Tumbleweed Communications Corp. announced Tumbleweed Integrated Messaging Exchange 4.0. IME 4.0 includes significant improvements for both senders and recipients of secure communication. For example, IME 4.0 includes Tumbleweed Secure Inbox, a feature that enables e-businesses to create a protected repository for each customer to whom they send documents. A user with a Secure Inbox has a safe place to receive, store and manage confidential data, the means to securely reply to or forward documents they receive, and the ability to create and send their own secure documents via IME. Users can access their private Secure Inboxes via their existing e-mail clients or web browsers. Tumbleweed IME 4.0 also includes new features for senders of secure messages. With auto-enrollment, advanced policy controls and deeper message tracking capabilities, IME 4.0 provides the infrastructure to support the preparation and delivery of any type of business document online. IME 4.0 leverages a company’s existing infrastructure and is easily integrated with back-end systems. It features a range of security options, including digital certificate integration, encryption, SSL and web-based implementation of S/MIME, which shipped as part of IME 3.0. www.tumbleweed.com
Year: 2000 (Page 42 of 63)
The news industry’s technical standards body has approved two major working papers for its latest XML initiative, NewsML, and authorized retention of a consultant to produce a working draft by this summer. At its spring meeting in Nice, the International Press Telecommunications Council also ratified improvements to the News Industry Text Format, the XML-based text markup standard, and expansions to its subject code list to provide for better coverage of the Summer Olympic Games. The two NewsML papers are part of the IPTC 2000 initiative launched last fall to develop an XML-based framework for structuring and managing news objects in a multimedia environment. They are: Requirements Specification (www.iptc.org/xn-2.htm.), and Encoding Decisions, a guideline on how XML is to be used to construct NewsML (www.iptc.org/xn-8.htm). The goal is to have a draft ready for review for the IPTC Annual General Meeting in early July in Geneva. …. Two NewsML working parties have scheduled meetings in London next month to continue their work. The News Structure and Management group will meet May 15-17, followed by the News Text group May 17-19. In other action at the spring meeting the NITF Maintenance Working Party won approval to streamline the text standard in two ways: (1) structural changes, to refine the organization of NITF documents, and improve definitions of container elements so their use is consistent; and (2) tag clarification, to eliminate redundant and unnecessary tags. The NITF Maintenance group was formed in January to manage changes to the standard and prepared these proposals at a meeting in February. Additional changes are pending and another meeting is expected before the July AGM. (The updated DTD is available at www.iptc.org or www.nitf.org). The IPTC also agreed to pursue contacts with groups developing other media standards as it develops NewsML and maintains the NITF. These include MPEG-7, a metadata standard for audio and video objects; PRISM, an XML initiative for magazine publishing; and SMPTE/EBU, an advanced authoring format for the broadcasting industry. www.nitf.org
Vality Technology introduced INTEGRITY eSearch, a product indexing and high-speed matching engine that makes it easy for consumers and businesses to find the products they are looking for in Web catalogs. The initial component of Vality’s e-Quality Content Management (“eQCM”) solution, eSearch guarantees rapid time-to-market for deploying Web catalogs. The software also improves matches between Web search requests and available catalog items, improving customer experience and driving more transactions. INTEGRITY eSearch optimizes the indexing and matching process for content with complex formatting or structure, such as product catalog information, materials, and parts databases. The software allows companies to leverage existing product data to quickly develop Web catalog indexes that deliver accurate, reliable search results. INTEGRITY eSearch’s matching technology allows customers to employ their own terminology to successfully search an online catalog without knowing the product categories. The software’s built-in tolerance for search term ambiguity simplifies searching while ensuring dependable results, making it easier for customers to find the products they want. INTEGRITY eSearch is based on probabilistic matching technologies. The software ranks search results based on a statistical score that provides a meaningful measure of how closely the result matches the query. This approach enables INTEGRITY eSearch to return the best set of matching candidates for any query – regardless of spelling errors, incomplete query information or quality of the indexed data. www.vality.com
Ektron, Inc. announced the newest version of its eWebEditPro with new functionality including well formed HTML and Office 2000 compatibility. eWebEditPro now provides HTML that conforms to the rules of XML, and it easily allows users to cut and paste from Office 2000 without losing formatting. eWebEditPro is a business-user-friendly content editor designed for dynamic Web sites. This browser-based tool puts content authoring in the hands of business users, while allowing Webmasters to maintain control over the look and feel of their sites. eWebEditPro offers a familiar Word-like toolbar that is used directly within a site or browser-based application. It allows anyone to author and publish content (text, tables, images, links, etc.) – without requiring HTML proficiency. The new release of eWebEditPro opens up the tool for new XML enabled international language support that allows users to import text in their native language, e.g.: German, French. This feature allows the editor to be naturalized for any international language. It also offers secure ASP image upload capabilities for securely passing images over authenticated networks. Additionally, eWebEditPro now offers a custom tag for the content management portion of Allaire’s Spectra. www.ektron.com
