset of the capabilities found in XML document type definitions (DTDs) for specifying datatypes on elements and attributes. Comments are welcome through 20 February. Learn more about the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity. http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema

Day Software (SWX:DAYN)(OTCQX:DYIHY) announced the availability of three new licensed editions of CRX, Day's JSR-170-compliant Java Content Repository (JCR). These new editions make it simpler for companies to standardize on an enterprise-ready content infrastructure based on Day's commercial implementation of Apache Jackrabbit and Apache Sling. This release is enhanced by a licensing model that promotes adoption by individual developers, departments and global enterprises. Day now offers three targeted editions of its content infrastructure platform: CRX One: CRX One is a new version of CRX licensed for use to power a single Web application. CRX One is Day's entry-level CRX offering, available directly from Day's Web site for an annual subscription license fee of US$18,500 per server instance per year, regardless of the number of CPUs; CRX Developer: CRX Developer is a limited license version of CRX available free of charge for Apache Jackrabbit and Apache Sling developers directly from Day's Web site. Web developers can use CRX Developer at no cost under an annual renewal license for building and testing new CRX-based content applications; CRX Enterprise: CRX Enterprise is Day's premier CRX offering for use in powering multiple Web applications. CRX Enterprise is targeted for IT departments looking to consolidate disparate enterprise content repositories under a single, shared cluster of CRX. Organizations can seamlessly update their CRX One licenses to CRX Enterprise to host multiple applications without installing or managing new software. CRX Enterprise is offered under a perpetual license model that starts at US$50,000 per server instance. Day CRX Developer is available free of charge immediately from Day's Web site at http://www.day.com

Exalead announced the availability of CloudView OEM Edition 5.0, an embeddable, scalable search and information application development platform designed specifically for ISVs and SaaS providers. In conjunction with this release, Exalead also announced a new OEM pricing framework. E- mail archiving, content management, product life-cycle management, storage, call center and other information management application vendors can now use Exalead CloudView technology to address the Web 2.0-based information access application market. Exalead CloudView 5.0 addresses the following design requirements encountered by information software vendors: large amounts of data (petabytes); ability to aggregate, collate, and normalize data gathered from disparate structured and unstructured sources - HTML, Microsoft Office documents and other files scattered across corporate servers, data located at SaaS providers, active and archived e-mail, relational data, proprietary application data, etc.; web-based (fuzzy) and enterprise (precise) relevancy models; small CPU and disk footprints; large, difficult-to-forecast user volumes; high peak user concurrency; transparently supporting existing user interfaces, security models and data sources; multiple language support (50+ languages supported). http://www.Exalead.com

Recommind announced the availability of MindServer Search 6.0, the latest version of its enterprise search product. Built on Recommind's CORE platform (Context Optimized Relevancy Engine), the latest version adds features such as enhanced relevancy tuning and extends the system's federated search framework. MindServer Search 6.0 is built on Recommind's CORE platform, an automated information management layer which integrates structured and unstructured data inside and outside of enterprise networks. MindServer Search 6.0 allows enterprises to boost certain search results based on select properties of a document, including: freshness, rank, specific metadata and document length. Search results can feature 'Best Bets' which are preselected files linked to particular queries. Also available is a 'Sponsored Links' feature, which brings external or indexed documents to the user's attention through specific queries, but places them outside of the standard search results area. In addition, users can choose to boost results based on their individual profile or that of their team. MindServer Search 6.0's federated search capabilities enable users to search across internal and external data sources with one query. http://www.recommind.com

CrowdGather (OTCBB:CRWG), announced that it has completed a beta deployment of its new content management system (CMS) for forum owners. By implementing its proprietary forum CMS CrowdReport, CrowdGather immediately increases a particular site's visual appeal to members, visitors, and advertisers. More importantly, the CMS enhances the user-experience by converting user-generated content into zero-cost editorial content for the site. CrowdGather expects to have deployed the CMS on its busiest sites by the end of February. http://www.crowdgather.com

Sajan announced the latest release of Authoring Coach, their authoring memory tool. Authoring Coach is an authoring memory tool that provides live, interactive access to multilingual, approved source content from any Windows authoring application. The latest release of AC offers significant advancements to analytics with the addition of an ROI calculator, as well as improved search functionality due to the integration of TMate Search Technology, Sajan's advanced matching engine optimized for the language translation industry. http://www.sajan.com

