FatWire Software announced the rollout of FirstSite, which is a set of tools and best practices that helps companies using FatWire Content Server get their first Web site or application running quickly while providing a foundation for future expansion. FirstSite includes a collection of standard templates and site components that are common to most sites, combined with documentation, training, a rich developer community, and best practices methodology. FatWire and its solution partners are using FirstSite as the basis for developing content-centric applications for specific vertical markets. With only minor, cosmetic alterations, developers can use the code in FirstSite to implement a first site, while simultaneously learning how to utilize Content Server’s capabilities, such as dynamic content delivery, personalization, caching, and product catalogs. www.fatwire.com

Open Text Corporation introduced a solution for online “communities of practice” which bring together people in an organization with similar responsibilities or interests. The solution allows, for example, marketing professionals or purchasing managers to connect in ways they couldn’t before, providing a forum where they can share information and best practices, and improve processes. Called Livelink for Communities of Practice, the solution provides a central workspace in Livelink where members can publish relevant news, share documents, participate in member Weblogs, arrange online meetings and hold Webcasts. The solution also tracks the contributions of participants to help members identify experts in the community on specific subjects. With Livelink for Communities of Practice, each community workspace offers a newspaper-like front page with syndicated headlines and content sections, where interesting patterns and trends are “bubbled up” for the community. Livelink for Communities of Practice is available immediately and works with Livelink 9.2 or higher on all supported platforms. www.opentext.com

The Gilbane Report and Lighthouse Seminars announced that the CM Professionals organization (CM Pros) (www.cmprofessionals.org) will hold their inaugural Summit in conjunction with the Gilbane Conference on Content Management to be held at the Westin Copley in Boston, November 30 – December 2, 2004. The CM Pros Summit will take place on November 30 in the same location. The programs for both events have been scheduled and coordinated to complement each other. The CM Professionals Summit is patterned on other similar professional community summits. The day will focus on peer interaction to help develop and propagate best practices, as well as offer ample opportunities for professional networking. A content management specialist will facilitate each session. The sessions will be interactive meetings with no formal presentations and no vendor pitches. CM Professionals members receive a $150 discount to the Gilbane conference. The Gilbane conference program is entirely focused on content technologies, and includes 27 educational sessions covering today’s most critical issues for businesses planning or implementing a content management strategy. Gold sponsors of the Gilbane Content Management conference in Boston include EMC/Documentum (NYSE:EMC), GMC Software, Interwoven (NASDAQ:IWOV), Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX), Stellent (NASDAQ:STEL), and Workshare. www.cmprofessionals.org/events/summit.html, www.gilbane.com/CM_conference_program_Boston_04.html

Interwoven, Inc. announced the fully-integrated Interwoven Records Manager, providing enterprises with a single unified records management (RM) system. Interwoven Records Manager encompasses the complete content lifecycle, from creation to archiving and retention, enabling companies to manage paper documents, electronic documents and e-mail under a single system. The availability of Interwoven Records Manager follows Interwoven’s acquisition in August 2004 of the assets of Software Intelligence, Inc. Interwoven Records Manager is initially integrated with Interwoven WorkSite 8 software, a collaborative document management solution for the legal, accounting and professional services industries. Interwoven Records Manager is generally available now. www.interwoven.com

Interwoven, Inc. unveiled an intranet solution, designed to help companies realize the full value of their intranet investments through multi-site management and usability. Powered by Interwoven’s TeamSite software, the Interwoven Intranet solution simplifies intranet publishing and site management. Leveraging the Web Content Management (WCM) capabilities of Interwoven TeamSite, the Interwoven Intranet solution enables enterprises to address the challenge of supporting numerous intranet initiatives by decentralizing content contribution and control while centralizing WCM infrastructure. TeamSite simplifies the intranet content publishing process, helping non-technical subject-matter experts to contribute content quickly and easily. The Interwoven Intranet solution is generally available now and pricing starts at $49K. www.interwoven.com

Groove Networks Inc. announced the Groove Enterprise Data Bridge, a product that allows organizations to securely deliver live enterprise data from nearly any source directly to users’ PCs, in the context of their teams, project work and collaborative tools. Integrated with Groove Virtual Office software, the Enterprise Data Bridge speeds business processes by enabling virtual, cross-organizational teams to work together anywhere at any time with both structured and unstructured data from enterprise applications and databases. The Groove Enterprise Data Bridge is a bundle of products developed by Groove Networks and CASAHL Technology. The Groove Enterprise Data Bridge will be available for purchase this week and is $24,995 per unit. The package includes licenses to CASAHL’s ecKnowledge Server, the CASAHL Groove Connector, and the Groove Publisher bot service. The package also includes one of the following CASAHL ecKnowledge connectors to be selected by customer: DBMS, Oracle, XML, Lotus Notes and Domino, Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint Portal. For existing CASAHL ecKnowledge customers, the Enterprise Data Bridge package is priced at $15,995 per unit. www.casahl.com, www.groove.net

Verity Inc. announced a new, expanded software download center (DLC), located on the Verity Web site. Along with an improved user interface to simplify the download process, Verity has added two more of its products to the site along with Verity Ultraseek, the company’s enterprise search software. The software products now available in the Verity Download Center site are: Verity Ultraseek, Verity Federator, and Verity KeyView Software Development Kits. In addition to new products to choose from for 30- or 60-day, no-obligation trials, the new Verity DLC now has the capability of presenting its content in either English or Japanese. , www.verity.com

Syncro Soft Ltd announced the immediate availability of Version 5.0 of its XML Editor and XSLT Debugger. Version 5.0 adds XSLT 2.0 Editor and Debugger, XPath 2.0 evaluator, XQuery Editor, WSDL Editor and SOAP Analyzer, SVG Viewer and a lot of other new features and improvements. It provides complete XSLT 2.0 support including editing, validating and debugging XSLT 2.0 stylesheets as well as transforming XML documents using XSLT 2.0 stylesheets. Editing XSLT 2.0 stylesheets with is easier because each presented XSLT 2.0 element or attribute in the content completion is accompanied by documentation. The XSLT 2.0 debugger adds mapping from the transformation output result to the document and stylesheet locations that produced that output. This feature is available for Xalan 2.5.1, Saxon 6.5.3 (for XSLT 1.0) and Saxon 8.1B (for XSLT 2.0) in the XSLT Debugger perspective. With version 5.0 you can edit, validate and test WSDL documents. While editing the Web-Services descriptors you can check their conformance to the WSDL and SOAP schema. The new XQuery Editor provides syntax coloring and content completion for XQuery keywords, functions and operators. It features validation and transformation support. The transformations can be configured using transformation scenarios similar with the ones for XSLT. XPath 1.0 support was enhanced to allow evaluation of XPath 2.0 expressions. XML Editor and XSLT Debugger is available immediately in two editions: Multi-platform Academic/Non-profit license costs USD 48.00, and Multi-platform Commercial license costs USD 96.00. XML Editor and XSLT Debugger runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris and as an Eclipse plugin. A 30 day free trial may be downloaded. www.oxygenxml.com