Infoteria Corporation announced the availability of iXSLT. iXSLT is a full-featured commercial XSLT processor. XSLT is the W3C recommended specification for transforming XML documents into other XML documents or into HTML. iXSLT is fully compliant with W3’s XSLT Version 1.0. IXSLT is implemented in C++ and is available in three configurations: 1) an EXE module which can be run from the command line; 2) a DLL which can be accessed from within C++ programs; and 3) a COM version for those who will need to use it with Active Server Pages (ASP) or Visual Basic applications. The DLL configuration is capable of very high speed processing of multiple XML documents by pre-loading XSLT files. The EXE version can be used on a web server as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) module. The Japanese version of iXSLT is available now for Microsoft Windows 95/98, Windows NT and Windows 2000. The English version will be available April 1st. iXSLT pricing starts at $8,000. In addition, it is sold as a part of Infoteria’s XML Solution Components. Users of iHTML 1.0 are entitled to a free upgrade. www.infoteria.com
BEA Systems, Inc. announced new releases of the BEA WebLogic 5.1 product line, an integrated family of e-commerce application servers that include BEA WebLogic Server 5.1 and BEA WebLogic Enterprise 5.1. The BEA WebLogic 5.1 application servers deliver a platform for a wide range of e-business environments by incorporating significant new e-commerce technologies, including support for WML (Wireless Markup Language) and XML for rapid development of mobile applications and business-to-business market places. In the latest release of BEA WebLogic Enterprise 5.1 all the Java functionality in WebLogic Server 5.1 has been merged into WebLogic Enterprise 5.1, combining all of BEA’s Java, CORBA and BEA Tuxedo application technologies in a single integrated product. With support for WML and integration with WAP servers from market leaders such as Nokia, BEA WebLogic 5.1 application servers enable companies to rapidly build personalized and reliable e-commerce applications for wireless devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. BEA WebLogic 5.1 application servers also provide a core set of services to facilitate business-to-business collaboration over the Internet by integrating XML with BEA WebLogic applications and J2EE services. This technology enables new E-Market Integration solutions such as BEA’s upcoming eProcess Integrator, a Java-based business workflow engine, and “Project E-Collaborate,” a dynamic B2B software infrastructure that allows companies to rapidly create Internet-based trading communities. BEA WebLogic Server 5.1 is available from BEA immediately and BEA WebLogic Enterprise 5.1 will be available in May 2000. www.bea.com
Multicosm Ltd announced its Maximizer line of products for Web portals, extranets and enterprise intranets. Using Multicosm’s text analysis technology, Portal Maximizer customers can crawl any Web site and determine which pages are related to the various content that a customer chooses for its portal. It then automatically creates links to those pages that can be easily accessed from one central location. Customers with existing portals can both expand the reach of their portal, and significantly lower the cost of managing their sites with Portal Maximizer. Intranet Maximizer builds on the technology used in Portal Maximizer, and enhances it with integrated summarization, search, monitoring, and expertise identification features. Portal Maximizer can crawl vast amounts of Web content and identify the important concepts, product and people’s names on those sites. These names and concepts are then used as the basis of linking related pages together, whether on the same site or to external sites. Those links are stored and maintained separately from the HTML documents, making the tedious task of link management significantly easier and less time consuming. By inserting links “on-the-fly” as Web pages are served to the browser, the number of links that must be inserted by hand into each page on the site are dramatically reduced. Pages can be added to the site more quickly, as they are automatically analyzed and cross-referenced with the other pages. In addition, companies running Web portals have complete editorial control over not only what links appear on which pages, but over the links themselves because they are fully editable. Portal Maximizer and Intranet Maximizer are available immediately. www.multicosm.com
arcadiaOne, Inc. and Intershop Communications, Inc. announced the Content Exchange Server (CES) cartridge. CES integrates arcadiaOne’s syndication technology into Intershop enfinity, a sell-side e-commerce application. The CES cartridge is the latest development in a collaborative relationship initiated in June 1999. arcadiaOne and Intershop Communications have developed solutions that enable businesses to solve the problem of distributing up-to-date content to their partners and customers on the web. The agreement announced today enables Intershop to offer its customers an additional solution that seamlessly integrates catalog creation and management with syndication-based content exchange. arcadiaOne’s technology is based on the XML ICE (Internet Content Exchange) application for content syndication. By standardizing content exchange, the ICE protocol enables businesses to reduce the costs of online distribution networks while increasing the value of business alliances. The Content Exchange Server cartridge will be available in the second quarter of 2000. www.arcadiaOne.com, www.intershop.com