Informix Corporation, and Excalibur Technologies announced a strategic relationship to combine the Excalibur Screening Room solution with Informix’s database technology.
Day: April 19, 1999
The Meta Data Coalition (MDC) and the Object Management Group (OMG) announced their first cooperative effort to develop metadata standards. In establishing a formal technical liaison, the MDC is now a Platform Member of the OMG, and the OMG is a member of the MDC. The objective of this cross-membership is to provide a way for the two groups to work together on common standards, based on the belief that standards reduce confusion in the marketplace and increase efficiency for IT organizations. The OMG has provided leadership in metadata management starting with issuance of the Repository RFI in 1995, which led to the OMG distributed repository architecture definition in 1996. The Meta Object Facility (MOF) was adopted by the OMG in 1995 and has been refined through the OMG’s open, vendor-neutral standards process. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) was adopted in 1997. More recently, the OMG embraced W3C XML with the adoption of the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI). These three standards, UML, MOF and XMI, form the foundation of the OMG’s modeling and metadata management architecture.. The MDC was founded in 1995 to develop and provide standardized metadata exchange; the coalition introduced the Meta Data Interchange Specification (MDIS) in 1996. Recently the MDC completed the technical review of the MDC-OIM, a technology-independent and vendor-neutral information model describing the structure and semantics of metadata. The MDC-OIM is based on the Microsoft Open Information Model, a metadata model and specification that is part of Microsoft Repository, a metadata management product. This model was developed by Microsoft, together with over 20 industry-leading companies, and has been reviewed by more than 300 companies as part of Microsoft’s Open Process. The MDC-OIM supports the OMG’s UML specification www.MDCinfo.com/. www.omg.org.
Agile Software Corporation, a supplier of product change collaboration solutions for the electronic supply chain, announced it has partnered with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in an initiative to establish standards for efficiently sharing printed circuit assembly (PCA) data between electronics manufacturers and their supply chain partners. As an industry partner in NIST’s Internet Commerce for Manufacturing (ICM) testbed project, Agile Software is providing its Agile Workplace engineering change management technology for use in creating an environment that demonstrates and validates the use of open systems and standards for efficiently sharing both technical and business data across organizations. NIST’s ICM initiative aims to create an easily replicable scenario for Internet-based electronic commerce spanning the complex supply chain common in today’s electronics industry. Part of Agile Software’s contribution to the NIST initiative is its XML-based technology, which is a key facility within the next generation Agile products. In making its XML specifications available to NIST, Agile is proposing its adoption as an industry standard for exchanging XML-based product information between electronics OEMs and their EMS providers. These documents include Build Packages, Engineering Change Orders (ECOs), Manufacturing Change Orders (MCOs), and bills of material (BOMs). XML is a platform-independent, Web-based language that lets users categorize and structure data to be transmitted over the Internet. www.agilesoft.com
DataChannel Inc., and ISOGEN International Corp., announced that they have merged to provide a comprehensive set of XML solutions. ISOGEN will become a DataChannel Inc. company. The merger allows DataChannel to extend the DataChannel XMLFramework by providing enhanced professional services while delivering the benefits of formal standards to a larger market. ISOGEN International will retain its name and remain in Dallas where it is strategically located to easily service the new company’s combined user base. George Kondrach, Chairman of ISOGEN, will become General Manager, and Carla Corkern, President, will become Vice-President of the combined professional International Professional Services organization.www.datachannel.com
CSI USA Inc., an international supplier of secure document exchange software and services, announced today that it will release several new products. These products make the Internet secure for the exchange of business-critical documents and data. CSI debuts BDX, Business Document Exchange Service, a subscription service for the secure exchange of business-critical documents and data over the Internet. The only requirements are an Internet connection and a Java enabled PC or workstation. The BDX service presently has the capacity for thousands of users and is readily scalable to meet any future demands. CSI also introduces the latest version of its Business Document Exchange enterprise server software, BDE 2.01. BDE is portable (100% Java), scalable, and based on open system services including FTP, SQL, MIME and SMIME protocols. BDE and BDX are licensed on a per-user basis, and not based on data volume or throughput, a distinct advantage over private networks. This latest release of BDE features a new graphical interface and an enhanced command API, optimized encryption and database protocols (including support for Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and MS-SQL), and many other enhancements to the server, client, and remote administration components. CSI also announces BDC, Business Document Conversion, a new product designed specifically for the secure exchange of EDI data over the Internet. File formats and data conversion mappings are expressed in BDC-X, CSI’s proprietary XML-based language, which enables professionals and consultants, not just programmers, to write data conversion maps. www.csiusa.net
PC DOCS/Fulcrum announced DOCSSite, a Web publishing solution for PC DOCS/Fulcrum customers. DOCSSite provides non- technical users with the ability to automate the creation of linked HTML publications from any source document from any application, without any manual coding. Consistent, uniformly formatted, fully linked Web pages can quickly be produced and published on intranets and the Internet for immediate access by other users. DOCSSite generates industry standard HTML from such disparate sources as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect and popular CAD applications, creating a uniform site appearance. Linking the various documents together, DOCSSite automatically creates navigation controls and ensures the resulting content conforms to the appropriate corporate image. DOCSSite is built on PC DOCS/Fulcrum’s existing DOCS Binder XML- based compound document solution, which provides users with the ability to manage complex, multi-format documents as a single XML file within the document repository. DOCSSite will be available from PC DOCS/Fulcrum and select partners in June, 1999. www.pcdocs.com
