The World Wide Web Consortium has issued the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation, representing cross-industry agreement on an XML-based language that specifies how XML documents may be formatted. It works in concert with XSLT. XSLT 1.0, the XML language which performs transformations on XML data and documents already enjoys significant usage in both developer communities and in commercial products. XSL 1.0 builds on XSLT 1.0, and provides users with the ability to describe how XML data and documents are to be formatted. XSL 1.0 does this by defining “formatting objects,” such as footnotes, headers, columns, and other features common to paged media. XSL 1.0 makes it possible for professional printing capabilities and functions to perform with XML documents today. XSL 1.0 and XSLT make it possible for the needs of Web and print-based media formatting to be met. The Cascading Style Sheet language (CSS), both levels 1 and 2 has long been recognized as the style language of choice for HTML and XHTML documents. CSS may still be used for XML formatting, and in cases where structural transformations are not needed, suit the needs of Web designers. The W3C CSS and XSL Working Groups have cooperated to ensure that their results are complementary. www.w3.org
Day: October 15, 2001
TopicalNet, Inc. has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of Collectively Sharper, Inc. of Boston, Mass. The deal combines TopicalNet’s ability to understand and classify electronic content with Collectively Sharper’s Content and Expertise Integration platform to create a product that combines all the latest facets of Content Management technology. The first product utilizing TopicalNet and Collectively Sharper technology is expected to ship in Q1 2002. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. www.TopicalNet.com
FatWire Software announced that it will develop dynamic content management (dCM) portlets for IBM’s WebSphere Portal as a member of the IBM PartnerWorld Portlet Providers Program. FatWire’s dCM portlets provide a consistent and easy to use interface to allow thousands of users to simultaneously contribute content. FatWire’s Java solution works with all major databases including: DB2, Oracle, SQL Server and Sybase. www.fatwire.com
Saqqara Systems Inc. announced the release of Saqqara CommerceSuite 4.0, a comprehensive and collaborative content authoring and publishing solution that allows suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and industry exchanges to leverage product content as a strategic asset for increasing revenue and decreasing costs. With CommerceSuite 4.0, administrators may define content management workflows to allow globally located product content managers to jointly participate in catalog authoring, maintenance and publishing by following their prescribed management processes for content updates and catalog publishing. A content controller enhances this management process with synchronized catalog content updates across multiple servers and content sources. Authoring specialists at multiple locations can now edit content and label with activation dates for an automatic update on one or more catalog servers. Updates can now occur at any time from any location. Saqqara CommerceSuite 4.0 employs SOAP and XML, allowing catalogs to be offered as ready-to-use Web services to dynamically link with enterprise applications across the Internet. Saqqara CommerceSuite 4.0 is available immediately. Special upgrade pricing and maintenance agreements are available to current Saqqara ProductServer customers. www.saqqara.com
