Ektron Inc. announced Ektron CMS300 Version 4.5. The new version offers a more intuitive user experience, Web-based form capabilities and enhanced calendar features. Validation criteria can be assigned to public-facing HTML Web forms. Business users can click and choose several commonly used, out-of-the box validation rules to HTML form fields. Users can also auto email form data as well as export as XML to a third party application, and reports can be exported to Excel. The newest version of Ektron’s browser-based XML authoring tool, eWebEditPro+XML V4.1, is embedded in CMS300. The editor now includes spreadsheet-like math capabilities. Ektron has improved the CMS300 user experience by giving it the look and feel of Microsoft Outlook 2003. CMS300 allows business users, not only developers, to maintain and control multi-level navigation menus, and include items such as content blocks, library assets, external hyperlinks, forms, and other menus. www.ektron.com

Weborganic Systems announced Version 3.0 of PageSeeder. With this upgrade users are now able to create and manage document annotations across the full range of Adobe Acrobat clients, including older versions and the Acrobat Reader client. Other features include: an interface allowing non-technical users to create private and secure review groups featuring mail list capabilities; messaging support to allow reviewers to interact using native Acrobat commenting tools, web forms or standard email clients; the ability to lodge documents for review either by uploading or emailing attachment files; support for HTML, PDF and standard Office formats and international characters (Unicode); and availability either with a web-interface or as a middleware server and API for integration into existing document management environments. PageSeeder Version 3.0 is available immediately and can be evaluated either online or as a 30-day trial download. www.weborganic.com

Hot Banana Software Inc. and NI Solutions announced the signing of a
partnership agreement to deliver Hot Banana’s Web Content Management System
to NI Solutions’ customers and to allow joint marketing of the solution. www.hotbanana.com, www.nisolutions.ca

Xpriori announced the availability of a public beta release of Xpriori’s NeoCore XMS-Developer for Linux. Available to all who participate in Xpriori’s public beta program, the download is fully functional and has no time limit. Only upon deployment of solutions based on NeoCore XMS must a deployment license be obtained. NeoCore XMS is a Unified XML Information Management System/Database that can manage data and documents, as well as a variety of content types such as spreadsheets, media files, and forms in a fully transactional and access controlled environment. Support for free developer versions of Xpriori products is available on the interactive developer forum at www.xpriori.com/developers

Accenture and FileNet Corporation announced new technology that enables insurance field agents and other mobile workers to electronically perform tasks that once required mounds of paperwork. The technology, designed for use with low-cost commercially available digital pens in conjunction with FileNet Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, allows mobile workers to capture and transmit information to a central repository, where it can be put to work to initiate business processes. The Digital Pen Connector software, written by Accenture Technology Labs, captures the pen strokes, translates them into usable data, and delivers the data to the FileNet ECM system. FileNet ECM then integrates the data in a central content repository for sharing and launches business processes according to the requirements of the business. The solution provides a low-cost alternative to equipping workers with costlier pen-based devices, such as tablet computers or personal digital assistants, and should benefit industries that rely heavily on paper-based processes. www.accenture.com, www.filenet.com

Microsoft Corp. unveiled a preview of the Microsoft Office Solution Accelerator for Insurance Forms. The accelerator is designed to help insurance industry customers by tying standardized ACORD forms with XML Web services and making those forms available to participants of any of the ACORD forms programs through the use of Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 information gathering program. The accelerator comprises the ACORD forms and XML schemas designed for use with InfoPath 2003, a set of workflow transactions using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004, and prescriptive architecture and code for Web services, security and digital signatures. The full release of the accelerator will coincide with the release of the Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Service Pack 1 later this year. The service pack will include several enhancements to InfoPath 2003. www.microsoft.com

Computer Associates International, Inc. and Zope Corporation announced plans to provide customers with open source content management solutions that are compatible with relational database technology and meet enterprise demands for performance, data persistence and manageability. These collaboratively developed solutions will combine Zope’s open source content management platform with CA’s Ingres Enterprise Relational Database (Ingres). Zope implementations are currently supported by the open source, flat-file database, ZODB. Software engineers from CA and Zope will build an open source RDBMS persistence module that takes advantage of APE (Adaptable Persistence Engine). As a result of this new module, Zope implementations will be supportable by Ingres. The new module could also facilitate support of Zope implementations by relational database management systems other than Ingres. CA is prepared to commit significant development resources to Zope technology.
CA and Zope Corporation are expected to announce availability of a Zope RDBMS persistence engine by the end of the year. www.ca.com, www.zope.com

FatWire Software announced that it has expanded its integration with the BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 through the latest release of Spark 6 pCM (portal Content Management) for the BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1 and the introduction of FatWire’s BEA Control Bridge for BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1. Spark 6 pCM supports BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1 standards, CM: SPI and JSR 168. Spark features content management and document management interfaces, and installs with four pre-built delivery portlets for job postings, corporate communications, documents and advertisements. FatWire’s BEA Control Bridge provides developers the ability to create applications in BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1. The Control Bridge allows developers to access all content and assets, regardless of data type, stored in FatWire Content Server repositories. Spark 6 pCM is $25,000 per server, and is available now.www.fatwire.com