Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced FAST AdVisor, an enterprise-wide software solution that facilitates the introduction between buyers and suppliers for Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) verticals, online classifieds, and traditional publishers. FAST AdVisor aggregates information from any structured and unstructured data source, including not only the publisher’s own proprietary content, but also advertiser, third-party and web content. It provides organizations with a relevancy framework that allows them to control the user experience through InPerspective, FAST’s rank tuning module. FAST AdVisor also includes advanced navigation and drill down capabilities, allowing users to do multi-level sorting of their search results by a variety of parameters. Using multi-level sorting, the end-user is in control of how the results are displayed. The business manager defines the rules for how advertisers are seen. FAST AdVisor also includes linguistics capabilities that include multi-lingual dictionary and synonym management, and spell-checking. With the analytics and reporting features of FAST AdVisor, the online directory provider can tune the system based upon how end users are searching and navigating. www.fast.no
Day: September 1, 2004
Microsoft Released two new Service Pack 1 (SP1) releases, which provide performance improvements for Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. In addition to improved stability and security, SharePoint Services SP1 includes support for files as large as 2 GB. SharePoint Services SP1 lets customers and partners to apply patches and hot fixes. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 customers and partners will need to apply the Windows SharePoint Services SP1 to download and apply the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP1. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP1 improves search functionality in a number of areas, including propagation, crawling reliability, keyword or best-bet search results, alert conditions, more robust XML filtering, and linguistic accuracy. Content Watson functionality enables improved quality through streamlined issue reporting between a customer’s networked computer and the Microsoft development team. Customers will be able to access language templates for 11 additional languages, including Croatian, Latvian and Slovenian. www.microsoft.com
codeMantra, LLC introduced the Universal PDF, a single file format accepted by many electronic distribution channels. The codeMantra Universal PDF file specification includes all of the following features to facilitate acceptance by electronic content distributors: Properly embedded fonts, Cropped registration marks and blank areas, Image and text disclaimers inserted, Bookmarked table of contents, Cover page cleaned up and inserted, Linked table of contents, Linked endnotes, Headings linked to table of contents, External URLs linked, and Reformatted and resized images. The Universal PDF solution from codeMantra allows publishers to have one fully-compliant file created for nine of the leading electronic book distributors, as well as several additional electronic content aggregators. Creation of this file from Print PDF, HTML, XML, QuarkXpress, Adobe PageMaker, FrameMaker, InDesign, Ventura, 3B2, Microsoft Word, and many others is a rapid process, with the majority of files completed within one week. Pricing for this product begins at $85, including file delivery. Additionally, since hardcopy and image-based input titles offer unique challenges in creating a text-based PDF output, codeMantra is simultaneously introducing the Universal Image PDF to ease the financial burdens of creating electronic content from these inputs. www.codemantra.com
Kontiki announced it will team up with IBM to offer companies a way to tap their unused computing resources to deliver rich media, including DVD-quality video and software, to employees and customers with a cost savings over traditional delivery methods. Kontiki will offer customers a solution that incorporates Kontiki’s Delivery Management System (DMS) software running on IBM’s eServer systems. The Kontiki DMS can integrate with IBM’s products including Tivoli software and DB2 Universal Database. The joint solution can allow companies to securely deliver video and software updates in conjunction with existing software distribution systems to all employees, even to remote offices. Kontiki’s DMS is built on the company’s Grid Delivery Technology. Kontiki is also collaborating with IBM to develop a set of standard web service APIs to allow heterogeneous enterprise systems to integrate with grid delivery systems such as the Kontiki DMS. www.kontiki.com