Author-it announced Author-it 5.2, is now available and includes a number of new features including structured authoring. Author-it's practical approach to structured authoring means this can be implemented gradually for both existing and new documentation as priorities and deadlines allow. If you are already on Author-it 5 and have current maintenance, you will be able to download 5.2 via the client portal My Author-it. If you are on version 4 you will need to work through the Upgrading to 5 process, complete acceptance testing and obtain a license file prior to commencing the upgrade. http://www.author-it.com

Kyte announced a content management and analytics solution for the Kyte Platform. Kyte Dashboard provides partners with video uploading and management capabilities, multi-level content moderation, and in-depth analytics reporting and visualization. The addition of Kyte Dashboard provides media companies utilizing the Kyte Platform with an interface to manage all of their Kyte media and view insightful analytics. Kyte Dashboard is a hosted application that can be accessed from the web, or run on the desktop as an Adobe AIR application. Kyte Dashboard's content management module allows partners to upload and broadcast professionally produced content, change the order of shows that appear in a channel through simple drag and drop functionality, edit show meta data such as show title and description, and copy, delete and download media to their computer. Kyte Dashboard's multi-level content moderation capabilities enable companies to safely engage in viewer-generated content campaigns. Moderators can approve or reject viewer-contributed content, as well as ban or restore content flagged as inappropriate by other viewers. The analytics module provides insight into engagement, distribution, production, advertising and user metrics. Partners can view analytics as tabular data or visualized charts at the account or channel level and over a specific range of time. Kyte provides an end-to-end, online and mobile platform for the production, distribution and monetization of digital content. http://www.kyte.com/

Lucid Imagination launched as the first commercial open source company dedicated to supporting developers and organizations using the installed Apache Lucene and Solr search technologies. The Lucene search library currently ranks amongst the top-15 open source projects and is one of the top-5 Apache projects, with installations at over 4,000 companies worldwide. Lucene/Solr downloads have grown nearly ten-fold over the past three years, with a current run-rate of over 6,000 downloads a day. The Solr search server, which transforms the Lucene search library into a ready-to-use search platform for building applications, is the fastest growing Lucene sub-project. As a participant in the community using this open source search technology, Lucid Imagination offers certified distributions of Lucene and Solr, commercial-grade support, training, high-level consulting and value-added software. The company's Web site serves as a knowledge portal for the Lucene community, with information and resources to help developers build and deploy Lucene-based solutions. Through the Lucid Imagination knowledge portal, the company offers: free certified distributions, support subscriptions, training and certification, consulting services, and software such as Solr Gaze, an open source visual framework for monitoring Solr performance. http://www.lucidimagination.com/

X1 Technologies, Inc., announced a solution for eDiscovery built from X1 enterprise search technology and a new professional services offering. X1 expands upon risk management through proactive information management (PIM). The earlier an enterprise integrates compliance and risk management, the easier it becomes to quickly and efficiently present relevant documents in the case of a lawsuit. In addition to the X1 eDiscovery Search Suite, X1 is offering a professional services engagement that helps customers implement a solution. The X1 eDiscovery Search Suite combines X1's core technology while adding eDiscovery specific features such as tagging, annotation, audit logging and de-duplication. General availability for the X1 eDiscovery Search Suite will be late Q1 2009 with an early release version available for preview to pre-qualified customers and select partners early Q1 2009. http://www.x1.com

Hippo has launched version 7.0 of its Content Management System, Hippo CMS. Hippo CMS 7.0 is an enterprise-class open source software product designed for businesses that have a large quantity of files, documents and web content that need to be captured, stored, preserved and delivered internally and externally. Version 7.0 features a completely new technological core based on Apache Jackrabbit, introducing full JSR 170 compliancy. The GUI technology moved to Apache Wicket enabling a modern AJAX GUI with drag drop and auto-save functionality. Version 7.0 is extensible, allowing organizations to choose from a wide variety of plug-ins in order to address their precise needs for managing and utilizing their enterprise content. This flexible architecture also allows developers to easily add custom functionality if no suitable plug-in is available. The Hippo architecture now has a faceted repository based on Apache Lucene and Apache Jackrabbit. The faceted repository introduces 'drop and start' dynamic categorization of content; allowing organizations to speed up implementation. Hippo CMS 7.0 is open source software that is free to download at http://www.onehippo.org

