MessageMedia Inc. announced it has signed an exclusive agreement with R.R. Donnelley Online Services, the Internet solutions group of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company. Under the agreement, MessageMedia will offer e-mail-based newsletters to customers of R.R. Donnelley Online’s ePublish, a program designed to allow magazine publishers to quickly develop a quality web site and online presence. ePublish (www.rrd-epublish.com) will design, build and run web sites for magazine companies, incorporating tools and technology that are centered on content management, community building and commerce. The program brings technology and functionality to its product platform to meet the demanding needs of magazine publishers and online users. www.messagemedia.com
Day: December 13, 1999 (Page 1 of 2)
Document Sciences announced the general availability of DLS Web Express, the latest version of its Document Library Services (DLS) product. DLS Web Express now provides users an end-to-end solution for compliance document management and production in traditional print and electronic web distribution environments. DLS Web Express supports on-demand transactional creation of highly personalized documents in a three-tiered Web Server environment. With DLS Web Express, users can design complex document automation applications using a Windows interface and Microsoft Word. These applications and the DLS Web Express transactional client are integrated into a Web Server environment using any of today’s Web programming technologies like Active Server Pages (ASP), Java, and Cold Fusion. The output of DLS Web Express produces multiple file formats from a single source of input. Documents are generated in the web-standard HTML format for format-independent applications, and in Adobe’s PDF. www.docscience.com
SoftLock.com, Inc. announced it’s active role in the securing, marketing, and selling of eBooks across the Internet. SoftLock.com’s expansive collection of over 100 eBooks are available in topics ranging from business and finance to sports and travel, including fiction, nonfiction and reference from authors such as Lewis Carroll, Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf. SoftLock.com’s initial group of eBook publishers include AIL/New Media Publishing, Arrose Enterprises, Best Solutions, Boson Books, Clear Springs Press, Exemplary/OmniMedia Digital Publishing, Invisible Path Publishing, LifeQuest, Novelwriter.com, Roger White Associates, and John Zakour Publishing. EBooks can now be sampled, instantly purchased and passed from one interested reader to another. EBook publishers can be secure in the knowledge that their intellectual property will not be pirated, because SoftLock.com’s patented system builds copyright protection right into the eBook. When passed-along, the document automatically re-locks itself, allowing the Consumer to view the enticing sample of the eBook. The document will not re-open until the Consumer purchases the full eBook, and will once again automatically re-lock when that Consumer finds the eBook compelling enough to pass along. This complete, turnkey e-commerce solution allows publishers to profit from the widespread electronic distribution of their secured eBooks. www.softlock.com.
Bridges for Islands, Inc. announced the availability of its XML-based BRAHMS B2BEngine. The new product connects previously disparate trading partners, enabling the automation of their business processes. Since BRAHMS B2BEngine is based on XML, its integration solution can meet the needs of any business integration scenario. Bridges’ technology is based on a distributed communities architecture, which produces a highly robust and stable infrastructure. The BRAHMS B2BEngine solution bridges the different information sources, operating systems and platforms and allows for rapid integration. As a result, BRAHMS B2BEngine provides the means for trading partners to achieve real-time integration across their entire supply chain, and enter the e-Business age with minimal changes to their core IT infrastructure. www.b4i.com
IONA Technologies announced that it plans to include support in IONA iPortal Suite for the WAP Forum’s Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Support for WAP will be built into IONA iPortal Server, a component of IONA iPortal Suite. IONA iPortal Server is a portal access and central control point that provides integration between front-end Internet applications and back-end systems, manages customized views of all internal applications, and provides reliable, secure and scalable access to internal and external applications. IONA iPortal Server provides the view into back-end enterprise applications by interoperating with IONA iPortal Integration Server, and new component-based application logic by interoperating with IONA iPortal Application Server. WAP support will be provided in the form of an Adaptive Runtime Technology (ART) plug-in. ART is a flexible, transport-independent architecture, which underlies all of the components of iPortal Suite. ART’s flexibility alleviates iPortal Suite developers from having to maintain a separate set of WAP-formatted pages. iPortal Suite will check the end-user’s protocol on login, and will automatically supply wireless device users with WAP-formatted content. www.iona.com
A forum of Internet-focused companies announced a major initiative aimed at delivering value added services that leverage the Internet’s infrastructure, increasing the intelligence and flexibility of networks. The goal of the forum is the cooperative review and consideration of ideas and concepts to create an open standards-based protocol – Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) that is expected to be presented to the IETF early in 2000. The proposed standard will allow enterprises, content providers and ISPs to seamlessly conduct e-services such as targeted Web advertising, virus scanning, content filtering, data compression and language translation on any Internet access device. The ICAP Forum is hosted by Akamai Technologies and Network Appliance, and is joined by Internet companies including content delivery service providers, application and content developers, and Internet infrastructure companies. Forum members who have endorsed the drafting of the open protocol include: Allaire Corporation, Appliant, Inc., BroadVision, Cobalt Networks, Direct Hit, DoubleClick, eBuilt, eColor, Engage, Entera, Exodus, Finjan Software, Frictionless Commerce, Globix, Google, Inc., Idiom, Inc., InfoLibria, Ingeniux, iWeb.com, Inc., Lionbridge Technologies, Network Associates, Novell, N2H2, Open Market, Optibase, Oracle Corp., Pandesic, Predictive Networks, Rulespace, Secure Computing, SightPath, Trend Micro, Inc., Vignette Corporation, Websense, and WWWhoosh. Additional partners are welcome and can join by sending email to partners@i-cap.org. The development of ICAP is only an example of the specific work under way by participants in the forum, with an objective to have a draft for review (prior to submitting to the IETF) at the group’s first meeting on February 14 in San Francisco. The first value added services solutions are expected to reach the marketplace in Q1 2000. www.i-cap.org.
UniCapital Corporation announced it has published an XML schema on Microsoft’s BizTalk Web site that will enable commercial equipment leasing companies to exchange invoices with customers over the Internet. UniCapital expects that this schema will facilitate e-commerce in the $220 billion equipment leasing industry by providing companies with a universally compatible program for filing invoices electronically. By developing a standard e-commerce language for invoicing, UniCapital expects its schema to result in cost savings and increased operating efficiencies for equipment leasing companies and their customers. www.unicapitalcorp.com
Bidcom, Inc. announced that the company has been elected to lead the Construction/Project Management working group, one of six such groups that make up the aecXML Project. Larry Chen, chief technology officer at Bidcom, will chair the group on Bidcom’s behalf. The aecXML Project www.aecxml.org is a building industry consortium founded by Bentley Systems in August 1999 to standardize the definition and exchange of architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) data. Based on XML, aecXML will use an XML schema to describe the information that is routinely exchanged between building industry professionals. Using this schema, industry companies will be able to share project information and conduct e-commerce across all software applications. More than 450 organizations worldwide are participating in the aecXML project. In addition to Construction/Project Management, aecXML working groups address the following areas: Design/Estimating/Scheduling/Cost Management, Product Catalogs, Procurement, Operations/Maintenance/Facility, Management, and Plant. aecXML is a framework for using XML in the architectural, engineering and construction industries. It includes an XML schema to describe information specific to the information exchanges between participants involved in designing, constructing and operating buildings, plants, infrastructure and facilities. The various software applications used by these participants can transfer messages formatted according to the aecXML schema to coordinate and synchronize related project information. In addition, a standard aecXML specification will facilitate e-commerce between suppliers and purchasers of equipment, materials, supplies, parts and services based on that same technical information. www.aecxml.org, www.bidcom.com
