Agile Software Corporation announced that it has expanded the scope of its relationship with Adobe Systems Incorporated. Under terms of the new agreement, the two companies will jointly develop solutions based on Agile PLM and the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform. In addition, Agile will resell the combined solutions. Through the combined offerings, companies managing their product record within Agile will have expanded enterprise-level functionality to address documentation, version-control, and form-based information management requirements across the extended supply network-including the most stringent FDA guidelines. Agile’s PLM solutions will utilize Adobe Acrobat, Designer, Form Server and Reader Extensions Server, to enable PDF creation from everyday document creation programs; allow users to collaborate on PDF documents with review and mark up tools; manage product record information with electronic forms; and sign-off on the final approved version. Organizations can now utilize Agile PLM solutions, PDF and the Adobe Reader to more easily transition paper-based processes to efficient electronic workflows. www.agile.com, www.adobe.com
Month: August 2004 (Page 1 of 7)
Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced a definitive agreement to acquire the Publishing Applications Business Unit from NextPage, including the NXT, Folio, LivePublish and GetSmart product lines, as well as over 500 NextPage customers. NextPage’s document management service, Chrome, will remain with NextPage. The deal is expected to close later this month. FAST’s acquisition of NextPage’s Publishing Applications Business Unit and its customers will allow FAST to expand its global presence in the Publishing market, and accelerate the development of a new Search Derivative Application (SDA) for the Publishing sector based upon FAST’s Enterprise Search Platform, FAST ESP. As part of the agreement, FAST will assume 34 employees from NextPage, the majority of which are employed in the U.S. FAST will continue to offer full support and maintenance to NextPage customers. NextPage will receive US$6 million in cash and be eligible to receive performance-based payments up to a maximum of US$9 million over four years. The deal is expected to close later in September 2004. The revenues associated with the acquired NextPage Business Unit were in excess of US$6 million for the first eight months of 2004. www.nextpage.com, www.fastsearch.com
ClearForest Corp. announced release of its Quality Early Warning industry module as part of its product suite. In combination with ClearForest Analytics, the Quality Early Warning module facilitates resolution of warranty, product safety & quality issues through early discovery of component and system-level failures. By enabling organizations to systematically analyze unstructured text and enterprise data simultaneously, ClearForest facilitates unified business intelligence. Developed specifically for capital equipment, automotive & durable goods manufacturers, ClearForest’s Quality Early Warning solution provides industry-specific expertise necessary to detect, analyze & reduce warranty costs by uncovering root cause & effect. ClearForest solutions may be deployed as a stand-alone analytics application supporting specific queries, visual analytics and reports, or fully integrated within existing Business Intelligence systems such as those offered by Cognos or Business Objects. Examples of unstructured text sources include web-based survey data, news articles or research as well as other electronic formats such as emails, contracts, spreadsheets and warranty claims. www.clearforest.com
Hummingbird Ltd. and Certus Software, Inc. announced a technology partnership to offer organizations a comprehensive solution to implement and certify internal controls to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404 financial business processes. Hummingbird Enterprise DM creates an organized, secure environment that manages the lifecycle of financial documents from creation to destruction. Companies can capture and organize policies and procedures in secure and manageable repositories allowing users to search and access documents across the enterprise. Hummingbird will integrate Certus’ Governance Suite, into Hummingbird Enterprise to provide internal controls and assurance software based on a compliance platform for SOX Sections 103, 302, 404, 409, and 906. Certus’ software helps corporations document, implement and sustain internal and disclosure controls required by law. Certus’ suite enables documented activities to be instituted, executed, monitored, tested and demonstrated. www.certus.com, www.hummingbird.com
Open Text Corporation has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Vista Plus suite of products and related assets from Quest Software Inc. Vista Plus captures and stores business-critical information from packaged applications like Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and mySAP as well as custom and mainframe legacy environments. The acquisition expands Open Text’s integration and report management capabilities as part of its ECM suite. Vista provides a platform from which to address report content found in ERP applications, and business intelligence (BI) software from Cognos, Business Objects, Crystal Reports and others. The Vista Plus Suite consists of three components, an output manager, electronic forms server and a scalable central repository. Together they control and deliver all business output to any user via multiple delivery channels. The transaction is expected to close in September 2004. The product acquisition is structured as a cash asset purchase and the purchase price is approximately $24 million. As part of the transaction, Quest employees will become a part of Open Text. www.opentext.com, www.quest.com
Vasont Systems announced that Innodata Isogen, Inc. joined its Vasont Important Partner (VIP) Program. The strategic alliance between Vasont and Innodata Isogen will include joint projects, marketing and sales efforts. Additionally, Innodata Isogen and Vasont are working together with customers to implement environments where external authoring and publishing tools are integrated with the Vasont Content Management System to support automated localization and single-source publishing of multilingual content. www.vasont.com,
www.innodata-isogen.com
Vignette Corp. announced enhancements to its integrated content management and portal solutions including capabilities for expanded presentation management, real-time delivery of information from its native sources via real-time page generation and assembly, and advanced caching. Vignette content management now provides modular dynamic content delivery to Vignette portals and other Web sites, with a page region caching mechanism for dynamic sites. New presentation management capabilities span Vignette’s content management and portal applications to allow IT departments to create templates that can be customized for any number of unique sites. Vignette solutions separate control of layout, content and presentation so that static content, dynamic information, content selection rules and active applications are all assembled at request time to satisfy the Web user’s requirements. The latest versions of Vignette Content Management, Vignette Application Portal and the integration modules are available and shipping to customers today. www.vignette.com
IBM announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Venetica. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth-quarter. Financial details were not disclosed. Venetica’s operations will be integrated into the Information Integration group within IBM’s Information Management software business and Venetica products will be available from IBM and its Business Partners. Venetica is a provider of enterprise content integration software that enables organizations to access unstructured information such as business documents, still images, digital media and Web pages, and integrate it into existing business processes. With Venetica technology integrated into IBM’s DB2 Information Integrator software, IBM will ba able to deliver comprehensive information integration infrastructure. Additionally, in support of IBM’s infrastructure strategy, Venetica software can also work with both IBM and non-IBM data sources, including EMC/Documentum, FileNet, Hummingbird, Interwoven, Open Text and Stellent, enabling organizations to leverage their existing content assets. Once the acquisition is completed, IBM plans to Integrate Venetica’s software assets and personnel into the Information Integration group within IBM’s Information Management Software group and market and sell Venetica technology worldwide through IBM direct sales and its business partners. Venetica technology will be integrated into IBM’s DB2 Information Integrator family of products and complement other IBM middleware offerings, including DB2 Content Manager, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Portal, WebSphere Business Integration and IBM’s Workplace initiatives. www.ibm.com/software/data