Vivisimo has signed a technology partnership with taxonomy specialist WAND, Inc. The agreement enables Vivisimo to offer WAND taxonomies to customers, expanding the conceptual search capabilities of Vivisimo's recently introduced Velocity Search Platform 7.0. Velocity 7.0 introduced a method for delivering conceptual search, empowering users with explicit tools for expanding or refining their search parameters. Vivisimo's conceptual search includes a new user interface to give users direct control to fine-tune queries and personalize their search to meet specific information goals. With the new interface, users see exactly how they are modifying their search. They can expand queries using suggested concepts derived automatically by Velocity. Alternatively, users can select from pre-generated thesauri and ontologies to further refine or expand queries using synonyms and broader or narrower terms. Organizations that do not have these resources internally can now select from WAND's extensive taxonomy library. WAND has developed more than 40 taxonomies across all industries and domains. The company maintains and expands its taxonomies with a team that includes domain experts, library scientists, taxonomists, lexicographers and computational linguists. New taxonomies are developed on a regular basis. http://www.wandinc.com, http://www.vivisimo.com/

Markzware released an upgrade to its InDesign-to-QuarkXPress conversion tool. ID2Q v4 is created to provide a method for migrating Adobe InDesign content into a new QuarkXPress document. This new version will convert Adobe InDesign documents up to Adobe CS 4 to QuarkXPress 7 or 8. Intricate details of the content within an InDesign document are instantly re-created in QuarkXPress. This product converts and transforms files created with InDesign on either the Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh OS, into a new QuarkXPress file. This new file can then be opened on either platform which achieves a goal of allowing interoperability between the formats. Markzware's ID2Q v4 is available from Software House International (SHI), Software Spectrum, Programmers Paradise, MacConnection, CDW and through Markzware's online store. The MSRP is $199 and the upgrade is $99 for ID2Q v2 or v3 only. http://www.markzware.com

Datum International Limited announced the launch of the KnowledgeWorker Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software as a Service (SaaS) offering. This model allows small and medium sized businesses (SME) and even individuals to enjoy global access to their applications and data without having to build or maintain an expensive IT infrastructure. Datum has partnered with Rackspace plc to provide a hosting service that incorporates high levels of security and the capability for software disaster recovery. The KnowledgeWorker SaaS platform is in itself a new product which they intend to sell or rent to other IT service providers as a means of generating revenues from a growing world-wide market. The platform can run unattended and allows prospective customers to sign up at any time. The platform provides management reports of new customer sign ups and allows central administration and support of customer systems. http://www.datumplc.com/

Interwoven, Inc. (NASDAQ: IWOV) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) for approximately $775 million. Interwoven's products improve human interactions with information, and Autonomy's technology will allow people to know what those human interactions mean. Their target customer base includes global 2000 corporations, law firms, and government regulators. Under the terms of the agreement, Interwoven will be acquired by Autonomy for $16.20 per share, in cash, or approximately $775 million in the aggregate. The directors and certain executive officers of Autonomy and Interwoven have agreed to vote the shares they own in favor of the acquisition. The transaction is expected to close by Q2 2009 and is subject to shareholder approval by both companies, Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance, and other closing conditions. http://www.interwoven.com

Alfresco Software, Inc. announced the availability of Alfresco Web Studio, a visual, drag-and-drop designer for building web sites with the Alfresco Surf platform. Using Alfresco Web Studio, business users can quickly create custom web sites while leveraging the Alfresco Web Content Management (WCM) runtime and repository. Alfresco Web Studio broadens the ability for more people inside a company to build sites and web pages with a drag-and-drop visual editing tool. Users can browse a library of Alfresco Web Components and visually assemble their web experience, rapidly building web site's pages, navigation structure, templates, and presentation layout. Web components snap into web site pages through simple drag-and-drop interactions. The benefit of this approach is that business users have the flexibility to rapidly develop web sites in collaboration with colleagues while content is managed in an enterprise scale repository with secure editing, approvals, deployment, and audit of content creation and modification. Alfresco's WCM solution now incorporates the following three elements: Alfresco WCM - an enterprise-class content creation platform and repository; Alfresco Surf - a web application and site assembly framework for developers; and, Alfresco Web Studio - a graphical design and site assembly tool for business users. Alfresco Web Studio is available as part of the new Alfresco Labs 3d release. http://www.alfresco.com

Ephox announced the release of a new integration of its rich text editor into IBM's Lotus Quickr. Lotus Quickr is team collaboration software that helps enterprises share content, collaborate and work faster online. It goes beyond traditional document sharing by adding web-based collaboration with wikis, blogs and team web pages. EditLive! addresses this need with a Word-like authoring experience. It also offers capabilities for image editing, track changes, table editing and accessibility checking. EditLive! integrations for the WebSphere Portal and the Lotus Domino versions of Quickr are available now. The integration for the Quickr Domino platform was co-developed by the PSC Group, a Lotus consulting firm. http://www.ephox.com

