February 2010 Archives

Attensity Group announced the release of Attensity Analyze for VoC Community Advantage. It is their latest tool for finding and mining customer conversations in emails, web forums, surveys, CRM notes, and other sources. Attensity's VoC solutions convert the text of first-person customer feedback into  Intelligence with dashboarding capabilities aimed at revealing sentiments and trends. Attensity Analyze for VOC Community Advantage is a hosted solution designed to help gain insight in customer communities. It will be offered for a fixed per-month price. Using Attensity's Dynamic Text Profiling, Attensity Analyze for VOC mines and "reads" customer communities and other content  to provide visibility. http://www.attensity.com

Box.net has built-in tools for tracking a document's revision history, but previously none for reconciling separate revisions from multiple writers or editors. Other online document editors offer some degree of collaboration, but usually require editors to check documents in and out to avoid stepping on each other's revisions. The most common way of soliciting comments from several people is to send them all a copy of the file and let them make their changes. That's where TextFlow, a new product from Nordic River, comes in. It's integrated as an application into Box.net and enables users to compare multiple versions of a document side by side and easily choose which edits to accept and which to reject. www.box.net/ http://www.nordicriver.com

Zoho announced that it has integrated Facebook Connect with its Productivity, Collaboration & Business Applications. Now, Facebook users can try Zoho Applications by logging in using their Facebook accounts. A user can map his or her Facebook account with an existing Zoho account, integrating the accounts under a common username. Otherwise, the user can create a new Zoho account by choosing a unique username. The unified login gives Facebook users single sign-on access to all Zoho applications, including Zoho Office Suite and Zoho Business applications such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Creator, Zoho Invoice, Zoho Projects, Zoho Reports, Zoho People, Zoho Business and Zoho Marketplace. This functionality can also be used for sharing documents and other files with friends that have Facebook accounts, as those friends can login with their Facebook credentials to view the shared files without having to create a Zoho account. http://www.zoho.com/

Systems Alliance Inc., a regional systems integrator, announced the release of Enhancement Pack 7 (EP 7), a software update for SiteExecutive Web content management system (CMS). EP7 adds support for Adobe ColdFusion 9 and Android-based smart phones, as well as other user-requested enhancements. Systems Alliance has tested and certified SiteExecutive 4.1 on ColdFusion 9, released by Adobe in October 2009. ColdFusion 9 includes a number of enhancements including: Microsoft Office file interoperability, Microsoft Office SharePoint integration and support for Java portlet standards: JSR 168 and JSR 286. SiteExecutive includes several features  to deliver mobile-friendly Websites, including detection of leading mobile devices, such as the iPhone and Blackberry. EP7 includes support for Android-based devices, such as the Verizon Droid and Google Nexus One. EP7 includes other enhancements, including: support for Firefox 3.6, configuration options for Site Outline module (used for auto-creating site maps), and performance and usability improvements. http://www.systemsalliance.com/

DocZone by Really Strategies, Inc., a service (SaaS) XML content management system designed for publishers and technical publishers, announced a new pricing model for publishers: “Pay Per Page.”  Under this SaaS licensing option, publishers will receive full system capabilities for a group of editorial and production users, with access to all system features and only pay for final pages produced. DocZone’s features and capabilities include authoring, editing, workflow, indexing, and push-button publishing to PDF and ePUB formats. www.doczone.com

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company and Bowne & Co., Inc. jointly announced that RR Donnelley will acquire Bowne, a provider of shareholder and marketing communications services. The all cash deal is valued at ~$481 million, or $11.50 per share. The agreement has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. The completion of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval and approval of Bowne shareholders. The combination with Bowne, which has operations in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia, will expand and enhance the range of services RR Donnelley offers to its customers. Bowne, headquartered in New York, had revenues of ~$675 million during 2009 and offers digital one-to-one printing services for healthcare, transactional communications, financial services, marketing communications and other applications. http://www.rrdonnelley.com http://www.bowne.com/

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group released a second web compatibility test for mobile browsers. Based on the same idea of evaluating support of a number of Web technologies at a glance as in the first Web Compatibility Test published in July 2008, this second version features a number of more recent technologies that promise to make Web browsers more powerful, in particular on mobile devices. Learn more about the Mobile Web Initiative. http://www.w3.org/Mobile/

