SoftQuad Software, Ltd. announced a strategic technology partnership with ec-Content. The partnership will combine SoftQuad MarketAgility, a supply side e-catalog solution, with ec-Content’s ability to create enhanced catalog content, allowing suppliers to deliver customer-specific catalogs to e-markets quickly and efficiently. Suppliers who want to effectively participate in e-marketplaces must overcome the challenges involved in creating, updating and delivering content rich catalogs with buyer-specific pricing information to multiple e-marketplaces. This requires collecting product and pricing information from enterprise systems, adding up-to-date product descriptions and graphics from manufacturers, and delivering each e-catalog in the XML format required by each e-marketplace. The combination of MarketAgility and ec-Content will provide suppliers with an integrated solution to rapidly create buyer-specific catalogs, normalize the data for consistency, enrich it with manufacturer information, and distribute it to e-markets. For suppliers, this enables them to bring their customized e-catalogs online quickly. For e-marketplace users, this ensures a rich buying experience by enabling them to quickly and efficiently find the products they need with accurate product and pricing information. ec-Content maintains a base of product information on over five million individual items from thousands of manufacturers, and provides management and maintenance services to expand and update this information for marketplaces and suppliers. ec-Content enhances suppliers’ catalog content by overlaying it with manufacturers’ comprehensive and current product information. ec-Content’s high quality e-catalog libraries are then published in the required format to each e-marketplace. www.ec-content.com, www.softquad.com
Month: September 2000 (Page 2 of 5)
Bertelsmann and iSyndicate have announced the agreement of a European joint venture that will provide content syndication services and technology to media properties throughout Europe. The joint venture will combine Bertelsmann’s global media network with iSyndicate’s syndication expertise and relationships with more than 1100 independent content providers to deliver syndicated media to Web sites of all sizes and wireless devices. Each partner will hold a 50 percent stake in the joint venture enterprise operating as ‘iSyndicate Europe’. The company’s headquarters will be located in Hamburg, Germany with iSyndicate’s existing London office serving as the first affiliate office. Bertelsmann has the right to appoint the CEO of iSyndicate Europe. Under the terms of the agreement, Bertelsmann will acquire a four percent stake in US-based parent company iSyndicate Inc. Bertelsmann’s Chief Creative Officer Rolf Schmidt-Holtz will also join iSyndicate’s board. iSyndicate’s other strategic partnerships include NBC, Microsoft, NewsCorp, InfoSpace and Vignette. iSyndicate Europe will enable web sites of all sizes, corporate intranets and digital devices to enrich their content offerings with services and media from the widely recognizable publishing brands. iSyndicate Europe will syndicate a wide range of independent content providers in addition to Bertelsmann media properties, enabling content providers to generate increased revenue and brand awareness. www.isyndicate.com, www.bertelsmann.de
Intershop and Autonomy Corporation plc announced the availability of the Autonomy cartridge for Intershop enfinity. The Autonomy cartridge for Intershop enfinity adds functionality to help businesses create a more compelling and convenient online shopping experience with personalized information that is tailored to the individual needs of the user. By analyzing and deriving the meaning from any piece of text, Autonomy’s pattern recognition technology can automatically categorize and link similar information (for example product descriptions) to deliver highly customized shopping information to the customer. Key features of the Autonomy cartridge for Intershop enfinity include the ability to recommend a range of products and services based on the automatic profiling of users’ preferences, the automatic suggestion of recommended alternatives and a natural language search facility. The Autonomy cartridge for Intershop enfinity for Windows NT is available worldwide through Autonomy. www.automony.com, www.intershop.com
eBusiness Technologies and ScreamingMedia announced a joint technology alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will integrate eBusiness Technologies’ workflow and Web content management solutions and ScreamingMedia’s SiteWare technology platform for the aggregation and distribution of real-time digital content. The companies will also enter into joint sales and marketing activities. The partnership will bring customized content to portals and corporate intranets by allowing ScreamingMedia’s live news feeds to be incorporated dynamically into customers’ web sites. Select content offered through SiteWare can be routed through eBusiness Technologies’ content management tools and published side-by-side with articles submitted by other content contributors. Because news article selection is integrated with in-house content creation, the overall publishing process is streamlined and editorial review time is decreased. www.screamingmedia.com, www.ebt.com