Mark Logic Corporation announced the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word. Distributed under the open-source Apache 2.0 license, the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word delivers a free, simple way for developers to combine native XML-based functionality in both MarkLogic Server and the most common content authoring environment, Microsoft Office Word 2007. Developers can build applications for finding and reusing enterprise content, enriching documents for search and analytics, and enhancing documents with custom metadata. The MarkLogic Toolkit for Word includes a pre-built plug-in framework for Microsoft Office Word 2007, a sample application, and an extensive library for managing and manipulating Microsoft Office Word 2007 documents. Intelligent Authoring - the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word provides the ability to build a role- and task-aware application within Microsoft Office Word 2007 to improve the content authoring process. This functionality allows users to easily locate and preview content at any level of granularity and insert it into an active document, as well as manage custom document metadata. The MarkLogic Toolkit for Word allows developers to build content applications that leverage Office Open XML, the native XML-based format of Microsoft Office Word 2007. The MarkLogic Toolkit for Word includes an add-in application for deploying web-based content applications into Microsoft Office Word 2007. This enables developers to use web development techniques, such as HTML, JavaScript, and .NET to build applications that work in concert with the Microsoft Office Word 2007 authoring environment. The MarkLogic Toolkit for Word also provides XQuery libraries that simplify working with Office Open XML for granular search, dynamic assembly, transformation, and delivery with MarkLogic Server. By leveraging the underlying XML markup, content applications built with MarkLogic and Microsoft Office Word 2007 can "round-trip" documents between various formats. The MarkLogic Toolkit for Word allows developers to inspect, modify, and even redistribute the source code to meet specific needs. You can download the latest release of MarkLogic Toolkit for Word at the Mark Logic Developer Workshop. http://www.marklogic.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 software, an upgrade of its solution for authoring, reviewing, managing, and publishing rich technical information and training content across multiple channels. Using the suite, technical communicators can create documentation, training materials and Web-enabled user assistance containing both traditional text and 3D designs along with rich media, including Adobe Flash Player compatible video, AVI, MP3 and SWF file support. The enhanced suite includes Adobe FrameMaker 9, the latest version of Adobe's technical authoring and DITA publishing solution, Adobe RoboHelp 8, a major upgrade to Adobe's help system and knowledge base authoring tool, Adobe Captivate 4, an upgrade to Adobe's eLearning authoring tool, and Photoshop CS4, a new addition to the suite. The suite also includes Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and Adobe Presenter 7. Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 is a complete solution that offers improved productivity along with support for standards-based authoring including support for Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based standard for authoring, producing and delivering technical information. It enables the creation of rich content and publishing through multiple channels, including XML/HTML, print, PDF, WSF, WebHelp, Adobe FlashHelp, Microsoft HTML Help, OracleHelp, JavaHelp and Adobe AIR. FrameMaker 9 offers a new user interface. It supports hierarchical books and DITA 1.1, and makes it easier to author topic-based content. In addition, FrameMaker 9 provides a capability to aggregate unstructured, structured and DITA content in a seamless workflow. Using a PDF based review workflow, authors can import and incorporate feedback. Adobe RoboHelp 8 allows technical communicators to author XHTML-compliant professional help content. The software also supports Lists and Tables, a new CSS editor, Pages and Templates, and a new search functionality. The Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2 is immediately available in North America. Estimated street price for the suite is US$1899. FrameMaker 9, RoboHelp 8 and Captivate 4 are available as standalone products as well. Estimated street price for FrameMaker 9 and RoboHelp 8 is US$999 for each, US$799 for Captivate 4. http://www.adobe.com

"Social Media and College Admissions: The First Longitudinal Study" conducted by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Research Chair of the Society for New Communications Research and Chancellor Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite Inc. was announced. The new study represents one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media by college admissions offices. The study compares adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the admissions offices of all the four-year accredited institutions in the United States. The findings are based on 536 interviews with college admissions officers. Key Findings include: There has been significant growth in familiarity with, adoption of, and importance to mission of social media over one year ago; Adoption has grown by 24% in one year: 61% in 2007 as compared with 85% in 2008. Usage increased for every social media type studied; Adoption is being driven by admissions departments' recognition of the increasingly importance of social media. Colleges and universities are outpacing U.S. corporate adoption of social media tools and technologies (13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc. 500 currently have a public blog, while 41% of college admissions departments have blogs); Social networking is the tool most familiar to admissions officers, with 55% of respondents claiming to be "very familiar with it" in the first study and 63% in 2008; A growing number of admissions officers use search engines (23%) and social networks (17%) to research prospective students; In addition to social networks, usage of YouTube has also increased substantially. Video is now being used to deliver virtual tours of campuses, virtual visits to the dorms, and sample lectures from the faculty; 78% of private schools have blogs, versus 28% of public schools, and 50% of schools with undergraduate populations of less than 2,000 have blogs; 40% of institutions not currently using social media plan to start a blog; Nearly 90% of admissions departments feel that social media is "somewhat to very important" to their future strategy. The full executive summary of the study is available for download at:
http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesresearch/mediaandadmissions.cfm, http://www.sncr.org

Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) announced that Xerox Corporation has entered into an OEM agreement with the company. The new license will allow Xerox to integrate Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) technology into its DocuShare enterprise content management (ECM) platform. Xerox DocuShare users will experience search performance with higher volumes of content, as IDOL can support millions of documents in all file formats, and scales to support largest enterprise-wide and portal deployments. The IDOL server also eases search index maintenance. The server will be integrated into existing DocuShare accounts worldwide, and into all future product releases. http://www.autonomy.com/, http://www.docushare.com

LinkedIn announced a partnership with IBM's Lotus to integrate LinkedIn's functionality and networking capabilities with Lotus Notes, Lotus Connections and the just announced LotusLive.com. The companies will work together to provide Lotus customers, including Lotus Notes users, new ways to interact with their trusted professional network. Professionals will be able to start web meetings, add business context to e-mail senders, and learn more about collaborators, colleagues, potential partners and prospects through integrated LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn plans to integrate with Lotus Notes, Lotus Connections, and LotusLive.com. LotusLive will bring its collaboration capabilities to professionals on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn integration will be available at no additional cost to Lotus users. The partnership is non-exclusive. http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/01/19/linkedin-and-lotus-partner-to-improve-enterprise-software

Content Circles, a provider of distributed content management and collaboration solutions, announced the availability of Content Circles 1.0, a new approach to enabling distributed and mobile teams to collaboratively create, share, and manage documents within and among companies and organizations on a worldwide basis. Today's workgroups and teams are often distributed across companies, highly mobile, and must quickly assemble around key tasks and need easy, secure access to the right documents at the right time. Web-based content management solutions eliminate IT resource issues but can still be expensive and require training to use. More importantly, they require companies to put all of their confidential documents on the web exposing the companies to significant security as well as business continuity risks. Content Circles understood that unless the solution could be set up and used by virtually any computer user, there would not be broad acceptance and adoption. Some of the elements of the solution include: Instant replication of shared content across users computers; Unlimited file size, storage and usage; Online and offline access to all content; 100% confidential, secure, and spam/ad free; Role-based access control; Version management, including comments per each version; Content synchronization with other repositories including Microsoft SharePoint, Google Docs, FTP Servers and Network Drives; Cross-platform application runs on Mac and PC; One-click, server-free download and installation; and, Subscription pricing model similar to Web conferencing. The company founders realized that well established models of viral software distribution were a perfect fit for Content Circles. Revenue is derived from workgroup leaders and content creators. The Content Circles model takes advantage of the best and most proven elements of these models. Anyone can open and view documents created by a "Circle" owner in a Circle they have been invited to participate in. Participants in a circle can even add content to the circle. A recurring subscription fee is only assessed when an individual needs to create and invite participants to a circle they need to control. http://www.contentcircles.com

X1 Technologies, Inc. announced expanded support for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino with the release of the X1 Content Connector V1.3 for Symantec Enterprise Vault. The new Content Connector for Symantec Enterprise Vault allows users to search, preview and act upon archived Lotus Notes and Domino email, contacts and email attachments. By adding Lotus Notes and Domino support to the Content Connector for Symantec Enterprise Vault, customers can perform unified searches across active and archived email and email attachments from a single interface. The X1 Content Connector V1.3 for Symantec Enterprise Vault is available immediately for purchase or 30 day trial evaluation. Key features of the new Lotus Notes and Domino support in the Content Connector for Symantec Enterprise Vault include the ability to perform keyword, phrase and range searches along with Boolean searches on archived emails, contacts and email attachments. Full fidelity preview allows users to preview the search results without recalling the email or accessing the native application of the attachment. Post search actions provide further productivity by allowing users to perform common actions such as "Reply, Reply to All, Forward, Open, Send, Print, Copy to Folder and Zip" from the same interface they performed the search. http://www.x1.com

