Category: Content management & strategy (Page 367 of 481)

IBM announced it has agreed to acquire all the shares of Trigo Technologies, Inc., a provider of product information management middleware. Financial details were not disclosed. Trigo’s product information management middleware enables companies to integrate and centrally manage comprehensive product information that is typically scattered across an enterprise and a supply chain. Trigo’s middleware also links product-related information with terms of trade such as pricing and then synchronizes this information internally with existing enterprise systems and externally with business partners. The acquisition of Trigo’s technology will extend IBM’s portfolio of integration middleware as part of the WebSphere brand of products. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including government regulatory approval. The two companies expect to close the deal in the second quarter of 2004. www.software.ibm.com, www.trigo.com

Industrial Medium unveiled Version 2.7 of its Expressroom content management system, the first major upgrade to the software since it was acquired from Borland Software last year. Version 2.7 includes major enhancements to the core product, including new automation tools, an embedded search engine for searches both within Expressroom and on the resulting Web site, lower resource utilization for higher performance, and significant improvements to all major software modules. An optional module, the Expressroom Document Assistant, allows content authors and other contributors to create and edit documents in Microsoft Office programs and transform them into Web content designed specifically for their sites. The module automatically handles the reformatting and conversion tasks for a range of text, image, presentation and other file formats. Expressroom was originally developed in 1997 by Worldweb.net, based in Alexandria, VA. Worldweb, along with Expressroom, was acquired in 2001 by Starbase Corp. Two years later, in January, 2003, Starbase was in turn bought by Borland Software. Last May, Industrial Medium finalized an agreement with Borland to acquire the Expressroom product line. Expressroom 2.7 is available for immediate deployment. www.industrialmedium.com

Blackboard Inc. announced the general availability of the Blackboard Content System. The Blackboard Content System benefits students, faculty and campus IT administrators by lowering the costs and increasing the simplicity of managing learning content, digital assets and e-Portfolios in an enterprise learning environment. The Blackboard Content System is one system in the Blackboard Academic Suite, a family of integrated applications that provides a unified enterprise environment for teaching, learning, research, knowledge-sharing, communication, and student life. The three solutions that make up the Blackboard Academic Suite, the Blackboard Learning System, Blackboard Content System and Blackboard Portal System, have a shared architecture, consistent interfaces, file sharing, and administration features. www.blackboard.com

Xerox Corporation announced it will integrate IBM’s DB2 Records Manager software into Xerox DocuShare. The integrated software, called DocuShare Records Manager, will help businesses comply with government and industry regulations, legislation and standards that relate to the safeguarding of content and documents. Documents of record can remain protected in their original DocuShare locations for ongoing access by a broad audience, or they can be moved to a central archive server for more restricted access. In all cases, once documents are declared as legal records, editing authority is granted only to designated records management administrators. Organizations already using DocuShare will need only minimal training for DocuShare Records Manager because it has the same user interface. While suitable for smaller organizations, DocuShare Records Manager can also be deployed to a large number of users and can be implemented either on the same physical server as DocuShare, or on a separate server for wider use across the enterprise. DocuShare Records Manager is expected to be available during the second half of 2004 through select Xerox resellers. www.xerox.com/docushare

Convera announced Taxonomy Workbench, a complete set of tools for organizing large amounts of disparate data. Taxonomy Workbench is designed for use by information managers, librarians, and subject matter experts. The Workbench helps create an easily searched organizational structure for each organization’s own specific online public information. To leverage data organization models that are already in place, users can integrate and modify existing taxonomies or thesauri. Automated import, generation, combination and pruning wizards aid in accelerated taxonomy and classification development. Convera also introduced five new industry-specific taxonomies including Genetics, Finance & Business, General Enterprise, Technology and U.S. Government. The new Convera taxonomies are enhanced versions of taxonomies that contain a controlled vocabulary and classification structure developed by taxonomy builder ProQuest Information and Learning. The ProQuest framework for each industry-specific taxonomy enables precise mapping of data and an exact search of subject fields. Each taxonomy powered by ProQuest is regularly updated. www.convera.com, www.il.proquest.com

FileNet Corporation unveiled its new Team Collaboration Manager solution. Additionally, FileNet announced it is partnering with Web Ex, Centra Software, Cimmetry and Web4, a division of netGuru, Inc., to offer integration and support for real-time Web conferencing. An enterprise-wide solution, Team Collaboration Manager is a web-based, out-of-the-box solution to deliver team collaboration integrated with content management and fully functional business process management (BPM) capabilities. Team Collaboration Manager is designed to provide the structure and tools, including ad-hoc tasks, discussion forums, live meetings, and interactive polls, to enable group members to share information, participate in structured and unstructured processes and handle exceptions to these processes across geographic or functional areas. Team Collaboration Manager features a scalable and integrated architecture and common content repository. This enables the full range of both structured and unstructured project content to be repurposed throughout the enterprise, and enables project activities to be integrated with other enterprise-wide business processes to extend the value of collaboration. FileNet Team Collaboration Manager can be deployed at the application or service level. Customers are able to modify the look and feel of the application and add capabilities to meet their specific business requirements. FileNet’s Team Collaboration Manager is scheduled to ship in the third quarter of 2004. www.FileNet.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced a new forms processing solution that extends the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform with 2-D barcode technology. Adobe’s barcode-enabled forms solution will provide a unified environment to support both paper and electronic forms processes, and help customers eliminate the need for manual data entry while managing high-volume, paper forms processes such as tax returns, voter registration documents, account applications, and change of address requests. The Adobe solution will enable organizations to create Adobe PDF forms that include 2-D barcodes, technology that captures significantly more information than a traditional, one-dimensional barcode. Once distributed to customers or constituents via the Web, email or CD-ROM, the forms can be completed on- or off-line using Adobe Reader. As end users complete form fields, the 2-D barcode dynamically encodes the data in a format specified by the form author. Once completed and printed by the user, forms can be submitted by mail or fax. Upon receipt, organizations simply scan the barcode to capture the form data and deliver it to a back-end system for processing. The barcode-enabled forms solution will be piloted during 2004 and available by the end of the current calendar year through Adobe’s server product line. Pricing will be announced with availability in the second half of 2004. www.adobe.com/enterprise/main.html