Travel suppliers from the air, car and hotel industries with the support of the Air Transport Association (ATA) and The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA), announce the formation of the Open Travel Alliance (the Alliance). The Alliance is a travel industry group, assembled to create and promote new electronic commerce standards that improve the way information is exchanged between suppliers, distributors and consumers. This new initiative, led by air, car and hotel suppliers, has set as its initial goal the delivery of a directory of common industry data labels to be exchanged among the travel supplier, distributor, and customer reservations computer systems. The Alliance’s goal is to include participation from air, car, hotel and other travel suppliers, but also global distribution systems and travel agencies, as well as many other developers of travel-oriented products and services. Open communication standards between the industries, developed by the Alliance, will facilitate a cost-effective exchange of information and will ultimately reduce duplication of efforts and create new innovative distribution opportunities. One of the Alliance’s first steps in moving toward this goal is the creation of an “open” set of standard XML definitions to facilitate communication between users. This “thesaurus” of terms will allow users to choose how they communicate between systems. Companies currently participating in the Open Travel Alliance are: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Midwest Express Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Trans World Airlines, United Airlines, Vanguard Airlines, Bass Hotels and Resorts, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Corporation, Marriott International, Sterling Hotels, Swissotel, Alamo Rent A Car, Avis Rent A Car, Budget Rent-A-Car, Dollar Rent A Car Systems, Inc., Hertz Corporation, National Car Rental and Thrifty Car Rental. www.opentravel.com
Year: 1999 (Page 67 of 97)
Objectivity, Inc. announced that Netcentric Solutions Ltd, selected Objectivity/DB to serve as the database engine in its new Web content management solution, Lychee. Netcentric debuts Lychee today at the Webmaster trade show, Stand 144, in London Olympia, U.K.. Netcentric developed Lychee to remove the bottleneck in the flow of information to the Web by allowing users to publish information on their Internet, intranet, or extranet sites quickly and easily. Through the use of templates, Netcentric’s Lychee enables non-technical information owners to maintain specific areas of a Web site. The information follows the normal document workflow channels and is immediately updated on all relevant Web pages after sign-off. This ensures the timely publication of quality Web documents. Prior to using Objectivity/DB, Netcentric used its own file system, which was unable to deliver the performance or the scalability the company needed long-term. To optimize performance, Netcentric determined that Lychee, which is written in Java, needed an object database. Netcentric evaluated several object databases and selected Objectivity/DB for its performance, distribution and scalability. www.netcentric-solutions.com
iManage and West Group announced that the iManage LegalOffice Document Management System (DMS) now will be able to access Westlaw through westlaw.com, West Group’s web-based legal research service. This will give iManage users instant Internet access to Westlaw, the legal research service, while working within the DMS. With the completion of the integration, users of iManage LegalOffice will be able to conduct research on Westlaw without leaving the DMS, find the needed information and then import it directly back into the DMS. Once uploaded into iManage LegalOffice, users can manipulate the research text as if it were any other document within the DMS. iManage LegalOffice customers looking to take advantage of westlaw.com will be able to do so in second half of this year. www.imanage.com
MicroScript Corporation announced that it has endorsed and will support Microsoft’s BizTalk standards initiative for cross platform integration in e-commerce. MicroScript Corporation, whose Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) development tools are based on Microsoft’s ActiveX/COM/DCOM architecture, is used for application integration in healthcare and other markets. BizTalk is a new cross-platform e-commerce framework that makes it easy for businesses to integrate applications and conduct business over the Internet with trading partners and customers. The BizTalk framework is based on new XML schemas and industry standards that enable integration across industries and between business systems, regardless of platform, operating system or underlying technology. www.microscript.com
Sterling Commerce, Inc. unveiled its new GENTRAN Web Suite, a family of Web integration components designed to enable business process integration reliably and securely via the Internet. Through partnerships with webMethods and Cyclone Software, Sterling Commerce will add two new components, Real-time Integration and Internet Data Exchange, to GENTRAN Web Suite. Internet Data Exchange — Developed in partnership with Cyclone Software, facilitates simplified inter-enterprise messaging because it can communicate with other interoperable solutions that support the S/MIME and EDIINT standards. Real-time Integration — Via the new partnership with webMethods, uses XML to enable an organization to integrate its business applications with the Web sites, ERP applications and business systems of its partners. www.sterlingcommerce.com
Lotus Development Corp. announced the posting of Domino.Doc 2.5 beta to the Lotus Web site. The Domino.Doc 2.5 release is highlighted by compatibility with Lotus Notes and Domino R5 as well as improved performance, scalability, usability and administration. In addition to working with R5, following are some of the major features and enhancements in Domino.Doc 2.5: Support for multiple Domino.Doc libraries on one Domino server; Partitioned server support and cross domain replication; A new query-by-form capability; And additional e-mail integration; Domino.Doc’s administrator can now create file cabinet templates each with specific parameters, and global profile fields that can be used across all document types in a given file cabinet. www.lotus.com/dominodoc
Intershop announced its partnership in the SAP mySAP.com business-to-business e-commerce portal. Other partners in mySAP.com announced by SAP are IBM, Pandesic, and Microsoft. Hosting directories, information services and industry-specific content and services, mySAP.com is the Internet business strategy that creates collaborative markets and facilitates dynamic business relationships through industry business yellow pages, online catalogs and e-commerce for more than 10 million users and many partner organizations. Intershop software adds fully automated business-to-business procurement to mySAP.com by connecting purchase managers who use SAP software with suppliers, who offer products and services on the Internet. Sellers are not required to use SAP R/3 standard software. Intershop e-commerce applications integrate with most legacy and ERP systems such as SAP R/3, Oracle Applications, Sage KHK, Baan, JD Edwards and Peoplesoft. Intershop embraces the new XML data exchange format that is expected to replace the old EDI standard. Using XML technology, Intershop’s back-office will connect to the SAP material management application, allowing order information to pass directly from the system of the buyer to the seller. www.intershop.com
Vignette Corporation announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Diffusion Inc., The acquisition adds an important component in broadening the capability of Vignette’s StoryServer technology by enabling companies to exchange information with their customers through any preferred media, including Web, e-mail, fax, telephone and pager. The result is closed-loop communications between companies and their customers leading to increased customer satisfaction and improved returns on companies’ online investments. Vignette will acquire 100 percent of the outstanding stock and assume all stock options of Diffusion in exchange for approximately 400,000 shares of Vignette common stock. Vignette will account for the transaction using purchase accounting and expects to close the acquisition by June 30, 1999, subject to approval by the shareholders of Diffusion and other customary closing conditions. Vignette expects to incur one-time acquisition costs and integration related charges associated with the transaction which include costs associated with product integration, cross training, and other merger related costs. Additionally, Vignette anticipates a portion of the purchase price will be allocated to In Process Research and Development and expensed upon the consummation of the transaction. Diffusion technology will enable Vignette customers to manage the distribution and delivery of personalized information across any delivery channel, including the Web, e-mail, fax, pager and telephone, regardless of the channel the communication originates from or is routed through. The result is multi-channel information delivery solutions for automating personalized, closed-loop interaction between an enterprise and its client. For example, through this integration, a financial services company could immediately and proactively alert a client, via the client’s preferred method, when trading events, such as confirmation of block trades, buy/sell decisions, IPO filings and stock price changes. If the customer cannot be reached through the primary channel, the communication will be escalated to the next level, until the customer receives the message. The company then receives confirmation of delivery, an additional benefit in mission-critical business situations. www.vignette.com
