PaperThin, Inc. announced the availability of CommonSpot Content Server version 4.0, the company’s Web content management solution. This major release introduces new scalability options, added developer and administrator capabilities, and expanded content creation features. Dozens of enhancements to existing features are also introduced in this release. New scalability options in version 4.0 include enhancements to the replication feature and a static content generation module. By separating the process for handling dynamic and static content, a more scalable, reliable and higher performance site can be realized. This new feature also enables easier incorporation of third party applications, providing support for a broader range of technologies. Enhancements to CommonSpot’s custom metadata and custom element features introduced in version 4.0 allow for even more flexible content re-use. New 4.0 features like comprehensive spell check, visual difference and pop-up calendars help authors create and publish content more accurately. Many new administrator tools were also added in this release. www.paperthin.com

OASIS, announced plans to advance the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), a document creation and management specification that builds content reuse into the authoring process. The XML architecture defined by the new OASIS DITA Technical Committee will be used to design, write, manage, and publish technical documentation in print and on the Web. Focusing on the ‘topic’ as a conceptual unit of authoring, DITA will extend existing content markup to represent domains of specialized markup common across sets of topics, e.g., hardware vs. software. Larger documents can be created by aggregating topic units. Content referencing combines several topics into a single document or allows content to be shared among topics. By enabling definitive semantics, DITA will allow more automatable processes, consistent authoring and better retrievability and applicability to specific industries. OASIS DITA Technical Committee members include Arbortext, Innodata Isogen, IBM, and others. The group brings together XML tools vendors, consultants on Information Architectures and Content Management Systems (CMS), and users of the DITA DTDs and Schemas. Participation remains open to all organizations and individuals. www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita

Astoria Software announced availability of Astoria 4.1, the latest release of its software for enterprises seeking to automate the authoring, review and publishing processes of complex documents. This software release delivers new product architecture enhancements to Astoria Software applications that automate the management, update and publishing processes of an enterprise’s complex, lengthy, or frequently revised documents. Astoria 4.1 extends enterprise content collaboration beyond core technical writers to content stakeholders throughout the enterprise and its suppliers, with new features enabling Internet connectivity and remote access capability. The new 4.1 release also includes major technology and user enhancements specifically tailored for the enterprise environment, including a new MS Windows file-based access and management system, support for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV), Web Services (SOAP) support and performance enhancements including scalable server processing. www.astoriasoftware.com

In.vision Research Corporation and netNumina announced the launch of a cooperative effort to bring the benefits of XML authoring and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to the biopharmaceutical industry. Xpress Author for Microsoft Word allows biopharmaceutical professionals to author documents in a Word environment without concern for the technical complexity of XML. In most cases the actual authoring is made easier than before by automatically pulling in required text objects as standard text. While this improves authoring and reuse of information, it also allows for structured XML information to be automatically extracted from these documents for use in portals, workflow and performance measurements. The following customized implementations of Xpress Author for Microsoft Word are targeted for the biopharmaceutical industry: Clinical program and clinical trial protocols, Pharmaceutical Product Labeling, Biopharmaceutical Research Documentation, and Manufacturing and Process Documentation. www.invisionresearch.com, www.netnumina.com

QUMAS announced that its product eDocCompliance is now available for the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 platform. eDocCompliance is an application that manages the full life cycle of regulatory and corporate documentation in compliance with FDA, EMEA, ISO and other international regulations. www.qumas.com, www.microsoft.com/ireland

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the Document Object Model Level 3 Core and Load and Save specifications as W3C Recommendations. The specifications reflect cross-industry agreement on a standard API for manipulating documents and data through a programming language (such as Java or ECMAScript). The DOM Level 3 Core extends the platform- and language-neutral interface to access and update dynamically a document’s content, structure, and style first described by the DOM Level 2 W3C Recommendations. DOM Level 3 provides a standard set of objects for representing XML documents and data, including namespace, XML Base, and XML Schema datatypes support. DOM Level 2 was designed for HTML 4.01, XML 1.0, and Namespaces in XML. With DOM Level 3, authors can take further advantage of the XML platform. It provide support for XML 1.1 and is aligned with the XML Information Set, specification which is also used by other W3C Recommendations such as XML Schema 1.0 and SOAP 1.2. DOM Level 3 enhances the support for XML namespaces and schema-type information. It delivers critical functionalities for Web services applications, as well as other mainstream XML applications. www.w3.org

Open Text Corporation and The Frontline Group, a Houston-based energy industry business and technology consulting firm, announced plans to jointly deliver Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software based on Open Text’s Livelink suite. The solutions will help companies improve processes and team collaboration in oil and gas exploration. The companies plan to combine Open Text’s ECM software with The Frontline Group’s specialized process and change management consulting services. Specifically tailored to the needs of energy companies, the solutions will offer ways to link globally dispersed teams of people involved in oil exploration, and provide a single place where they can work together, share information and maintain project documents. www.frontline-group.com, www.opentext.com/energy

Venetica and Stellent, Inc. announced a partnership that will enable customers to leverage disparate enterprise content on behalf of initiatives such as regulatory compliance, portals, and intranets. In addition, Venetica is announcing general availability of its Content Bridge for Stellent Universal Content Management, enabling Stellent customers to access content residing in repositories outside of the Stellent system. The Content Bridge will also allow applications using Venetica’s VeniceBridge ECI platform to access and work with content stored in a Stellent repository as well as content stored in external sources. www.venetica.com, www.stellent.com