Arbortext, Inc. announced the mid-March availability of an upgrade to Adept 9.0 that supports additional major operating systems so that customers have more options to deliver richer, more convenient and more personalized content to the Web. In addition to Adept 9.0.1, the products upgraded in this release include Epic version 3.0.1 and Adept Editor LE version 9.0.1. Also included in this upgrade are localized user interfaces for additional languages and product enhancements. Arbortext’s Adept Editor and Adept Publisher are now available on Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP UX, and Compaq Tru64 Unix. Future support for Windows 2000 is planned. Turbo Styler. Turbo Styler, previously unavailable in Adept Editor LE, is a feature now available in every Arbortext product that helps users quickly and easily develop online stylesheets and prototypes for print stylesheets. Automatic DTD compile function. For customers who load an XML or SGML instance where Adept or Epic can’t immediately locate the DTD, this enhancement allows the user to browse for the associated DTD on the local hard drive, on the network or on the Web, then automatically compile it, and launch Turbo Styler to create a stylesheet. Language support. Included with this product upgrade is a localized user interface in French, German and Spanish. Available mid-March, this product upgrade will be available as a patch. Arbortext customers on maintenance are eligible to receive this upgrade at no charge. Customers can download the patch directly or request a CD-ROM installation kit. www.arbortext.com
Month: February 2000 (Page 1 of 6)
Liaison Technology and POET Software announced they have formed an alliance to serve the catalog content needs of B2B Net Market Makers and ASPs. Liaison’s Dexter DE product with Adaptive Content Recognition (ACR) technology complements POET’s eCatalog Suite, (eCS). Together these products create a complete eCatalog solution. They enable Net Market Makers and ASPs to build a critical mass of highly customized content from a diverse population of suppliers, in order to attract and retain buyers. POET’s supplier-driven model and Liaison’s dynamic-commerce model address unique needs of E-business. Together, they create a complete solution for the catalog needs of today’s Net Marketplaces and ASPs. Liaison’s Dexter enables Net Market Makers to quickly build content for their site by identifying and extracting catalog data such as product information, merchandising specifications, and pricing information from the Internet. Dexter also provides transformation and rationalization of the data to conform to numerous data formats, including XML requirements. This enables Net Market Makers to jump-start their content aggregation efforts. The POET eCatalog Suite complements the Dexter approach with a model that enables the supplier to assemble, cleanse and manage eCatalog content, which is then highly customized for specific buyers and Net Market Makers. POET eCS provides suppliers with a self-service solution for all their eCatalog needs, including transformation into any XML dialect or legacy data format. Liaison’s Dexter is deployed at the Net Market Maker’s location to extract catalog data from suppliers’ public Web sites, and rationalize it. This enables Net Market Makers to quickly build catalog content. POET eCS is deployed at the supplier’s location and enables the supplier to provide custom catalogs to all Net Market Makers as well as eProcurement solutions from companies like Ariba, Commerce One and others. These solutions complement each other because Liaison’s Dexter provides Net Market Makers with quick access to catalog content, while POET eCS provides suppliers with a mechanism for sending rich and highly customized data to multiple Net Market Makers. www.liaison.com, www.poet.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the immediate availability of the Java API for XML Parsing Optional Package (JAXP). JAXP is now available free-of-charge at . JAXP’s availability is the first phase of Sun’s vision to make it easy for developers to build cross-platform business-to-business applications based on XML and Java technologies. The JAXP Optional Package provides core XML functionality for reading, manipulating, and generating XML documents through pure Java APIs. It provides a standard way to integrate any XML-compliant parser with a Java technology-based application. Depending on the needs of the application, developers have the flexibility to swap between XML parsers — such as high performance or memory conservative parsers without changing application code. Java Project X is used as the default XML parser in JAXP; however, the software’s pluggable architecture allows any XML-conformant parser to be used, including the xml.apache.org XML parser, code named Xerces. Through the JCP, JAXP is being considered for inclusion in the next releases of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). Also in development is Project Adelard, a facility for generating Java classes from XML DTDs. Other XML initiatives include improved XML support in JavaServer Pages technology using XSLT and extensive XML support in J2EE, such as XML data transcoding to multiple devices, XML data exchange framework and XML support in Enterprise JavaBeans components. www.sun.com
The Unicode Consortium announced the release of the Unicode Standard Version 3.0, the software specification that assures a single, universal way to represent text worldwide. Version 3.0 now supports 49,194 characters, including 31% more ideographs for Japanese, Chinese and Korean markets. Implementation support is greatly expanded, with double the character property data, and four times as many technical specifications for supporting implementations. The Unicode Standard is a major component in the globalization of e-business, as the marketplace continues to demand technologies that enhance seamless data interchange throughout companies’ extended — and often international — network of suppliers, customers and partners. This new version reaffirms the broad, cross-industry commitment to the standard among leading IT vendors, enabling reliable transmission and storage of text data anywhere in the world. Unicode is the default text representation in XML, an important open standard being rapidly adopted throughout e-business technology. The Unicode Standard assigns every character a unique number, ensuring the same representation for text regardless of country, language, or operating system. As a result, computer programs written to its specifications can be used around the world without modification. Unicode-enabled programs — client, server, operating system, or middleware — can share textual data worldwide. Text can be transmitted freely, without suffering the data loss that occurs with older systems. The Unicode Standard has been adopted and promoted by global industry. Corporate members of the Unicode Consortium are: Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Hyperion Solutions, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, NCR, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Progress Software, The Research Libraries Group, Reuters, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Unisys and Xerox (many other companies are associate members). Unicode is enabled in all modern Web browsers, almost all operating systems, and Internet standards such as HTML, Java, ECMAScript, XML, and LDAP. The Unicode Standard, published by Addison-Wesley Longman, is widely available in bookstores or may be obtained directly from the Unicode Consortium. www.unicode.org
