BroadVision, Inc. announced the availability of BroadVision Business Commerce 6.0 and BroadVision MarketMaker 6.0. Both BroadVision Business Commerce 6.0 and BroadVision MarketMaker 6.0 take advantage of the J2EE features of One-To-One Enterprise 6.0 and are built using JavaServer Pages (JSP). The products provide a variety of pre-built JSP templates and workflows. BroadVision Business Commerce 6.0 and BroadVision MarketMaker 6.0 support wireless and call center technologies. Wireless capabilities allow end-users to access BroadVision-based B2B commerce sites through a variety of mobile phones and wireless devices. Collaboration capabilities and call center integration features allow data to be shared between the call center and online site, providing a 360-degree view of customers and business partners. BroadVision Business Commerce 6.0 and BroadVision MarketMaker 6.0 provide enhanced system-to-system connectivity features that allow information exchange across a wide variety of trading networks. The BroadVision trading connector and BroadVision B2B Gateway (built in partnership with webMethods) offer the “roundtrip” and “punchout” features that allow buyers on other trading networks to seamlessly access content and route transaction information between buyers and suppliers. BroadVision’s B2B commerce applications allow XML-based communication with other systems through industry standards such as OAG, RosettaNet, EDI, OBI and other XML applications. www.broadvision.com
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Vignette Corp. announced immediate availability of the Vignette Merchant Suite, a new packaged application designed to help companies drive sales, strengthen customer relationships and enhance profitability by offering, multichannel online purchasing experiences. Jointly developed with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Vignette Merchant Suite combines content, integration and analysis with the transaction processing technology of application servers supporting Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). The result is a packaged business application that combines content management and transaction processing as core capabilities. The Vignette Merchant Suite is designed to allow companies to efficiently manage any content asset alongside their product catalog to ensure that all information is accurate, relevant, organized and engaging. In addition, it helps deliver a personalized sales and service experience that will help increase sales, customer loyalty and profitability. Vignette Merchant Suite provides: Product catalog management, Merchandising management, Customer analysis and targeting, Out-of-the-box sample storefront, and Collaborative enterprise integration. The Vignette Merchant Suite is based on J2EE, XML and LDAP. The Vignette Merchant Suite is currently available and shipping to customers. www.vignette.com
Liaison Technology announced the release of Liaison Content Hub, software that automates the production and management of electronic catalog content. Liaison Content Hub 1.0 provides the infrastructure for manufacturers, distributors and trading exchanges to manage the complex process of developing and managing commerce-ready content. Liaison Content Hub delivers streamlined workflow and process automation capabilities to decrease catalog management costs. Liaison Content Hub 1.0 is the third product based on Liaison’s Catalog Content for Collaborative Commerce (C4) Architecture. Announced in March, the C4 Architecture defines how enterprises increase revenue through the automation and management of electronic catalog content. It serves as the foundation for Liaison’s integrated, scalable solutions for aggregating, managing and syndicating catalog content for e-commerce platforms. In March, the company launched Liaison Content Exchange 3.0, which aggregates data from disparate sources, and Liaison Content Syndicator 1.0, which customizes the content for delivery to e-commerce platforms. Liaison Content Hub 1.0 is now available directly from Liaison and its partners. The software is licensed on a perpetual or an annual basis including professional services and support. www.liaison.com
Percussion Software announced the release of Rhythmyx Content Manager version 3.5. This upgrade of Percussion’s XML-based content management system includes a significant new feature – the Content Editor Engine – which reduces content development time from days to hours. Rhythmyx v3.5 also offers a completely revised Publisher Engine, enabling companies to centrally manage all publishing activities, whether remote or local. Rhythmyx Content Manager v3.5 is available immediately and will be offered in a 30-day product evaluation kit that enables potential customers to trial the whole product with full technical support. The 3.5 evaluation kit is available on a CD that can be installed in production mode with a sample Web site already under management. Percussion Rhythmyx Content Manager V3.5 supports Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Solaris 2.6, 7, and 8 on the SPARC platform. The Rhythmyx Workbench runs on Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. www.percussion.com, www.wellstream.net
A2i Inc. announced that its xCat electronic catalog system now supports product applications. Application-based search provides yet another way to locate products within a large catalog, so that in addition to drill-down search by manufacturer, category, attributes, keyword, and other traditional criteria, a user can also search for products by their application. Applications are especially important in industries where application-driven product selection is the traditional way to locate products within a large catalog of complex product information. For example, in the automotive parts business, customers typically select parts based not on the category or manufacturer but rather on the particular year, make, model and engine type of the vehicle. There are millions of parts, tens of thousands of different vehicles, and since each part can be used in more than one vehicle, tens of millions of applications. The A2i xCat system features a data model for product applications that: (1) eliminates the duplication of both product data and application data typical of previous systems; (2) efficiently enforces validation against the table of valid applications; and (3) is more efficient for storage and searching. In addition to applications and application-based search, xCat also supports the ability to add rich product content — such as pictures, diagrams, specifications, repair information and text — not only to the parts themselves but also to the vehicles and applications. www.a2i.com
OASIS announced that its recently expanded XML.org industry portal has been enhanced to include an online, categorized listing of the ZapThink XML Standards Report and Analysis. This new data features key details about more than 400 XML specifications from 300 organizations worldwide. XML.ORG offers detailed summaries from ZapThink’s quarterly Standards Reports. Developers who require an in-depth analysis of a particular specification are able to purchase the full report through ZapThink. http://xml.org, www.zapthink.com, www.oasis-open.org
IBM today announced an agreement with SAP Portals, Inc., to enable customers to integrate enterprise business applications from SAP, PeopleSoft Inc., Baan, Oracle Financials and others into portal solutions deployed using IBM’s WebSphere Portal Server. As part of the agreement, IBM will have the ability to resell and distribute SAP Portals iViews, which provide users access to the key enterprise business applications. The two companies also said that under the terms of the agreement, SAP Portals will provide a Java 2 Enterprise Edition version of its iViewServer that IBM will license and include in the IBM WebSphere Portal Server. The WebSphere Portal Server enhancements and the SAP Portals iViews that support integrated access to business applications from SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, Oracle Financials and others will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001. www.ibm.com/software/webservers/portal, www.sapportals.com
Mozquito Technologies launched a product that will put the power of eXtensibilty into Allaire’s HomeSite. Mozquito FML for HomeSite is made up of two components: the Mozquito Matrix and the Mozquito XHTML-FML component for HomeSite. XHTML-FML, or Forms Markup Language, is an XML-based language created by Mozquito Technologies, which simplifies creation of interactive online applications for retail, surveys, and other uses by eliminating the use of applets and scripting. Mozquito FML for Homesite enhances Allaire’s editor by running the user’s work through the Mozquito Matrix, transforming XHTML-FML tags into HTML and JavaScript that will run regardless of platform or browser. The XHTML-FML tags allow the developer to perform various tasks easily, such as toggling, calculations, and input validation. These 20 new tags also give the developer a functionality that they could only otherwise get with a great deal of complex JavaScript code. Mozquito Technologies is also working on FML for ColdFusion Studio and JRun Studio. The beta versions will be available online June 25. Mozquito FML for HomeSite retails for Euro/$69 plus sales tax. It is available in the U.S., Canada, South America and the Middle East from Lifeboat Distribution, as well as Mozquito Technologies’ resellers worldwide. Users may also download the program from www.mozquito.com.
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