Category: Content technology news (Page 280 of 637)

Verity, Inc. announced a technology alliance with A2iA Corporation. The partnership brings together two applications for automatic data capture on forms, including the recognition of cursive handwriting. Verity will offer A2iA FieldReader as an add-on recognition engine that works with Verity TeleForm 9.0 content capture software. Combining OCR, ICR and IWR in a single engine, A2iA FieldReader expands Verity TeleForm’s capabilities by enabling users to convert complex cursive, natural or freeform handwriting on paper forms into computer-useable data. A2iA FieldReader contains multiple recognition engines using artificial intelligence and neural network technology to locate, clean, de-slant and segment writing into words and characters. Because it recognizes entire words and phrases, and utilizes predefined field attributes and vocabularies, A2iA FieldReader improves overall accuracy for TeleForm users who previously could only capture data character-by-character. http://www.a2ia.com,

The Gilbane Report and Lighthouse Seminars announced that the San Francisco Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies (held last week at the Palace Hotel) saw a significant increase in end-user attendance (over 20 percent), vendor sponsorships, as well as analyst and media turn out. The event brought together the industry’s top experts to discuss the hottest topics of the day – compliance, XML strategy for information interchange, enterprise use of blog & wiki technology, and much more. The event in San Francisco attracted attendees interested in learning, evaluating and purchasing the latest content management technologies. End users came from organizations, including: PG&E, Bay Area Air Quality Management, Mervyns, Blue Shield of California, Ernst & Young, Stanford University, National Cancer Institute, Marriott International, Walmart.com, Visa, Bank of the Orient, Raytheon, Staples, Mastercard, and Thomson Healthcare. The Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies will host its Boston event November 29- December 1 at the Westin Copley Place. Topics and technologies that will be covered at the Boston event include blogs, wikis, RSS, XQuery, enterprise rights management, and tools to assist with compliance, etc.; underused technologies like taxonomies and categorization; and “traditional” technologies including content management, document management, enterprise search, enterprise/content integration, authoring, and digital asset management. The Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies is hosted three times a year. In addition to the San Francisco and Boston events, an event is held in Amsterdam, May 24-26. The deadline for the call for papers for Boston is May 15, 2005. https://gilbane.com/conferences/Boston_05.html, https://gilbane.com/conferences/Amsterdam_05.html

Autonomy Corporation plc announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire etalk Corporation, a provider of enterprise-class contact center products, for a purchase price of US$70 million payable in a combination of cash and Autonomy ordinary shares, with an opportunity to earn additional consideration payable in Autonomy ordinary shares upon meeting and exceeding certain future performance-related targets. Combined Autonomy and etalk products are expected to be generally available within a quarter. Autonomy is expecting to discontinue certain aspects of the etalk business. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Autonomy’s earnings per share within six months from closing, excluding the impact of one-time and non-cash acquisition related charges. http://www.autonomy.com

Coveo Solutions Inc. announced that they have signed an OEM agreement that will allow Acuity to complement the text mining capabilities of its product with the search functionality of Coveo Enterprise Search (CES). Acuity provides software that presents corporate information in a visual way. Using computational linguistics and pattern recognition, Acuity helps users to automate the discovery process and find the structure in unstructured data by creating charts and other graphics to facilitate analysis. ,

Open Text Corporation introduced the Livelink ECM Platform, a secure, integrated framework that combines a shared content repository with user, content, and process services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Livelink ECM Platform marks the completion of Open Text’s integration of Livelink with the content archive from IXOS Software, which Open Text acquired last year.

Open Text Corporation also said it will support the emerging Java standard governing content integration called Java Specification Request (JSR) 170. For Open Text customers, support of the standard will mean more options for corporate-wide access to all information, no matter where it resides. Open Text will support JSR 170 as part of its just announced Livelink ECM Platform, a secure, integrated framework that combines a shared content repository with software “services” in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The software services include content services which offer a single point of access to content, either in an Open Text repository or other systems. The addition of JSR 170 support will extend the reach of the Livelink ECM Platform to all repositories that provide a standard JSR 170 connector. Open Text will join the expert group working on future versions of the specification. To find out more about JSR 170, including a description of the specification and its current development stage, visit the specification page at http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=170, http://www.opentext.com

Siebel Systems, Inc. and Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced that the companies have formed a multi-year partnership. Terms of the agreement involve the integration of FAST InStream within the core Siebel business applications platform, making FAST’s enterprise search capabilities available across Siebel Systems’ family of business applications and hosted solutions. The agreement also provides Siebel Systems the ability to leverage FAST InStream internally. Supporting both structured and unstructured data, FAST InStream provides value across all types of software applications, including enterprise portals and intranet sites, Enterprise Content and Document Management systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, Business Intelligence (BI) suites and applications, as well as Storage and Archiving solutions. The integration of FAST InStream with Siebel business applications will enable new functionality for Siebel customers. Customers will be able to extend their use of Siebel solutions by integrating existing customer and sales information with information from a range of repositories including databases, Web and intranet pages, and third-party internal file systems. http://www.siebel.com, http://www.fastsearch.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. The combination of Adobe and Macromedia will provide customers a more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Together, the two companies will meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments. Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe’s and Macromedia’s closing prices on Friday, April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock. Upon the close of the transaction, Macromedia stockholders will own approximately 18 percent of the combined company on a pro forma basis. In the combined company, Chizen will continue as chief executive officer and Shantanu Narayen will remain president and chief operating officer. Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Macromedia, will join Adobe as president of worldwide field operations. Murray Demo will remain executive vice president and chief financial officer. Dr. John Warnock and Dr. Charles Geschke will remain as co-chairmen of the Board of Directors of the combined company and Rob Burgess, chairman of the Macromedia Board of Directors, will join the Adobe Board. The two companies are developing integration plans that build on the cultural similarities and the best business and product development practices from each company. Adobe also announced its Board of Directors has approved a post-acquisition stock repurchase program of $1 billion. The repurchase program is in addition to the Adobe’s existing stock repurchase programs and is expected to commence following the completion of the acquisition. The repurchases will be funded from available working capital. http://www.adobe.com, http://www.macromedia.com

Digital Harbor announced the availability of Enterprise Designer, a modeling environment for composite applications that combines Enterprise Information Integration (EII), Business Process Integration, and Event Integration in a single graphical environment. A key component of Digital Harbor’s composite application platform, PiiE, Enterprise Designer is a graphical tool that logically links pieces of information from disparate systems as if they were one. Enterprise Designer enables developers and business analysts to use pre-existing models created in ErWin or Rational Rose as a starting point, and leverages the concept of a business ontology to reach across systems to link and relate different types and sources of information in real-time. Enterprise Designer offers a unified environment for development, integration, deployment, and end user interfaces, and supports the Ontology Web Language (OWL) standard, published by the W3C, to describe relationships at a higher logical level of abstraction. The model — or ontology — created using Enterprise Designer can be exported to other OWL-compliant modeling tools, or it can be deployed directly in Digital Harbor’s run-time environment. Enterprise Designer is available now.