IBM announced new software that dynamically translates, or “transcodes,” Web information — including text and images — to a format readable on a variety of Internet appliances. IBM WebSphere Transcoding Publisher extends the reach of Web data and applications to a new generation of information appliances, including smart phones, car browsers and PDAs. Because Transcoding Publisher customizes the content to match the capabilities of the receiving device, applications do not have to be rewritten. The software is available for AIX, Linux, Solaris and Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 operating systems. Built on an extensible, Java-based architecture, WebSphere Transcoding Publisher converts data and applications written in the standard markup languages of the Web — HTML and XML — to other formats such as Wireless Markup Language (WML). It can also convert graphics to a format that can be viewed on a handheld device, or convert the graphic to a hyperlink. Transcoding Publisher extends the capabilities of other IBM software offerings, including WebSphere Application Server, MQSeries Everywhere, and Host Publisher, to handheld devices. The combination of these offerings gives customers the ability to extend data and applications — whether host or Web-based — to a format appropriate for the receiving device. WebSphere Transcoding Publisher will be available worldwide in ten languages on March 31, 2000. www.software.ibm.com
WRQ, Inc. and DataChannel, Inc. announced a partnership designed to provide enterprises investing in e-business the ability to extend the usability of legacy data in IBM mainframe, AS/400, UNIX and VAX host applications using XML as their e-business data exchange platform. Through this partnership, enterprises can use WRQ Apptrieve application mining solution to selectively expose valuable data in legacy applications for integration into DataChannel’s XML-based enterprise information portal. WRQ Apptrieve makes it easy to mine legacy applications, preserving their key business logic, and exposing the data via standard object formats such as Javabeans or COM for integration with Web applications — without re-engineering the underlying business processes or host system. WRQ will also provide users the option to expose legacy data via the XML standard for integration with XML frameworks such as DataChannel’s EIP, which enables users to offer a personalized and user-friendly interface to that valuable information. www.datachannel.com, www.wrq.com
VSI (V-Systems, Inc.) announced the immediate availability of Breeze XML Studio (Breeze), The E-Business Accelerator — a development environment that binds XML to JavaBeans. Breeze provides Java and XML developers with a natural and productive method for building XML-based B2B and Enterprise Application Integration solutions. Breeze enables Java developers to create, access, and transport XML-based objects through JavaBeans bound directly to XML data elements. XML element and attribute names immediately translate into Java class fields. XML structures then become Java classes. From there, related XML structures emerge as Java packages. A strategic alliance between VSI and Software AG was also announced. Breeze will be integrated and distributed with Software AG’s X-Studio, which is the developer part of Software AG’s XENON architecture for XML based applications. Breeze also provides a Java language interface for all XML messages processed by XENON’s native XML database, Tamino. Breeze XML Studio includes tools to serialize and de-serialize Breeze JavaBeans for both network streams and data-sources. The Breeze Toolkit can exchange these objects via SMTP and POP3 and includes tools for transporting XML objects over HTTP or TCP connections. The Breeze XML Studio development environment is licensed on a per-developer-seat basis. The generated code, which includes the Breeze Toolkit, is licensed based on the intended distribution–whether for a single internal network, as part of an enterprise deployment, or for inclusion in a third-party product. Breeze XML Studio is presently offered direct from VSI in several different licensing configurations with associated fees: Demonstration (free), Developer ($995 per seat), Single-Enterprise Distribution ($5,000), Unlimited Single-Product Distribution ($10,000), and OEM product licenses. With the exception of the Breeze XML Studio Demonstration License, all licenses include one year of maintenance and updates. Breeze XML Studio is available for Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux. www.vsi.com
Fatbrain.com introduced a new way for businesses to manage, market and distribute corporate information. Fatbrain.com’s Information Exchange product suite combines e-commerce, secure digital publishing technology known as eMatter, comprehensive professional bookstore, established print-on-demand infrastructure and distribution and fulfillment services to deliver a complete Web-based solution for outsourcing mission-critical internal and external corporate information. Despite long-rumored predictions of the paperless office, today virtually every corporation manages large amounts of external content, from books to technical and product documentation to a variety of internal corporate documents such as annual reports and employee handbooks, the vast majority of it still distributed on paper. For many corporations, the volume and complexity of managing all of this information is extremely costly and a distraction from their core business expertise. Using the Information Exchange product suite, corporations can now outsource the management, marketing and distribution of this information. Through the Information Exchange solution, all internal and external publications are cataloged, tracked, published and delivered via an easy-to-use, custom intranet-based or Internet Web site. Publications can be quickly and easily accessed through searching and browsing tools and economical delivery options. The Information Exchange works like an online bookstore for corporate publications, newsletters, research reports, marketing and sales brochures, product manuals, white papers, and other internal publications. In addition, the Information Exchange can provide convenient access to a world-class selection of professional books and resources including Web-based training and certification programs — the same selection available from Fatbrain.com’s popular online store. www.fatbrain.com