MetaDolce Technologies, Inc., provider of Semantic and Natural Language Search technologies and products, announced the introduction of MetaDolce OmniSearch a Natural Language Platform for Semantic Website Search. MetaDolce's OmniSearch enables Web properties to accept and respond to Natural Language queries from website visitors via an embedded search bar. The MetaDolce OmniSearch website search experience is enhanced by offering a Natural Language interface that allows site visitors to obtain real answers to Natural Language questions, "eliminating and replacing thousands of irrelevant search results". MetaDolce OmniSearch results, are drawn from both the structured and unstructured data on a given website. Designed to enhance or replace existing website search solutions, MetaDolce OmniSearch immediately provides websites with better visitor retention, conversion, and CPM ratios. MetaDolce OmniSearch and MetaDolce Focus represent a suite of Semantic and Natural Language Processing products from MetaDolce Technologies, Inc. http://www.metadolce.com

EPiServer, provider of platforms for Web Content Management and online social communities, announced the acquisition of the product family of Dropit. Dropit's main product, Extension, called X3 in its latest version, was specifically developed for EPiServer CMS following requests for this functionality from EPiServer's customers. Extension has been integrated within EPiServer CMS for more than four years. X3 makes it quicker and easier for web editors to administer and alter their sites. For example, page layout can be changed in an instant by dragging and dropping different 'blocks' into place. Text, images and film can also be included and moved around freely. Two people working in the product organization at Dropit will join EPiServer. The acquisition also encompasses a number of other products which Dropit has developed as add-ons to EPiServer CMS. http://www.dropit.se, http://www.episerver.com

Alfresco Software Inc. announced an OEM partnership with Remote-Learner.net, the provider of open source solutions for online learning management, record keeping and learning object storage to corporate, academic and governmental clients. The partnership will deliver solutions to allow learning organizations using Moodle's open source course management system (CMS) to access Alfresco's open source ECM repository to support content development and reuse. Remote-Learner's Enterprise Learning Intelligence Suite for Moodle (ELIS) will be made available on February 12, 2009, allowing users to store and retrieve resources from within Moodle and Alfresco. This solution will enable learning organizations and existing Moodle users to access the back-end content repository services of Alfresco Enterprise, helping to ensure security, compliance, and auditability. Users will be able to more effectively manage, preview and track increasing volumes of content and digital assets on Moodle sites using Alfresco Enterprise. Alfresco Enterprise hosted or download trials are available at http://www.alfresco.com, http://remote-learner.net

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced the immediate availability of Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express software, a full version of Adobe LiveCycle ES hosted in the Amazon Web Services cloud computing environment. Using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) technologies, Adobe's offering provides a virtual, self-contained development environment where enterprise developers can prototype, develop, and test Adobe LiveCycle ES applications without needing to install and configure Adobe LiveCycle ES themselves. With Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express, Adobe LiveCycle ES applications are pre-configured as ready to run server instances on the Amazon EC2 server. This can help reduce the time required to boot new server instances to minutes, allowing enterprise developers to quickly begin testing and modifying applications. Developers can effectively bullet-proof their applications without having to invest in a development environment or test lab. Old projects may be deleted or saved for future access and new projects can begin without any cleanup required from the last install. Adobe LiveCycle ES Developer Express is immediately available to all members of the Adobe Enterprise Developer Program. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/, http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle

Systems Alliance, Inc. announced the release of Enhancement Pack 4, a software update for the company's SiteExecutive 4.1 Web content management application. With Enhancement Pack 4, Systems Alliance introduces the SiteExecutive Application Framework, a new mechanism for developing dynamic Web content, along with a blog application, automatic spam reduction capabilities and other improvements. The new Application Framework provides an alternative custom development option for modeling, managing and delivering dynamic or structured content. Content created with the Application Framework can take the form of a Web page, XML feed or virtually any other MIME type. And, the SiteExecutive Application Framework produces search-engine friendly content with human-readable URLs, as well as content-specific browser titles and meta tags. The Blog Application is the first SiteExecutive component developed using the new Application Framework. It enables the provisioning and management of one or many individual blogs, and offers an easy-to-use interface for managing blog posts and comments. Other SiteExecutive blog features include: Scheduling posts for advanced publishing, Generating or consuming RSS feeds, Notification and comment approval workflow, Captcha to eliminate robot-generated comments, Keyword and calendar views, and Viewlets for displaying blog content on other SiteExecutive pages or templates. Enhancement Pack 4 includes a built-in Spam reduction feature which automatically recognizes and rejects robot-generated submissions, saving site owners from the time-wasting task of sorting through junk form submissions. http://www.systemsalliance.com

