First Consulting Group, Inc. (FCG) (NASDAQ: FCGI) announced the launch of FirstDoc 3.3, the newest version of its enterprise content management (ECM) solution for the life sciences industry. FirstDoc 3.3 includes enhanced XML capabilities and a re-architected enterprise object model to enable more flexible content sharing and better business process harmonization across functional areas. FirstDoc 3.3’s XML capabilities enable life sciences organizations to move away from formatting documents manually and reduce the effort to format content for other media types. FirstDoc 3.3 also streamlines documentation updates while ensuring all of the content remains accurate. FirstDoc 3.3 helps life sciences organizations produce and handle labeling submissions compliant with the latest FDA and EMEA formats, Structured Product Labeling (SPL) and Exchange of Product Information (PIM), respectively. FirstDoc 3.3 also provides a range of document types at the level of granularity required by the most recent electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD) guidelines set by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH). FirstDoc 3.3’s re-architected enterprise object model enables users to share information between vertical applications more easily. FirstDoc 3.3 also provides utilities that automate the migration of object definitions within existing FirstDoc installations to the new model. http://www.fcg.com
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Microsoft announced Longhorn and IE7 will support RSS. I am still waiting for them to talk about SVG. I have a selfish reason for this of course, but this news suggests SVG may finally have the buzz behind it I have been waiting to see.
Microsoft Corp. announced support for RSS in the next version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, code-named “Longhorn.” The RSS functionality in Longhorn is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications. In addition, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists as RSS feeds. Microsoft is making the specification and the Simple List Extensions freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released. While browsing the Web, Longhorn users will be able to discover RSS feeds through an illuminated icon, as well as read the feed while still in the Web browser. In addition, users will be able to subscribe to an RSS feed as simply as adding a Web site to their “favorites.” The RSS features in Longhorn also will enable application developers to harness the capabilities of RSS in their applications. For example, business users about to attend a conference could subscribe to the conference’s event calendar. They can then use a Longhorn RSS-enabled calendar application to view the events in the RSS feed from within their calendar application. The RSS support in Longhorn includes a Common RSS Feed List, Common RSS Data Store, and an RSS Platform Sync Engine. http://www.microsoft.com
I have been meaning to write something about S1000D, the standard and associated XML DTDs for airline industry data that is taking hold in Europe. There has been a recent flurry of activity involving the US-based Air Transport Association, which has long had its own SGML-based standards for aviation data (ATA 1000) and has been working on new ones. However, now it seems like ATA is taking a serious look at adopting S100D as well.
Data Conversion Labs has a nice roundup of this issue and a list of useful related resources.
Lot’s of merger and acquisition news this week!
- Hummingbird & RedDot
- Trados & SDL
- Infodata & McDonald Bradley
- Stellent & e-Onehundred Group
- and also a consortium merger: Compliance Consortium & OCEG.
I spoke today as part of a ClearStory Systems webinar on rich media management. You can get a PDF of my slides here. The full set of slides, including those given by John Gonzalez of ClearStory, will be posted on the ClearStory site later; I will post the link when I get it. My presentation is based heavily on our recent white paper, Rich Media Management and Business Agility.
During John’s presentation, he mentioned how Sony and other customers are using the ClearStory technology to bring more rich media applications to the Web. I like this site, which markets stock video footage from Sony Pictures.
Pendragon Software announced a new, multi-platform version of Pendragon Forms Enterprise Edition. Pendragon Forms Enterprise Edition is a business forms solution that synchronizes PDAs and smartphones to enterprise databases. Using Version 5.0, companies can create data collection applications for mobile devices running on both Palm OS and Windows Mobile for Pocket PC platforms. Companies can install the Pendragon Forms Enterprise Edition on their own Windows servers. The software is based on server technologies including Active Server Pages, Microsoft SQL Server, ODBC and Pendragon SyncServer. The centralized management feature enables IT managers to determine precisely how forms and data are deployed to devices when they synchronize. Pendragon Forms Enterprise Edition is priced at $2,995 for a 50-user license, complete with software modules for the server, handheld devices and networked PCs. Users can try the software for 14 days at http://www.pendragonsoftware.com
Akiva Corporation announced the first commercial release of Silk. This software, which has been available in beta release since late 2004, is an open source collaboration solution built to enterprise J2EE software standards. Silk is designed to provide seamless integration of collaborative applications such as email clients, IM programs and meeting applications while providing a centralized web portal into an enterprise’s content and the collaboration surrounding it. As a framework for “collaboration enabling the enterprise”, documents and applications are presented along with the related collaboration such as participants, discussions, surveys, meeting notes and emails. Silk “competes functionally with applications such as IBM’s WorkPlace framework and the Microsoft Sharepoint technology.” Silk is built on J2EE, JBOSS, MySQL and Linux among others and is being distributed under the GNU Public License (GPL). As of today, the same software is also available under a commercial license, along with support, from Akiva for enterprise customers.
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