The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released two specifications, XSL Transformations (XSLT) and XML Path Language (XPath), as W3C Recommendations. These new specifications represent cross-industry and expert community agreement on technologies that will enable the transformation and styled presentation of XML documents. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C membership, who favor its adoption by the industry. As more content publishers and commercial interests deliver rich data in XML, the need for presentation technology increases in both scale and functionality. XSL meets the more complex, structural formatting demands that XML document authors have. XSLT makes it possible for one XML document to be transformed into another according to an XSL Style sheet. As part of the document transformation, XSLT uses XPath to address parts of an XML document that an author wishes to transform. XPath is also used by another XML technology, XPointer, to specify locations in an XML document. Together, XSLT and XPath make it possible for XML documents to be reformatted according to the parameters of XSL style sheets and increase presentation flexibility into the XML architecture. The XSLT Recommendation was written and developed by the XSL Working Group, which includes key industry players such as Adobe Systems, Arbortext, Bell Labs, Bitstream, Datalogics, Enigma, IBM, Interleaf, Lotus, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, O’Reilly & Associates, RivCom, SoftQuad Inc, Software AG, and Sun Microsystems. Notable contributions also came from the University of Edinburgh and a range of invited experts. The XPath Recommendation pooled together efforts from both the XSL Working Group and the XML Linking Working Group, whose membership includes CommerceOne, CWI, DATAFUSION, Fujitsu, GMD, IBM, Immediate Digital, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Textuality, and the University of Southampton. www.w3.org
Month: November 1999 (Page 7 of 13)
At their recent meeting in Amsterdam, members of the IPTC agreed to revamp their operating structure and establish a new work program, IPTC2000, which will deliver an XML-based standard to represent and manage news through its life-cycle, including production, interchange and consumer use. Entitled NewsML, it is intended that the new framework standard will build on the intellectual property invested in existing IPTC standards such as the Information Interchange Model (IIM), News Industry Text Format (NITF) and the IPTC’s widely used Subject Classification Standard. Using XML, it is intended that NewsML will draw appropriately on existing and emerging W3C recommendations. Three working groups have been established to develop the key components of the programme. These are News Structure and Management, News Text and News Metadata. Earlier this year, the IPTC announced the publication of its first XML based standard, News Industry Text Format (NITF). This work, together with the Information Interchange Model (IIM), will form the basis of NewsML. All existing IPTC standards are copyright IPTC and are administered by the International Press Telecommunications Council, based in England. Information on NITF, IIM and Subject Matter Coding is available at www.iptc.org
Sequoia Software Corporation announced a partnership with Architag University to offer the public training courses in XML at Sequoia’s Columbia, Maryland corporate offices. The joint training program addresses the exploding demand for programmers with experience at developing XML-based information systems and reflects Sequoia’s long-standing commitment to accelerating the adoption of XML. Schedules and registration information for January, February and March 2000 sessions are posted on both the Sequoia Software and Architag University Web sites. Among the classes scheduled, Architag University will present XML 101, a five-day session covering a wide range of content from XML basics to using XML for developing data-driven Web architectures, from January 10 to 14. For the latest class information visit www.architag.com/university or www.sequoiasoftware.com
Xerox Corporation provided the first public look at askOnce, information agent software that helps organizations leverage the information in documents and take action on it. askOnce is meta-search software that provides secure access to multiple internal and external knowledge sources (e.g., DocuShare or other corporate repositories, databases, web sites) to simplify and improve search, retrieval and manipulation of information. askOnce passes queries to many search engines, directories, or databases and then summarizes all the results. askOnce can even search “metadata” from each information source that is not normally visible (this might include information about the data
Xerox Corporation provided the first public look at a new release of its DocuShare software. DocuShare is a secure, web-based software product for managing and sharing knowledge throughout any organization. DocuShare 2.1 is easy to install, use, and maintain, and provides a secure, convenient environment to manage documents and information. Users can access DocuShare through any current web browser on any platform to share, search for and manage information. New features include: Saved Queries – “Query Collections” can be created and saved so frequently used queries are always available and up to date. Notification – email is sent to users notifying them of defined collection changes via DocuShare 2.1