Open Text announced the latest versions of Open Text Desktop Viewer and Open Text Thin Client Viewer, with expanded support for new file formats. The solutions help enterprises manage the creation, capture, viewing, markup and publishing of content across departments and the enterprise. Using the Open Text Thin Client Viewer, customers can view, share, distribute and collaborate on documents online with partners, suppliers and customers via a Web browser. The new versions introduce support for a number of new file formats, including Excel 2007, Solidworks 2008, AutoCAD 2009 and Auto Desk Inventor 2009. Open Text Desktop and Thin Client Viewer solutions address a wide range of customer needs including: Viewing, reviewing and markup for online document processing; Access to both business and technical documents and drawings from across locations and collaboration with business partners; Adding and managing markups and annotations; Protecting critical intellectual property and information with controlled document access functions, and; Preparation and protection of private information for compliant public disclosure. http://www.opentext.com

A team of Ruby developers announced the open beta launch of Viviti, a new, hosted web site building tool and content management system for all levels of users. Viviti allows anyone to build websites complete with maintenance and a user friendly, feature rich set-up, all "in a matter of minutes". Viviti currently supports the ability to create a great web site, complete with a blog, photo gallery, customizable content, and a professionally designed template. Viviti allows people to edit their web site directly through a browser by clicking, editing, dragging, and adding content precisely where they want it, much like desktop-based WYSIWYG applications. http://viviti.com/

BA-Insight announced the release of the Lotus Notes Connector for SharePoint. Co-developed in partnership with Axceler, an IBM Business Partner and Certified Lotus Advisor, the Notes Connector enables organizations to automatically connect SharePoint to Notes, and expose the data to users securely through a search interface. The Lotus Notes Connector for SharePoint brings automatic security mapping from Notes to Active Directory, and automatic property extraction and mapping. The Lotus Notes Connector for SharePoint fits into an Enterprise Search strategy that provides end-user unified access to content across SharePoint, Notes, and other repositories, or a Notes migration strategy that enables instant integration of Notes into SharePoint, while content is migrated to the SharePoint platform. http://www.axceler.com/, http://www.ba-insight.net/

IDS Scheer, a provider of BPM software and solutions and EntropySoft, a specialist of the Enterprise Content Integration (ECI) market, announced a new agreement to integrate bi-directional connectors to Content Management Systems into the ARIS Platform. Users will directly manage and control all process information, independent of whether the content resides within ARIS or the content is stored in individual Enterprise Content Repositories. Extensive read/write connectors enable ARIS to integrate with all major content management systems such as EMC Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, LiveLink, Lotus Notes or IBM FileNet. http://www.entropysoft.net

MultiCorpora announced that it has signed a technology and OEM agreement with Systran to add machine translation functionality to the MultiTrans client-server application. The MultiTrans - Systran integration will help expand the scope of MultiTrans software to deliver new solutions for a broader array of language industry problems. http://www.multicorpora.com

Percussion Software announced the continuation of a strategy to expand the number of European Union Percussion Partners. Percussion continues to provide Technical Services and Professional Services from its London office. http://www.percussion.com

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the availability of Lotus Notes 8.5 collaboration software with social computing features for all Mac OS X Leopard-powered computers. In addition, IBM's free Lotus Symphony document, spreadsheet and presentation software will be available later this month for the Mac. Lotus Notes 8.5 provides significant storage savings over previous versions. Notes has an intelligent storage savings feature that ensures that only one copy of an attachment is kept on the mail server, resulting in an estimated 40 percent space savings. Lotus Notes 8.5 arranges all collaboration tools on one screen in fewer clicks. This screen shows links to team rooms, instant messaging, to do lists, calendar, Internet browsers and other tools. Social characteristics include new integration with Google, Yahoo, and hundreds of other public Internet calendars. IBM also announced new Lotus iNotes 8.5 software, which allows anyone with a Notes user license to access Notes through a Safari browser from anywhere. iNotes allows the user to integrate the Notes calendar with Google calendar and also supports most standard widgets. One example of a widget is the mapping of a street address in an e-mail note. IBM sells Lotus Notes and Domino in a variety of ways, including packaged with hardware for small and medium businesses; via a hosted service, where the software is stored on a server at IBM; and through Passport Advantage on http://www.ibm.com/lotus/notesanddomino.

