Merant announced the availability of Merant Collage, an enterprise content management solution for application-driven Web sites. Merant Collage’s integration with software configuration management (SCM) tools, including the MERANT PVCS product family, provides a collaborative environment for the application developers and the Web design team to build Web applications and dynamic Web sites. New features and functionality include: task management with workflow control, auditing and reporting, content contribution editor and templating, automatic notification, and integration with PVCS Dimensions and Version Manager. Merant Collage is available now. www.merant.com

X-Hive Corporation announced the release of version 3.0 of X-Hive/DB, the native XML database designed for software developers who need to process and store XML data in their applications. X-Hive/DB supports all major XML standards including XML 1.0, XQuery, XPath, XPointer, XLink, XSL, XUpdate and DOM. It also offers a transaction mechanism, versioning with branching, BLOB storage and various indexing methods, as well as support for J2EE and WebDAV. Next to overall performance improvements the following features have been added or enhanced in X-Hive/DB 3.0: support for XQuery; support for DOM Level 3 Abstract Schema and Load & Save; a new indexing method; improved XPath/XPointer and administrator client with new functions and updated GUI; and simplified database setup with default configuration based on best practices. X-Hive/DB 3.0 is available as of today on Linux, Solaris and Windows. A free 30-day evaluation license can be obtained. www.x-hive.com

W3C released the “XML 1.0 (Second Edition) Conformance Test Suite,” built in cooperation with NIST and formerly hosted by OASIS. The suite contains over 2000 test files that any developer can download free of cost and use to test the conformance of an XML processor to the XML Recommendation. www.w3c.org

RealObjects announced an OEM partnership with WebCT, Inc., to deliver in-browser word processing capabilities as part of its WebCT Vista solution. By integrating RealObjects’ WYSIWYG HTML/XML editor edit-on Pro with WebCT Vista, customers will be able to easily publish content without having knowledge of HTML/XML. The editor provides word processor-like features within common web browsers in order to simplify and streamline the process of in-browser content authoring. www.realobjects.de

Pindar Systems announced the commercial release of Agility v. 1.0, its new enterprise catalog commerce server. Agility, a comprehensive product information management system built with a Java-based, J2EE-compliant Web application server architecture, is now available for sale and installation, following field testing and quality assurance work with customers. Already supporting the latest BEA WebLogic application server, Agility is being extended to support IBM’s WebSphere server by this Fall. In addition to integration with QuarkXPress, Pindar Systems is working on a product information solution that integrates Adobe InDesign 2.0. Agility can be deployed across traditional Microsoft Windows, Web or the new Apple Macintosh OS/X platforms. It runs on Sun SPARC Solaris 7.0 and Intel NT 4.0 (and greater) servers. Supported enterprise databases are Oracle 8i and 9i and Microsoft SQL 2000. www.pindarsystems.com

The Fantastic Corporation announced the integration of its CoreCast eCDN (enterprise content delivery network) into IBM’s Content Manager Version 8. Together with the IBM Content Manager, CoreCast helps companies manage and deliver massive quantities of information such as text documents, Web content, and audio or video files to the desktop. Fantastic’s CoreCast eCDN is a network-aware distribution platform for delivery of data-intensive multimedia applications within an enterprise. An application-layer content networking engine, CoreCast eCDN automatically recognises its data network environment, performs real-time analysis, proactively adapts distribution processes, routes and answers end-user requests, and allocates network resources according to business policies set at the CoreCast control centre. www.fantastic.com, www.ibm.com/software/data/cm

WebWare Corporation announced it has reached agreement with Convera to integrate Convera’s RetrievalWare technology into WebWare MAMBO brand and media asset management software. The optional RetrievalWare plug-in provides additional search capabilities for distributed client/server environments. It will enable teams working on technology and/or branding projects to do multimedia, cross and multi-lingual searches of document content. A wide range of text and text-related formats will now be available in WebWare MAMBO through RetrievalWare: over 200 proprietary document formats including Microsoft Office applications, Adobe PDF, Lotus Notes, FileNet, Documentum, and MS Exchange documents and other relational database tables, document management systems and groupware repositories. The RetrievalWare technology will be part of a future release later this year. www.convera.com, www.webwarecorp.com