Oracle Corp. announced Oracle Integration Server, providing XML-enabled infrastructure for enterprises and e-business exchanges. In combination with Oracle’s portal strategy, Oracle Integration Server incorporates business process integration on all levels-including user interfaces, applications and back-end data-to easily transfer data internally and business-to-business. Also, the Oracle Integration Server includes message warehousing to enable analysis and optimization of business processes. As e-businesses expand electronic commerce initiatives beyond consumer storefronts to Internet exchanges, business process integration is crucial to success. When dealing with numerous partners or merging with other companies, e-businesses often find a mixture of incompatible IT infrastructures which make information exchange nearly impossible. Rather than a wholesale replacement strategy or point-to-point solutions, Oracle Integration Server provides a standards-based integration layer above these different systems, enabling information to flow easily between different applications and systems. By utilizing XML the Oracle Integration Server facilitates data exchange, reduces integration costs, and increases customer flexibility. Oracle Integration Server is expected to be the first among mainstream vendors to enable message interchange between heterogeneous messaging systems such as IBM MQSeries, TIB/Rendezvous, and Oracle Advanced Queuing. In addition, the software supports different methods of message transmission, including publish, subscribe, point-to-point, and multicast. As part of its e-business integration strategy, Oracle is working with a number of industry-leading vendors such as TSI Software, Vitria Technology, TIBCO Software, Active Software, STC, and Oberon to provide a comprehensive enterprise integration solution. The Oracle Integration Server is scheduled to be available in Q1, CY 2000. www.oracle.com
Addressing the need for e-businesses to maintain a singular, holistic view of their customers, vendors in the e-business and e-customer applications market today announced the Customer Profile EXchange (CPEX) working group. CPEX offers a vendor-neutral, open standard for facilitating the privacy-enabled interchange of customer information across disparate enterprise applications and systems. Charter working group members currently include: Andromedia/Macromedia, Calico Commerce, Cogit, Compaq, Digital Impact, DoubleClick, Engage Technologies, Fujitsu Software Corporation, Harte-Hanks, IBM, InsWeb, Intuit, Lumeria, Marketsoft, Net Perceptions, net.Genesis, Oracle, Personify, Siebel Systems, Sun/Netscape Alliance and Vignette Corporation. Additional organizations that have formally expressed interest in joining the CPEX effort include Lucent Technologies CRM Solutions, Proxicom, U.S. Interactive and others. The CPEX standard integrates online and offline customer data in an XML-based data model for use within various enterprise applications both on and off the Web. The result is a networked, customer-focused environment that allows e-businesses to leverage a unified view of their customers into more compelling e-relationships. More than simply a DTD or XML tag set, CPEX will include a data model, transport and query definitions, and a framework for enabling privacy safeguards. Few of today’s supply and demand chains share a unified image of the customer, leaving customer support, order management, lead sharing and other primary business functions working independently to grasp a customer’s identity, behavior and needs. Customer service capability is severely reduced by this lack of shared information, creating significant and redundant short and long-term IT integration costs. Businesses will be able to apply CPEX across a disparate range of back-office applications, front-office applications and Web customer automation applications. While the benefits of a singular customer view are growing increasingly apparent within an enterprise, CPEX solutions will prove vital in tomorrow’s world of connected enterprises. The CPEX working group intends to develop an open-source reference implementation and developer guidelines to speed adoption of CPEX among vendors. Open to any vendor that wishes to contribute to the standard, the CPEX working group is chaired by Siebel Systems, the Marketing Committee is co-chaired by net.Genesis and Vignette Corporation, and Andromedia/Macromedia chairs the Technical Committee. The CPEX working group is hosted by IDEAlliance.org, a neutral, non-profit organization that also hosts ICE, PRISM and several other XML working groups. www.cpex.org.
Intraware, Inc. announced a strategic relationship with Object Design, Inc. Today’s alliance enables Intraware customers to access the Object Design product line through intraware.shop. Intraware customers can now purchase online, perform online demonstrations, and electronically receive eXcelon, Object Design’s XML-based application development environment for building and deploying e-business applications. Intraware is also including Object Design’s eXcelon Stylus, the industry’s first professional XSL editing tool, in its XML Starter Kit. Intraware’s XML Starter Kit, which is available on Intraware’s Everything-XML Web page www.everything-xml.com , is a specially priced XML product bundle designed specifically for corporate developers. In addition to the eXcelon Stylus XSL style sheet, the XML Starter Kit includes a dynamic XML server, an XML editor and XML schema tool, as well as XML training. eXcelon is immediately available through intraware.shop. Pricing for eXcelon ranges from $199 for the eXcelon Stylus XSL editor to $15,000 per CPU for an eXcelon deployment license. Intraware’s XML Starter Kit, which consists of a bundle of products, is priced at $1250, www.intraware.com.
