Category: Content technology news (Page 513 of 638)

The VoiceXML Forum announced that the W3C has acknowledged the submission of Version 1.0 of the VoiceXML specification. At its May 10-12 meetings in Paris, the W3C’s Voice Browser Working Group agreed to adopt VoiceXML 1.0 as the basis for the development of a W3C dialog markup language. The Forum’s founding members, AT&T, IBM, Lucent Technologies, and Motorola made the W3C submission. Acknowledgement by the W3C will help to accelerate and expand the reach of the Internet through voice-enabled Web content and services. The VoiceXML Forum will host the next meeting of the W3C Voice Browser Working Group in September 2000. Since the release of VoiceXML 1.0 in March 2000, the Forum has nearly doubled its supporter membership to more than 150 companies. Based on XML, Version 1.0 of the VoiceXML specification provides a high-level programming interface to speech and telephony resources for application developers, service providers and equipment manufacturers. Standardization of VoiceXML will: simplify creation and delivery of Web-based, personalized interactive voice-response services; enable phone and voice access to integrated call center databases, information and services on Web sites, and company intranets; and help enable new voice-capable devices and appliances. More information about VoiceXML can be obtained at www.w3.org/Submission/2000/04/ or www.voicexml.org. The complete W3C Note, Voice eXtensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) version 1.0, can be obtained directly at www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-voicexml-20000505/.

Informix Corporation and eHelp Corporation announced a partnership in a joint effort to support the ALURe specification. ALURe, the Aggregation and Logging of User Requests, is an open implementation of XML that tracks and reports usage patterns in Help and customer assistance systems on Web sites. Led by eHelp, the ALURe Partner Program is designed to bring industry leaders together with a shared interest in promoting user assistance standards for the Web. The open ALURe specification defines how companies identify, track and modify trouble areas on their Web sites. By adopting this specification, companies can easily obtain valuable feedback and usability data about their site when using data mining, analysis and reporting tools. The ALURe specification and Informix Object Translator are for capturing and analyzing critical customer care information to improve customer service on the Web. Informix Object Translator, a data integration tool for mapping the relationships of XML objects to the Informix Foundation.2000 database server provides two-way transparent mapping between the ALURe XML model and the data collection model in the database. Informix Object Translator generates Java components to handle ALURe XML documents, making it easy to integrate ALURe transcripts with common business analysis tools. Any data mining and analysis tool that recognizes XML can use data gathered through ALURe. Adopting the ALURe standard allows developers to make continual Web site improvements that ALURe data point to, and alleviates the need to implement data gathering and reporting technologies into their online User Assistance Systems. www.alurexml.org, www.ehelp.com, www.informix.com

webMethods, Inc. announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Active Software, Inc. in an all-stock transaction. This acquisition brings together two vendors whose software solutions address the integration requirements of global companies and industry trading exchanges, both within the enterprise and across B2B trading networks. The companies expect that the transaction will close during the third quarter of 2000, pending completion of customary closing conditions and receipt of Active Software and webMethods stockholder and required government approvals. Under the terms of the agreement, Active Software’s stockholders will receive 0.527 of a share of webMethods common stock in exchange for each share of Active Software common stock. The transaction, valued at approximately $1.3 billion based upon the Friday, May 19, 2000 closing price of webMethods common stock, is expected to be accounted for as a pooling-of-interests. Approximately 13.6 million shares of webMethods stock will be exchanged for all outstanding shares of Active Software. webMethods was advised by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Active Software was advised by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Thomas Weisel Partners. Until now, companies have been forced to adopt separate solutions for uniting internal business processes, and then sharing and integrating these processes with external trading partners, either directly or via B2B marketplaces and trading exchanges. Upon completion of the acquisition, Active Software’s products and operations will be combined with webMethods. Phillip Merrick will continue in his role as president, CEO and chairman of webMethods, with Jim Green, Active Software’s CEO, joining the team in the role of CTO and executive vice president, product development. Green will also join the webMethods Board of Directors. Other members of the Active Software management team will join the webMethods management team. Active Software’s Santa Clara, Calif. offices will become the West Coast headquarters of webMethods. The combined companies will have nearly 600 employees worldwide. www.webmethods.com, www.activesw.com

webMethods, Inc. announced that i2 Technologies, Inc. has selected webMethods for integrating participating companies’ systems with i2 TradeMatrix marketplace solutions. In this arrangement, i2 will resell and market webMethods B2B as the B2Bi solution to companies interested in integrating with i2’s TradeMatrix. webMethods B2B will be embedded in TradeMatrix to provide TradeMatrix marketplaces with a comprehensive business solution that enables companies to deploy business-to-business portals. webMethods B2B will allow the secure integration of a company’s in-house planning and execution systems, across Internet firewalls, with TradeMatrix marketplace solutions. This automatic system-to-system integration will allow participating companies and their trading partners to achieve integrated business workflows. Through this partnership, TradeMatrix customers will benefit from webMethods’ rapid development and deployment capabilities. www.i2.com, www.webMethods.com

Microsoft Corp. announced the newest version of its MSXML parser with built-in support for version 2.0 of the Simple API for XML (SAX2). The decision to implement the SAX2 programming interface, rather than develop a new one, is a reflection of Microsoft’s commitment to deliver the features its customers demand. SAX2 is designed to enable faster and more efficient processing of XML by allowing programs to read, review and process XML files without having to load the entire document into memory. The latest version of the MSXML parser, the third in a series of XML parser technology previews Microsoft began releasing in January 2000, provides another programming interface for building Web-based distributed applications based on standard XML messages. These releases allow Microsoft to achieve its goal of providing new features and updated support for standards in “Web time.” In addition to the new SAX2 support, this release also adds more support for XSLT and Xpath. Development of SAX began in December 1997; its first release was in May 1998. SAX was a collaborative effort developed entirely by the members of the XML-DEV mailing list. The SAX interface is free for commercial and noncommercial use. Although the list of contributors credits over 80 people, including some of the original developers of XML, David Megginson of Megginson Technologies Ltd. (www.megginson.com/) is considered to be the primary developer and maintainer of SAX. SAX 2.0 was released on May 5, 2000. The new release is available for immediate download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/

Interwoven, Inc. announced the availability of the latest version of TeamSite, which now serves the needs of content developers in Europe and Asia by allowing easy content entry for languages based on both single-byte and multi-byte characters such as French, German and Japanese. This means faster time-to-Web and reduced development costs for multi-lingual sites. With the latest version of Interwoven TeamSite software and XML-based TeamSite Templating, non-technical users can easily enter content and metadata on content for multiple languages. This makes it easier for organizations to extend the responsibility for content development and management throughout the global organization. Because metadata can also be in the local language, content can be more easily syndicated across multiple sites and can be easily searched and shared with other applications. Development costs associated with multi-lingual sites will also be reduced because local teams are now empowered to manage content in local languages. The entire task-based workflow process, from content development, to quality assurance, and approval through deployment can now be directed in local languages, which reduces the cost and decreases the time required to manage content. The latest version of TeamSite Templating now has improved database integration and content re-use functionality. TeamSite Templating enables content reuse by separating content from presentation, which allows content creators to more easily contribute without having to worry about the details of presentation. This release extends TeamSite Templating’s XML-based architecture by providing the ability to “nest” page components which extends content reuse capabilities. The TeamSite Templating page generation engine combines content elements and Interwoven OpenDeploy can then be used to automatically deploy these pages to the production environment including application servers for dynamic delivery. TeamSite 4.2.1 is available immediately. www.interwoven.com/products/teamsite