IONA Technologies announced it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets of Watershed Technologies of Waltham, Massachusetts for $13.2 million in cash and IONA stock. This acquisition is expected to be accounted for as a purchase and is expected to close in the March quarter. Watershed Technologies is a privately held company that provides XML-based tools and services for building standards-based business-to-business and business-to-consumer portals. The addition of Watershed’s XML technology and services to IONA will enhance the iPortal Suite and strengthen IONA’s ability to deliver it to market. Watershed’s product offerings will deliver capabilities for XML, SOAP, Enterprise Java Beans, B2B interaction capabilities, portal and GUI frameworks for content and presentation development, and vertical market portal templates for industries such as healthcare. These standards-based technologies will be incorporated as plug-ins into the iPortal Server. www.iona.com
Day: February 22, 2000
ASP flypaper.com announced the immediate availability of TeamSpace, a web-based team collaboration and information sharing application. TeamSpace is a project collaboration application that can be totally rebranded and customized with just a web browser. TeamSpace features include browser-based authoring tools, group calendars, threaded discussion, document vaults, and robust security features. TeamSpace is especially valuable for professionals, systems integrators and consulting organizations that wish to share information and collaborate with their customers via the web. TeamSpace is rebrandable and customizable in the field using a web browser. Flypaper.com’s TeamSpace collaboration application is deployable in minutes, highly reliable, scales to millions of users, and can be created by anyone, anytime using their web browser. TeamSpace is easy to use and enables project teams to effectively communicate and share information over the web. TeamSpace is available immediately. www.flypaper.com
Fiorano Software, Inc. announced version 4.0 of the FioranoMQ B2B Edition–the Java technology-based enterprise messaging server with key new features including enhanced security, XML interoperability, and web-based access. FioranoMQ 4.0 combines the benefits of a high-performance, secure, Java Messaging Server (JMS) with business-to-business (B2B) application integration. Enterprise developers can use the XML Interoperability Toolkit to create scalable applications that can be extended to communicate with any external system including those from trading partners, customers, suppliers, and distributors. FioranoMQ 4.0 also allows administrators to configure Software Firewalls, a messaging filtering system for creating highly secure, message applications. Plus, web access support enables web-based clients to access any enterprise Java technology-based messaging system for delivering truly distributed Internet applications. FioranoMQ 4.0 fully complies with the Java Message Server (JMS) 1.02 specification. JMS is a key component of Sun Microsystem’s Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition for the delivery of scalable, enterprise applications. FioranoMQ 4.0 is able to integrate ERP and legacy applications across corporate firewalls, with secure, guaranteed XML-based messaging. As the adoption of XML-based standards continues to accelerate, FioranoMQ 4.0 ensures the development of open trading communities across multiple industries as it supports all major business-to-business initiatives and XML standards. www.fiorano.com
SAS Institute announced the availability of Enterprise Reporter software, Release 2.5. Enterprise Reporter allows IT departments to meet end-user reporting needs within one end-user reporting suite. This ensures data consistency across enterprise reporting, reducing the time IT departments spend trying to resolve inconsistencies between reports produced from data warehouses with different end-user reporting tools. New XML support improves end-users’ ability to share information by allowing them to push intelligence in one report into another user’s XML application. The new release of Enterprise Reporter exploits the XML standard with the SAS Document Viewer, a Windows application that allows users to browse, print and e-mail XML-based files. Users can create a report in XML and then push that information into other applications in the XML format. This is the first step in providing full document exchange between the server and any client application in the next generation of Enterprise Reporter. SAS Institute has included the Batch Builder in Enterprise Reporter, Release 2.5. The Batch Builder creates predefined reports in batch mode on the report server. Enterprise Reporter, Release 2.5, is compatible with Version 8 of the SAS System. www.sas.com
Mediaplex, Inc. reported that the open standards initiative, adXML.org, launched in December 1999, has achieved an earlier-than-anticipated milestone with the upcoming launch of its first beta test. This initial release was designed by Mediaplex and subsequently enhanced by adXML.org’s nine subcommittees, represented by 46 participating companies from a wide range of industry sectors. Established as a vendor-neutral global organization, the mission of adXML.org is to define and advance a common XML-based vocabulary for automating the buy/sell transactions of the advertising industry. Subcommittees have been defined for both traditional and new media as well as digital asset management software. Subcommittees for traditional media include print, TV, radio and outdoor; subcommittees for new media include online, e-mail, set-top box/broadband and the virtually untapped wireless market. The self-describing adXML is a common language that describes data structures and types for cross-business communication and supply chain management among advertisers, agencies and publishers. The technology initiative offers significant time- and cost-efficiencies by enabling real-time automation of all advertising business transactions, including insertion and change orders, requests for proposals and bids, inventory and rate cards, and even creative content. www.adxml.org