FlashMoto.com, a start up that specializes in Flash website creation and provides a Flash CMS, launched an updated version of their Flash content management system with multiple language support. FlashMoto's control panel has been translated into 12 languages, among which are: Spanish, Bulgarian, Japanese, Romanian, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Serbian, and Czech. The interface language can be changed once a user logs into the admin panel. Users may edit their Flash CMS website content, add new pages, edit and delete the existing pages, manage the website menu, galleries, contact forms, upload videos and music, etc. Other features include SEO support, ability to upload your own fonts and integrate external modules and widgets. All the data is stored in XML files instead of a database. FlashMoto flash content management system features a basic navigation interface and WYSIWYG editor. In its next version, expected to be launched towards the end of March, FlashMoto will add 4 more languages: German, French, Turkish and Polish.  http://www.flashmoto.com/

Context Optional, a social marketing developer, has launched its Social Marketing Suite (SMS). The Suite, a content management system for brand presence on Facebook, offers a dashboard to access publishing, comment moderation, applications, and analytics tools. The SMS features tools that enable the user to create and schedule Facebook posts, moderate for profanity and inappropriate content, launch preloaded applications (or add new custom apps), as well as analyze page traffic and engagement.  http://www.contextoptional.com/

Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX) (TSX: OTC) and Nstein Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: EIN) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement by which Open Text will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Nstein through an Nstein shareholder-approved amalgamation with a subsidiary of Open Text under the Companies Act (Québec). Based on the terms of the definitive agreement, Nstein shareholders will receive for each Nstein common share, CDN $0.65 in cash, unless certain eligible shareholders otherwise elect to receive a fraction of an Open Text TSX traded common share, having a value of CDN $0.65 based on the volume weighted average trading price of Open Text TSX traded common shares in the 10 trading day period immediately preceding the closing date of the acquisition. This purchase price represents a premium of approximately 100 percent above the 30 trading day average closing price of Nstein's common shares. The transaction is valued at approximately CDN $35 million. Based in Montreal, Nstein's solutions are sold across market segments such as media and information services, life sciences and government. The transaction is expected to close in the second calendar quarter and is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval of two-thirds of the votes cast by Nstein's shareholders and applicable regulatory and stock exchange approvals. A special meeting of Nstein's shareholders is expected to be held to consider the amalgamation in early April, 2010. http://www.opentext.com, http://www.nstein.com

ELC Technologies, developer of interactive web applications, announced the launch of ELC Mobile, a new development company dedicated to creating new applications for mobile platforms such as the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad. ELC Mobile, formerly operating as RightSprite, has strong iPhone development experience with both business and game applications. The ELC Mobile developer team will be available for companies looking to develop iPhone and iTouch applications. The ELC Mobile team has created its own software developer kit, which includes a content management system. http://www.elctech.com/

EMC Corporation has unveiled improvements to the EMC Atmos cloud infrastructure solution. EMC Atmos is an on-premises cloud storage platform designed to help customers manage the distribution of unstructured information across geographically dispersed locations. With the introduction of GeoProtect functionality in the latest version of Atmos brings new protection levels for enterprise cloud infrastructure. The Atmos cloud infrastructure platform recieved hardware changes, including a new processor and high density 2 terabyte (TB) disk drives. EMC Atmos, version 1.3, and associated hardware updates are expected to ship in the first quarter. http://www.emc.com

SAP AG and Open Text announced the third expansion of their strategic relationship to include Open Text Digital Asset Management as a part of marketing resource management and intellectual property management capabilities of the SAP Customer Relationship Management application. Through a new global agreement, SAP will resell the enterprise DAM solution from Open Text under the name the SAP Digital Asset Management application by Open Text. SAP has been reselling Open Text Document Access, Open Text Archiving and Open Text Invoice Management solutions, and recently expanded the agreement that enables SAP to resell Open Text Extended ECM. http://www.opentext.com http://www.sap.com

EMC Corporation and FatWire Software announced that they will jointly offer solutions for Web experience and brand management to help manage online experiences and brand consistency. The strategic partnership between EMC and FatWire includes reciprocal reseller agreements, joint innovation, sales, marketing and services activities as well as a minority equity investment by EMC in FatWire. Under the reseller agreements, EMC will resell FatWire's WEM product set as its WEM solution and FatWire will resell EMC's digital asset management software including EMC Documentum Media WorkSpace and EMC Documentum Content Transformation Services as its digital asset management offering. The two companies have also committed to joint product development to extend Documentum-FatWire integrations. http://www.emc.com http://www.fatwire.com/

