EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) and NEC Corporation (NASDAQ:NIPNY) announced an expansion of their strategic business and technology alliance. The broader and deeper arrangements involve new technology development, distribution, joint marketing, customer service and support, and increased collaboration and integration of the two companies’ information management and infrastructure solutions. EMC and NEC intend to collaborate on the development of content management solutions for emerging customer requirements. EMC and NEC intend to jointly develop and resell these solutions globally, with a focus on Japan, to help customers better address certain business issues such as regulatory compliance, security and collaboration. EMC and NEC have agreed to collaborate on the development, manufacturing, distribution and support of certain future storage technologies and entry-level products. EMC and NEC intend to license various technologies from their respective resource management products (EMC Smarts and NEC WebSAM) and will incorporate them into future releases from each company. The companies will further ensure tight integration of the WebSAM framework and the EMC Smarts model-based architecture. Within Japan, EMC and NEC intend to deepen their relationship by further aligning each company’s sales and marketing, solution development, consulting, customer support and service functions. http://www.EMC.com, http://www.nec.com

Vignette (NASDAQ:VIGN) and Lombardi Software announced a go-to-market alliance to better enable content-centric applications and the business processes that drive them. The alliance is intended to allow joint customers to create, deploy and manage web applications based on a Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that leverages standards such as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation), JSR-168 (Java Specification Request), and Web Services. http://www.vignette.com, http://www.lombardisoftware.com

There are hundreds of vendors that claim to have the answer to today’s content management challenge. Now it is your opportunity as an end user to attend, for free, CMS Idol. Have your opinion count as you vote for the content management solution you think is most innovative. CMS Idol is taking place at the Palace Hotel on April 25th at the upcoming Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies San Francisco. Not only is CMS Idol free to attend but attendees can visit with over 50 vendors showcasing their latest content management solutions. Vendors registered to participate in CMS Idol include: Hot Banana Software, Interwoven, Paperthin, Refresh Software, and Vasont. Round I – 3:45pm: Help crown the “2006 CMS Idol” in a fast-paced, entertaining set of competitive demos. CMS vendors will present 6-minute demos showing the best features of their systems. An expert panel of judges will offer pithy commentary, but the best part is: you vote for the winner! The top 3 finalists will face off in Round 2 during the reception. Round II – 5:30pm – “The Finals”: Help crown the “2006 CMS Idol” in a fast-paced, entertaining set of competitive demos. Three vendor finalists will present 8-minute demos showing something special about their solution. An expert panel of judges will liven up the show, but it is you the attendee who votes for the winner! The winner will be announced and officially crowned during the reception. Visit with vendors in the exhibit hall before or after CMS Idol. The exhibit hall is open April 25-26. Hours to meet with exhibitors each day are: 10-11am, noon-2pm, and 5-7pm. For conference details, visit: . To register, visit:

ComponentOne released ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2006 v1. This new version enhances the Help authoring experience with new features and functionality for Documenter and NetHelp. Doc-To-Help helps users author or import documentation in Microsoft Word or any HTML editor to create online Help systems and professional printed manuals. Help systems produced with Doc-To-Help can be created in virtually any popular format including HTML Help, Cross-Platform HTML-based Help, JavaHelp, WinHelp, Visual Studio .NET-style Help, and printed documentation. Current Doc-To-Help subscribers will receive these new features and enhancements via the yearly subscription service as a part of their subscription plan. The Doc-To-Help subscription delivers the latest updates and e-mail support for one full year from the date of purchase. Doc-To-Help is available in two versions, Doc-To-Help Enterprise and Doc-To-Help for Word with respective pricing of $999.95 and $749.95. Competitive upgrades, renewal pricing, telephone support and volume discounts are also available. http://www.componentone.com,

Index Engines announced a significant upgrade to their enterprise indexing platform. Version 2.0 extends unstructured data indexing to include secondary storage and boosts processing speeds to 2 Gigabits per second wire speeds. This new release indexes information throughout its lifecycle as it is backed up, replicated, snapshoted, archived, or vaulted, for more comprehensive search, classification and management of data enterprise wide. Previous versions of the Index Engines solution supported indexing of primary storage data. With Version 2.0, files residing in secondary storage, even backup tapes, are fully indexed allowing comprehensive discovery of this data across the enterprise. Version 2.0 of the Index Engines platform is available immediately for early access clients and generally available on April 28, 2006. Prices start at $29,500 for an environment consisting of 2 million documents. http://www.indexengines.com