Birdstep Technology AS, an international vendor and developer of Ultra Small Footprint database technology, announced a unique solution to an increasing problem faced by the growing mobile computing industry. The Birdstep solution is a database that supports XML to increase processing power and storage capacity on handheld devices. An example is an XML-database of a 42,000 word Norwegian-English dictionary implemented on a PDA running Windows CE. The Birdstep database requires only 12MB of space to handle the dictionary, while traditional database systems supporting XML may need up to three times as much space. Birdstep’s patented atomisation techniques store and manipulate the XML-structures within the actual database. This technology differs from most vendors that provide relational or flat file databases that are not able to provide multilevel XML support. Birdstep’s technology allows for native XML representation within the physical database itself. As such, Birdstep’s support for XML becomes an integrated part of the handheld’s database system, versus approaches that only provide an XML-layer on top of the flat file or relational technology. In addition, Birdstep technology keeps the whole XML-structure – or tree – persistently across disk and memory, a detail of importance when manipulating large and complex XML-documents. www.birdstep.com