Optical Image Technology’s latest DocFinity software release features DocFinity eForms. eForms can be configured, administered and used within a web-based interface. Part of the browser-based DocFinity suite, eForms is designed to let users to input, store, and access forms securely from any location, and to use those forms to launch appropriate processes using DocFinity BPM (business process management) software. Equipped with a Flash interface, eForms will customize forms while ensuring sensitive information is secure. eForms makes captured information immediately available enterprise wide, and also allows collaboration on form design. Form designs can be checked out electronically by authorized users, who can add, delete, or modify those designs, then check them back in for further modifications or review. www.docfinity.com

Apple will be launching the iBook store in March to sell ebooks for the iPad. Citing sources in the publishing industry,  the LA Times claims the eBooks will be featuring FairPlay DRM, which is the same software which had previously limited how many times iTunes songs could be copied (FairPlay's use for music files has since been phased out). While some publishers will oppose the use of DRM, arguing that DRM software harms sales volume, most are expected to embrace these piracy safeguards. Apple will only be offering iBooks to iPad owners in the U.S. http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Longwood Software, Inc., a developer of marketing asset management systems, announced the release of RevBase Briefcase. Briefcase is designed to offer web-accessible portals for managing sales and marketing content with the ability to share with both colleagues and customers. RevBase is a SaaS solution for marketing asset management and sales support. Briefcase is designed to allow users to add and manage their own sets of marketing and sales materials within their company’s portals, and create collections of marketing assets to meet specific criteria. http://www.longwoodsoftware.com/

Aardvark, a social media search engine, has announced that it has been acquired by Google. Aardvark is now a tool available in Google Labs, and will remain free of cost and fully functional. Aardvark's defining characteristic as a search engine is that once the user's question has been input, it will search that user's social network and attempt to identify a connection who could best answser the question. Under Google Labs, Aardvark is expected to be further developed. http://vark.com/

IBM announced it is bringing its collaboration and social software to the iPhone, iPod Touch and Macintosh computers. Organizations can use enterprise social networking; instant messaging; and securely encrypted email and collaborative applications with the iPhone and Mac. The new software includes Lotus Symphony 3.0, IBM's office productivity suite, providing spreadsheets, presentations and documents free of charge. In addition, new offerings for the iPhone and Mac include Lotus Connections and Lotus Sametime, which can be used to build professional networks with social capabilities such as blogs, wikis, activities and microblogging. IBM's Lotus Social Software can help users share and discover expertise and content on demand, harnessing the wisdom of the crowds. IBM Sametime brings voice, video, online meetings, enterprise instant messaging and community collaboration to the iPhone and Mac. This release brings securely encrypted email and collaborative applications to work with Lotus Notes and Domino Software for Mac and iPhone. Developers can mobilize existing Domino business applications on to devices with xPages through an application development model. IBM is also unveiling the new Lotus Symphony 3.0 beta productivity software for Macs. http://www.ibm.com

Telligent announced the availability of Telligent Community 5.5 and Telligent Enterprise 2.5. The new releases include enhancements around extensibility, performance, flexibility and ease of adoption. Telligent Community is an external-facing community application that helps organizations to listen to and converse with customers, partners and prospects. Telligent Enterprise is an internal collaboration software application that promotes a productive and efficient corporate culture. Collaboration between employees is designed to be kept private and secure. Both products are built on Telligent Evolution, a collaboration and community platform that enhances integration and allows the creation of applications to meet specific needs. Telligent also plans to release Telligent Analytics 3.5 and Telligent Evolution Platform SDK in March 2010. http://telligent.com

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Math Working Group has published a Proposed Recommendation of "XML Entity Definitions for Characters." This document presents a completed listing harmonizing the known uses in math and science of character entity names that appear throughout the XML world and Unicode. This document is the result of years of employing entity names on the Web. There were always a few named entities used for special characters in HTML, but a flood of new names came with the symbols of mathematics. Comments are welcome through 11 March. Learn more about the Math Activity. http://www.w3.org/Math/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/PR-xml-entity-names-20100211/

