Sterling Commerce, Inc. announced the availability of Edifecs’ SpecBuilder as a value-added optional component for its GENTRAN business process integration offering. Using GENTRAN and SpecBuilder, corporations can set up E-business relationships that support the integration of business information in XML, EDI, and other proprietary business formats. Companies can now define a partner relationship and export the guidelines via the Web to their entire E-business communities for rapid deployment. www.sterlingcommerce.com, www.edifecs.com.
Month: January 2000 (Page 9 of 10)
Infodata Systems Inc. announced it has entered into a letter of intent with Redknife, an emerging Silicon Valley e-commerce services company, to develop and implement a comprehensive systems infrastructure for processing and exchanging business transactions over the web. The system will be powered by Infodata’s “E-hub” XML-based application framework technology. Infodata’s e-commerce initiatives, such as Redknife, complement its earlier investment in Buckaroo.com, a privately held B2B e-commerce company that is based in Mt. View, California and is creating efficient markets for products and services. Infodata is a minority seed stage investor in Buckaroo.com along with a number of individuals that are leaders in the Internet industry. www.infodata.com
Bitlocker announced the launch of its official public beta, opening its site to everyone interested in organizing, sharing and publishing data online. Bitlocker makes it easy for consumers and businesses to organize, share and publish information anytime, anywhere by using the company’s free online database service, which is available today. Bitlocker allows Internet users to quickly get their data online and share it with others at no cost. Using Bitlocker, individuals and businesses can create secure, scalable databases with complete functionality using only a Web browser. Bitlocker.com offers a place for people to easily access or “grab,” sort, share and publish information on a Web site or store it in a Bitlocker. During public beta, members of Bitlocker can utilize pre-built templates, take a tour of the site and create their own Bitlockers to store a variety of topical information. www.bitlocker.com
uBid has redesigned its bidding engine to utilize XML and Microsoft-based components such as Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ), Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) technology and COM. All business components run in a Microsoft transaction server environment, employing MSMQ services for inter-component messaging, that reduce the resource utilization of the database. By redesigning the website in XML, uBid.com now offers a protocol that allows more integrated communications between uBid.com and its vendors while simultaneously increasing ease of use and site speed for its customers. The company claims that currently, the uBid.com site processes the most transactions utilizing XML technology of any site in the world. uBid.com is the highest reaching e-commerce site that is 100% dedicated to XML based on November’s Media Metrix report. www.ubid.com
Rogue Wave Software announced that it was selected by Vignette Corporation, as the interface to the multiple databases behind their e-business applications. Vignette StoryServer5 software delivers a combination of personalization, content management, decision support, and enterprise integration services to efficiently create superior experiences that attract, engage, and retain customers. These services require a tool that allows access to any number of relational databases on the back-end of the system. With the release of DBTools.h++ 4.0, developers have native access to the latest versions from Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, Informix and IBM. DBTools.h++ allows C++ developers to build software that runs on Windows, UNIX, Linux as well as IBM AS/400 and OS/390 platforms. www.vignette.com, www.roguewave.com
CommerceQuest has acquired Advanced Networking Solutions (ANS), a South African-based enterprise application integration (EAI) company. The acquisition adds data integration and business process flow management tools to CommerceQuest’s XML B2B and EAI solutions. www.CommerceQuest.com
Pervasive Software Inc. announced at the MACWORLD Expo the availability of the Tango 2000 Web development environment for the Mac OS operating environment. This new release of Tango 2000 enables Macintosh developers to build and deploy e-business applications and dynamic Web sites in the latest Mac operating environment, while leveraging Tango 2000’s advanced, visually-oriented development capabilities to bring applications to market in Internet time. Customer shipments of Tango 2000 for the Mac OS environment commenced in late December 1999, and Pervasive plans to ship a version of Tango 2000 for Mac OS X when Apple releases that forthcoming operating environment. The Tango 2000 for Mac OS development environment includes full XML integration and Tango Class Files (TCFs). By providing developers with full XML integration, XML can be treated as data types inside the Tango application for easier manipulation of structured data. TCFs also give developers the freedom to write code only and then reuse the code as an object in future projects. Tango 2000 for Mac OS is available now. U.S. pricing for the Tango 2000 Development Studio is $495. Application servers are priced separately, starting at $995 for Macintosh, scaling from the small business edition to enterprise-class solutions per individual business requirements. www.pervasive.com
Intraspect Software, Inc., announced that R&D Solutions, a major supplier of web integration services in France, has signed a strategic agreement to resell Intraspect products. These include Intraspect Knowledge Server (IKS) 3.0, a platform for developing, deploying, and managing collaborative business solutions. Intraspect and R&D Solutions are targeting major French multinational organizations. R&D has been delivering the full suite of Intraspect c-business services including IKS 3.0, implementation, customization, training, and local support. www.intraspect.com More small U.S. companies should look at France and other European countries. We wouldn’t recommend expansion before you are ready to devote the necessary energy. On the other hand, as Europe continues to accelerate their catching-up with North America in the use of internet technology there will be more and more opportunities lost. European software companies should look at more aggressive growth for the same reason.