The World Wide Web Consortium announced the release of the first Public Working Draft of the XForms Data Model. The XForms Data Model Working Draft, along with the XForms Requirements document, provide the first cross-industry efforts in seven years to produce the next generation of Web-based forms. When HTML Forms were introduced to the Web in 1993, they provided a means to gather information and perform transactions. The structure of forms served the needs of many users at that time, as well as the devices used to access the Web. Seven years later, the Web is a space where hundreds of millions of users expect to use many different devices to perform increasingly complex transactions, many of which exceed the limitations of the original forms technology. The XForms Subgroup has produced a forms architecture that separates data modeling, logic, and presentation. XForms aims to ease the transition of the Web from HTML to XML. As XHTML 1.0 allows HTML content authors to make a smooth entry into the XML world, XForms allow Web application authors to combine the modularity of XML with the simplicity of HTML to gain key advantages in the areas of device independence, accessibility, business-to-business and consumer e-commerce, and embedded devices. The XForms Data Model deliberately separates the purpose of a form from its presentation. This allows the application author to rigorously define the form data, independent of how end-users interact with the application. The separation facilitates the development of Web applications with user interaction components, and provides advantages to Web application developers. In the XForms suite of specifications, the rules for describing, validating, and submitting application data are expressed in XML, as well as the submitted data. By providing the rules and data in XML, XForms lays the foundation for combinations with other XML applications, supporting the extensible Web. Separating purpose and presentation also makes device independence easier to achieve by allowing Web application authors to write the data model once for all devices. Because the data model is not tied to presentation, developers may customize the presentation in a way that best suits each device’s user interface. Support for device independence paves the way for a Web that is accessible to all users. www.w3c.org
Category: Content technology news (Page 519 of 638)
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Interwoven, Inc. and KPMG Consulting LLC announced a global strategic alliance to help enterprises more quickly build eBusiness Web sites. As part of the Alliance, KPMG Consulting is building a global Interwoven practice supported by key KPMG Global Solutions Centers. The alliance is designed to meet the needs of companies ranging from Web-based businesses to the Fortune 1000. KPMG Consulting will be a preferred systems integrator of Interwoven’s products and will include Interwoven TeamSite software in its eBusiness solution portfolio. www.kpmgconsulting.com, www.interwoven.com
Softshare announced the immediate availability of Softshare Delta 2.0. The new Softshare Delta release includes many user-friendly enhancements to further assist in the integration between e-commerce and traditional data formats. The latest version of Softshare Delta is built upon a core mapping product that translates EDI and XML documents into flat file or database formats — and vice versa. Delta also supports mapping to text formats, such as HTML, to aid in Web integration. Softshare Delta 2.0 incorporates several new prominent features, including support of the Microsoft BizTalk Framework. Softshare Delta’s support of this XML framework allows Delta users to integrate BizTalk documents into their business environment. Delta users can generate and automatically address BizTalk documents using the framework’s approved set of XML tags as well as author BizTalk-compatible XML schemas for use throughout the trading partner community. Other features added in this release are Microsoft Visual SourceSafe integration for map version tracking, flat file optimizations for faster map execution, and improved trouble-shooting features. Available for $3,600-$5,800, Softshare Delta works with Softshare Vista 2.0 or Softshare’s Electronic Commerce Server (ECS) application for data communications, tracking and map execution management. Current Delta users will receive the Delta 2.0 upgrade at no additional cost. www.softshare.com
Software AG, headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, has opened a new U.S. arm, aggressively focused on marketing native XML technology to companies in the United States. Software AG’s XML offering, Tamino, a native XML information server, is part of a full suite of native XML products Software AG is offering for mission-critical e-business. Tamino is a complete Web-enabled data management system for data exchange and application integration. Unlike relational databases, it stores, retrieves and exchanges data in XML as its natural format, without the need for conversion to other formats. www.softwareagusa.com
Ironside Technologies Inc. announced the Ironside XCHANGE trading exchange integration module. Available today, Ironside XCHANGE provides an XML-based transaction standard for online trading exchanges without a transaction protocol in place. Ironside XCHANGE provides online exchanges all of the essential business actions required for sellers and buyers to effectively conduct business, enabling static “informediary” exchanges to immediately support dynamic trade. Trading exchanges integrating sellers with this module are able to immediately broker real-time transactions and queries such as product availability, market-specific price and available-to-promise (ATP) status. Ironside XCHANGE is available free of charge to any online trading exchange without a transaction protocol in place. Once Ironside XCHANGE is in place, trading exchanges have immediate real-time access to the entire Ironside Network seller community, which is the industry’s largest group of business suppliers. www.ironside.net
eBusiness Technologies announced that DynaBase now runs on the Sun-Netscape Alliance’s iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition 4 SP4, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Sun Microsystems’ Solaris 7 Operating Environment. DynaBase includes server and client-side components. The server-side components run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Sun Solaris 2.6 and Sun Solaris 7. The client components, which provide access to the content management and production capabilities of DynaBase, run on Windows 98/NT, Windows 2000, Mac 8.6, Sun Solaris 2.6 and Sun Solaris 7. DynaBase will begin shipping immediately with support for iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition 4 SP4, Windows 2000 and Solaris 7 Operating Environment. www.ebt.com
Datawatch Corporation announced an XML product suite that transforms legacy transaction documents and text data streams into XML on an automated basis. The suite, which will be available to Datawatch partners next quarter and to end-users in the fall, includes a Windows-based XML GUI designer and an XML Data Pump. The technology will also be incorporated into Datawatch’s own line of enterprise reporting products. Datawatch’s new XML Suite allows transaction data, statement data, EDI streams, and other structured document information to be extracted, scrubbed, transformed, validated, and converted to well-formed XML on an automated basis without new programming. Datawatch’s product suite includes a Windows-based XML GUI designer and an XML Data Pump. Each product will be available first as an enabling technology for Datawatch partners and then as an end user product. The XML GUI Designer allows the user to view a sample copy of the input document and break it into templates and fields. Each template generates a table of records which can be logically filtered and extended through calculated fields and database joins. The designer also provides a visual interface for defining the relationship through which the input templates map to an XML schema. The XML Data Pump, when fed an individual input document or stream of documents, has the ability to search the document profile database and associate the appropriate profile with the input. Using the profile, the XML Data Pump generates and outputs a series of XML documents. www.datawatch.com
Input Software Inc. announced a new release of its InputAccel information capture solution. InputAccel 3.0 transforms mission-critical information trapped on traditional paper and fax documents into e-business ready content such as XML. InputAccel delivers this e-content to customer databases and the Web, or uses the information to trigger e-commerce transaction workflow processes. InputAccel 3.0 includes new automation technologies that allow Internet businesses to significantly increase the speed and accuracy with which they can transform paper into e-content. InputAccel 3.0 includes: InputAccel/Forms, a suite of InputAccel modules that incorporate advanced recognition technologies to automatically extract critical business data from paper or faxed forms; InputAccel/Document ID, which automatically distinguishes between hundreds of different document types so that each may be routed to the appropriate capture process; and InputAccel/Index, which enables high-speed data entry operations for those documents requiring human intervention. InputAccel 3.0 is scheduled to ship to Beta at the end of Q2 2000. www.inputsw.com
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