Cloud Content Management provider Box.net  announced three updates to enhance collaboration on its mobile platform. Box.net's new iPhone app, integration with the Quickoffice mobile office suite, and new OpenBox Mobile APIs  could help users share and collaborate on business content across platforms and devices. Available immediately for free through the iTunes App Store, Box.net's new iPhone app lets users post, view, and reply to comments around any file or folder on Box from their iPhone. Box.net's iPhone app also features an enhanced interface and is designed for better performance. Box.net's integration with the Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite is designed to allow the creation and editing Microsoft Word and Excel files on-the-go, and then save them back to the Box account directly from the Quickoffice iPhone app. The Quickoffice app with Box.net integration will be available shortly through the iTunes App Store. Box.net's new APIs for OpenBox Mobile enable developers to integrate Box's search, commenting and update capabilities into their mobile applications. http://www.box.net/

Adobe Systems released a cloud-based version of its LiveCycle Enterprise software development platform.  LiveCycle Managed Services ES2 is a subscription-based version of the LiveCycle Enterprise Suite which debuted in October. The development environment could help businesses develop and deploy cloud-based Internet applications such as customer facing software. While the on-demand version of the system is mainly targeted at the same mid-market and enterprise customers as the on-premise version, smaller businesses could take advantage of the cloud-based solution. Adobe is offering 24-hour support in conjunction with the service. Software subscriptions for developers are available now while the production version of the platform will be generally available March 8, 2010. Pricing starts around $50,000 per year based on the specific modules selected. http://www.adobe.com/

HP introduced a records management solution to reduce the business risk associated with regulatory compliance and legal discovery demands. HP TRIM 7 is designed to let organizations to manage all of their Microsoft SharePoint Server records in a single environment. This includes documents as well as information found in SharePoint Server blogs, wikis, discussions, forms, calendars and workflows. TRIM 7 enables the capture, search and management of various types of physical and electronic business information, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the upcoming SharePoint Server 2010.  The Records Management module helps business records management by providing access to all the SharePoint Server content held in HP TRIM right from the SharePoint Server workspace. TRIM also has U.S. Department of Defense 5015.2 v3 certification. The Archiving module helps reduce the risk of data loss when reclaiming storage and system resources from SharePoint Server. The module archives specific list objects in SharePoint Server, or entire SharePoint Server sites, to HP TRIM. This happens behind the scenes, which could allow users to take entire SharePoint Server sites offline while ensuring continued access to information. The improved indexing and search capability could decrease the time spent searching for critical information as well as reduce response time for legal discovery, compliance requests and audits.
 www.hp.com

Nuxeo announced the general availability of its open source Digital Asset Management offering, Nuxeo DAM. Nuxeo DAM is based on their open source ECM platform, Nuxeo EP. Designed with marketing and brand managers in mind, Nuxeo's DAM software aims to help take control of image, video or audio content. Nuxeo DAM meets the currently available draft of the OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. CMIS is a proposed standard for interoperability across multiple ECM and WCM systems that is expected to be approved this year. Nuxeo EP includes a CMIS Server, based on the latest CMIS specification. As an open source offering, this release of Nuxeo DAM reflects input from the customer and partner community during the beta period. Nuxeo DAM 1.0 - Feature highlights: Asset Capture /Batch Import; Annotations; Intellectual Property and Rights Management; Renditions; Filter-based Navigation; Watermarking & Export of Media Files; Security & Access Control; Configurable Content Model; Browser--based Interface; and IT Ecosystem Integration. http://www.nuxeo.com