NITF is an XML-based DTD designed for the markup and delivery of news content in a variety of ways, including print, wireless devices and the Web. It was developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council, an international consortium of news providers, and the Newspaper Association of America, Reston, Va. The standards groups first released NITF in spring 1999, and an NITF Maintenance Committee has made a number of improvements since then. NITF and NewsML. Both the NITF and the NewsML wrapper can be stand alone but may also be used in a complimentary manner as NITF objects can be moved within and managed by NewsML in a multimedia environment. NewsML Version final is expected to be released next month. Among the changes: Clarification of language and time elements; Deprecation or removal of several unneeded HTML elements; Addition of an alternate code element (
Davinci Technologies Inc., launched Trinity 3.0, an upgraded version of its software that enables wireless carriers worldwide to rapidly develop and deploy robust, scalable vertical market applications. Trinity provides value added applications and a framework for wireless and web-based solutions that run on any carrier network and can be used on any browser-enabled or SMS device. Shipping immediately, Trinity 3.0 is the latest version of Davinci’s carrier-grade software. The product’s base functionality is a device-independent transactional XML application server coupled with a set of industry-targeted business modules and component-based legacy system connectors. Trinity 3.0 enables wireless carriers worldwide to provide customer care to the web-enabled devices of their clients’ choice. By accessing the WAP gateway and using this standard for communication Trinity allows carriers’ subscribers to manage their accounts how, when and where they choose. Technical advancements to Trinity 3.0 include: Updates to the functionality of the XML server component that allow Trinity 3.0 to optimize data convergence; the ability to converge multiple bills, for example, into one view and to query bill components separately for customized information; a Cache Engine; increased performance and scalability; and enhanced reporting capabilities. www.davincitech.com
BroadVision, Inc. launched BroadVision MarketMaker. With MarketMaker, customers can quickly create B2B exchanges and marketplaces. MarketMaker takes B2B exchanges beyond basic online commerce transactions by enabling the creation and management of online communities through content management, customer intercommunication and account management. Together, these capabilities are designed to build site loyalty through a sense of community and help net market makers quickly achieve and sustain the liquidity necessary for a thriving exchange. The following are included: Catalog Order – parametric search tool that enables users to browse an aggregated or supplier catalog to identify a fixed-price item; Request for Quotations – interactive transaction for requisitions based on select products or product attributes; Buyer and Supplier Negotiations – interactive collaboration of buyers and sellers directly negotiating transactions; Dynamic Auctioning – ability to use multiple pricing formats which include English (forward auction), Dutch (descending price auctions), Sealed-Bid Auction and Reverse Auction; multiple structured formats including Limit Bidding, Multi-Staged Bidding and Multi-Parameter Terms; Content Management – dynamically generated personalized content, such as news feeds, event notices and public interest groups; Community Interaction System – threaded discussion groups; Account Management – Web-based account management templates to accommodate CSR or self-service models. Also, buyers and suppliers can add new product entries and buy products from a common aggregated marketplace catalog or supplier-managed catalog. BroadVision MarketMaker will be made generally available on the HP-UX and Sun Solaris operating systems September 29, 2000. www.broadvision.com.
Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. and Documentum, Inc. announced that Lionbridge has joined the Documentum ASPire Program to deliver workflow-based multilingual content management solutions for ASPs. Within the scope of this partnership, Lionbridge will develop an add-on module to the Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition content management platform to address the management of global content. This add-on component will provide Documentum users and other Lionbridge customers with the technology framework, templates, and applications to create an automated globalization workflow system. Both companies plan to engage in joint sales and marketing activities to promote and deploy the solutions. www.lionbridge.com, www.documentum.com