DataDirect Technologies, an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), announced the latest release of the DataDirect Data Integration Suite featuring new versions of its XML-based component technologies for data integration in traditional and service-oriented environments. Designed to meet the data transformation and aggregation needs of developers, the DataDirect Data Integration Suite contains the latest product releases of DataDirect XQuery, DataDirect XML Converters (Java and .NET) and Stylus Studio in one installation. DataDirect XQuery is an XQuery processor that enables developers to access and query XML, relational data, Web services, EDI, legacy, or a combination of data sources. New to version 4.0 is full support for the XQuery Update Facility (XUF), an extension of the XQuery language that allows making changes to data manipulated inside the XQuery. Now developers can more easily update individual XML documents, XML streams, and file collections from within their XQuery applications. The product also includes the ability to update and create Zip files, therefore supporting the OpenOffice XML format. The latest release of the DataDirect XML Converters are compatible with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 and are integrated in the Microsoft BizTalk development environment. For healthcare organizations needing to comply with the X12 electronic data interchange (EDI) standards and the latest Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) 5010 transaction definitions, the DataDirect XML Converters now include support for the HIPAA EDI dialects including 004010A1, 005010 and 005010A1 messages. Stylus Studio 2009 has a new EDI to XML module that works with DataDirect XML Converters in an interactive way. Users can now load EDI documents to view contents, test conversions, create customizations and preview XML. http://www.datadirect.com

Apago Inc. announced the availability of PDF Shrink 4.5, which now optimizes PDFs for viewing on the Apple iPhone and iPod touch devices. PDF Shrink is a Mac OS X utility that can reduce most PDF files, including those created by Mac OS X iLife and iWork applications, Adobe Creative Suite, and Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, by "as much as 90% of their original size". The latest update enables Mac users to shrink PDFs, making the entire file, including images, viewable on Apple's handheld devices. Existing features include the ability to process entire folders of PDF files, optional encryption of PDF content, support for JPEG2000 image compression, and a "wizard" for creating customized settings. PDF Shrink can also modify the resolution and compression level of images to match different requirements, remove embedded fonts, and delete unused elements such as metadata and thumbnails. http://www.apago.com

eZ Systems announced the release of eZ Components version 2008.2. This is the seventh major version of eZ Components, which is a general-purpose PHP library of over 40 components used independently or together for PHP application development. The latest versions of eZ Publish are also based on eZ Components. With eZ Components, developers can concentrate on solving customer-specific needs. The eZ Components tool set provides key application functionality, such as caching, authentication, database interaction, templates, graphs, and much more. Main improvements in this release include more features for the Document and Webdav components. The Document component, which enables you to convert documents between different formats, was already able to convert ReST to XTHML and DocBook. In this release, more formats are implemented, such as three different wiki formats (Confluence, Creole and DokuWiki), the eZ Publish XML formats, as well as reading XHTML and writing ReST. The wiki parser can easily be extended for other wiki formats. The Webdav component now supports authentication and authorization, as well as support for integrating authentication mechanisms into existing systems. In addition, it supports shared and exclusive write locks, even with custom storage back-ends. The main new development of the eZ Components 2008.2 release is the MvcTools component. The MvcTools component implements the tools for a framework. Instead of dedicating the structure of the application, it provides a dispatcher, two request parsers (one for HTTP and one for email messages through the existing Mail component), two routing methods, two view handlers (one through plain PHP scripts and one through the Template component), and a response writer for HTTP. http://ezcomponents.org

Quickoffice, Inc. announced the release of MobileFiles Pro, an application to include editable Office functionality for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The latest upgrade brings comprehensive editing and saving of Microsoft Office Excel files in the .xls format, Wi-Fi file transfer to and from a desktop (Mac and PC), and the ability to access and synchronize with Apple MobileMe accounts. MobileFiles Pro has extensive .xls editing features including support for over 125 functions, format options ranging from font style and cell color choice to inserting and resizing rows and columns. Users can switch between sheets in a workbook, revise inputs and recalculate and undo / redo changes. In addition, MobileFiles Pro features enhanced desktop file access and transfer functionality combined with MobileMe iDisk account access to transfer and store files to and from their iPhone. Using the new Wi-Fi feature, users can transfer files directly from any desktop to an iPhone or from an iPhone to the desktop. MobileFiles Pro also provides remote access to MobileMe iDisk files, synchronizes changes and uploads new files to iDisk and provides local passcode protection of the entire application sol account information and data is secure. MobileFiles Pro is now available in the Productivity section of the Apple Store for $9.99. http://www.quickoffice.com/mobilefiles