Managing Editor Inc. (MEI), an Adobe premier development partner, announced the immediate availability of Version 6 of the vjoon K4 Cross-Media Publishing Platform. Key features of this update are increased support for cross-media input and output, a task-based workflow model, more options for remote users and enhanced flexibility in the system’s architecture. The latest version of K4 is designed to handle many content types in addition to Adobe CS4 layouts and articles, including documents, spreadsheets, images, rich media, PDFs, XML files, Flash movies, podcasts, presentations and more. The system is built to facilitate publishing to multiple media, allowing content to be pushed to many unique channels, such as print, Web, mobile devices, eBook readers, social networks, syndication and multiple languages. Version 6 manages all types of content, regardless of its source or destination, and allows publishers to define unique workflows for each type of content. K4 Version 6 introduces a workflow model in which users are presented with tasks that describe what has to be done. When a task is accepted, K4 automatically presents users with what they should need to do the job, such as a text file or picture to edit, a layout to work on or a metadata field to fill in. Once all tasks associated with a particular stage of the workflow have been completed, the associated files move forward in the pipeline. This model allows users and supervisors to see exactly what has been done and what still needs to be done. The latest version allows more users to collaborate and complete tasks simultaneously, by offering expanded Web-based interactivity. The built-in K4 Web Portal provides a platform for remote connectivity, which can be extended with server-side plug-ins. The K4 InCopy Editor lets writers and editors work on K4 articles without an InCopy client. The Web CMS Editor provides WYSIWYG authoring and editing for native HTML content. And the K4 File Manager gives K4 users Web access to tasks for a wide variety of content in the system, allowing them to open files in their native applications. K4 Version 6 is a multi-tier solution that supports Oracle, Microsoft SQL and MySQL database platforms and runs on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and SUN Solaris operating systems. http://www.maned.com

Omniture, an Adobe company (NASDAQ:ADBE) announced an integration with CrownPeak that combines Omniture Test&Target with CrownPeak’s content management system (CMS) through Omniture Genesis. Designed to allow marketers to manage content for tests and targeted campaigns from an integrated interface, the combination allows for the creation and deployment of content to drive A/B tests, multivariate tests, and content targeting. As a result, marketers could benefit from the speed and control of Test&Target as well as from the content creation and management workflow of CrownPeak. Through the integration, content is built within CrownPeak’s CMS, then deployed and managed by Omniture Test&Target from within the CMS. The integration should provide the following: Continuous testing and targeting that can automatically promote top performing content; rapid implementation of integration and ongoing deployment of tests without requiring IT involvement, putting control in the hands of marketers; API Integration allows one-step live deployment of offers; easy management of any testing scenario via an integrated interface. www.omniture.com www.crownpeak.com/

KonaKart (e-commerce) and dotCMS (web content management) have announced plans to release  java based CMS-driven e-commerce plug-ins and tool sets they have co-developed. Both organizations worked closely together to design and implement the architecture and develop an integrated toolset, with workflows and templates, that could provide a presentation layer across an e-commerce platform. By developing an open architecture (standard plugins) between KonaKart and dotCMS, the framework and integration patterns should allow for marketing and social components to be distributed throughout the e-commerce experience. This architecture introduces system segmentation from core infrastructures, with the goal of stability and security for the e-commerce inner-workings. KonaKart and dotCMS plan to release these plugins and tool-sets in both their open source offerings by the 2nd Quarter of 2010, after which future offerings and support packages may follow. http://www.dotcms.org/ http://www.konakart.com/

Day Software announced the immediate availability of its content management system (CMS), CQ 5.3.  CQ 5.3 introduces enhancements for online marketing in Day’s unified Web Content Management (WCM), Digital Asset Management (DAM), and Social Collaboration (SoCo) suite. New with CQ 5.3, Day also introduces its Targeting module, providing online marketers capabilities for customer segmentation and content targeting to optimize online communications and customer experience. CQ 5.3 WCM adds enhanced support for campaign management and optimization. Marketers can now schedule campaigns and target promotions in real-time based on customer site visit behavior. Multi-Variant Testing (MVT) support could help every online marketer to optimize campaign promotions. CQ 5.3 DAM provides Marketing support for site visitors to browse and access an online library of marketing assets. New lightbox supports enables pick lists of marketing assets - including presentation slides, documents, images, videos, and more - to be downloaded as a ZIP file. New drag-and-drop components for uploading, tagging, commenting, and rating assets open up digital libraries for community-generated content. CQ 5.3 DAM also adds MediaRSS support to provide three-dimensional visualization and fly-over navigation of large libraries of digital assets leveraging external service provider CoolIris. Social Collaboration adds new support for Social Calendaring. With an enhanced drag-and-drop calendar component, online marketers can create and target different displays of upcoming events. Targeting provides a library of potential segmentation criteria for both anonymous site visitors as well as registered users. Support for external site browser history, geo-location, and observed site preferences enables segmentation of even anonymous visitors to drive targeted promotions. For repeat visitors, profile-based criteria such as age, gender, past site visit history and others enhance marketing’s ability deliver tailored home page and landing page promotions to reach their target audiences. CQ 5.3. CQ 5.3 is available immediately to current Day customers and partners. http://www.day.com