MERANT unveiled DataDirect Connect for XML. DataDirect Connect for XML reduces the amount of work required to implement XML for data integration, helping customers rapidly implement business-to-business systems. MERANT’s new XML technology will be key to helping companies rapidly adopt XML, providing a way to exchange and integrate data across standard tools and applications like Microsoft Visual Basic, Seagate Info and Allaire ColdFusion. DataDirect Connect for XML provides SQL capabilities to applications accessing XML data, increasing customer flexibility, speeding deployment of new applications and leveraging existing skills and tools. DataDirect Connect for XML is one of the technologies fundamental to helping companies implement MERANT’s Egility Data Integration solution for e-business. The MERANT Egility Data Integration solution combines products and services that help extend the effectiveness of data in the enterprise value chain, enabling rapid and dynamic access to integrated information for an organization’s customers, partners, suppliers and employees. MERANT Egility Data Integration empowers businesses for change by equipping them with a data integration strategy to respond to rapidly changing market dynamics. www.merant.com
Category: Content technology news (Page 545 of 638)
Curated information technology news for content technology, computing, and digital experience professionals. News items are edited to remove hype, unhelpful jargon, iffy statements, and quotes, to create a short summary — mostly limited to 200 words — of the important facts with a link back to a useful source for more information. News items are published using the date of the original source here and in our weekly email newsletter.
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Bidcom, Inc. announced that the company has been elected to lead the Construction/Project Management working group, one of six such groups that make up the aecXML Project. Larry Chen, chief technology officer at Bidcom, will chair the group on Bidcom’s behalf. The aecXML Project www.aecxml.org is a building industry consortium founded by Bentley Systems in August 1999 to standardize the definition and exchange of architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) data. Based on XML, aecXML will use an XML schema to describe the information that is routinely exchanged between building industry professionals. Using this schema, industry companies will be able to share project information and conduct e-commerce across all software applications. More than 450 organizations worldwide are participating in the aecXML project. In addition to Construction/Project Management, aecXML working groups address the following areas: Design/Estimating/Scheduling/Cost Management, Product Catalogs, Procurement, Operations/Maintenance/Facility, Management, and Plant. aecXML is a framework for using XML in the architectural, engineering and construction industries. It includes an XML schema to describe information specific to the information exchanges between participants involved in designing, constructing and operating buildings, plants, infrastructure and facilities. The various software applications used by these participants can transfer messages formatted according to the aecXML schema to coordinate and synchronize related project information. In addition, a standard aecXML specification will facilitate e-commerce between suppliers and purchasers of equipment, materials, supplies, parts and services based on that same technical information. www.aecxml.org, www.bidcom.com
UniCapital Corporation announced it has published an XML schema on Microsoft’s BizTalk Web site that will enable commercial equipment leasing companies to exchange invoices with customers over the Internet. UniCapital expects that this schema will facilitate e-commerce in the $220 billion equipment leasing industry by providing companies with a universally compatible program for filing invoices electronically. By developing a standard e-commerce language for invoicing, UniCapital expects its schema to result in cost savings and increased operating efficiencies for equipment leasing companies and their customers. www.unicapitalcorp.com
A forum of Internet-focused companies announced a major initiative aimed at delivering value added services that leverage the Internet’s infrastructure, increasing the intelligence and flexibility of networks. The goal of the forum is the cooperative review and consideration of ideas and concepts to create an open standards-based protocol – Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) that is expected to be presented to the IETF early in 2000. The proposed standard will allow enterprises, content providers and ISPs to seamlessly conduct e-services such as targeted Web advertising, virus scanning, content filtering, data compression and language translation on any Internet access device. The ICAP Forum is hosted by Akamai Technologies and Network Appliance, and is joined by Internet companies including content delivery service providers, application and content developers, and Internet infrastructure companies. Forum members who have endorsed the drafting of the open protocol include: Allaire Corporation, Appliant, Inc., BroadVision, Cobalt Networks, Direct Hit, DoubleClick, eBuilt, eColor, Engage, Entera, Exodus, Finjan Software, Frictionless Commerce, Globix, Google, Inc., Idiom, Inc., InfoLibria, Ingeniux, iWeb.com, Inc., Lionbridge Technologies, Network Associates, Novell, N2H2, Open Market, Optibase, Oracle Corp., Pandesic, Predictive Networks, Rulespace, Secure Computing, SightPath, Trend Micro, Inc., Vignette Corporation, Websense, and WWWhoosh. Additional partners are welcome and can join by sending email to partners@i-cap.org. The development of ICAP is only an example of the specific work under way by participants in the forum, with an objective to have a draft for review (prior to submitting to the IETF) at the group’s first meeting on February 14 in San Francisco. The first value added services solutions are expected to reach the marketplace in Q1 2000. www.i-cap.org.
IONA Technologies announced that it plans to include support in IONA iPortal Suite for the WAP Forum’s Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Support for WAP will be built into IONA iPortal Server, a component of IONA iPortal Suite. IONA iPortal Server is a portal access and central control point that provides integration between front-end Internet applications and back-end systems, manages customized views of all internal applications, and provides reliable, secure and scalable access to internal and external applications. IONA iPortal Server provides the view into back-end enterprise applications by interoperating with IONA iPortal Integration Server, and new component-based application logic by interoperating with IONA iPortal Application Server. WAP support will be provided in the form of an Adaptive Runtime Technology (ART) plug-in. ART is a flexible, transport-independent architecture, which underlies all of the components of iPortal Suite. ART’s flexibility alleviates iPortal Suite developers from having to maintain a separate set of WAP-formatted pages. iPortal Suite will check the end-user’s protocol on login, and will automatically supply wireless device users with WAP-formatted content. www.iona.com
Bridges for Islands, Inc. announced the availability of its XML-based BRAHMS B2BEngine. The new product connects previously disparate trading partners, enabling the automation of their business processes. Since BRAHMS B2BEngine is based on XML, its integration solution can meet the needs of any business integration scenario. Bridges’ technology is based on a distributed communities architecture, which produces a highly robust and stable infrastructure. The BRAHMS B2BEngine solution bridges the different information sources, operating systems and platforms and allows for rapid integration. As a result, BRAHMS B2BEngine provides the means for trading partners to achieve real-time integration across their entire supply chain, and enter the e-Business age with minimal changes to their core IT infrastructure. www.b4i.com
Interwoven, Inc. and net.Genesis Corp. announced a partnership and a combined solution, which drives changes in Web site content based on real-time site analysis. This solution will enable Interwoven TeamSite customers to target Web content based on the e-customer intelligence from net.Genesis net.Analysis reports. The combined solution will empower business managers to identify their most compelling content for particular customers and make timely changes to Web content in a controlled environment. For example, an eRetailer may test several different layouts for an online catalog and use information provided by net.Analysis to determine the most effective layout for turning lookers into buyers. Based on these results they will be able to make the appropriate revisions through TeamSite. www.netgen.com, www.interwoven.com
Hewlett-Packard Company has made its e-speak source code freely available to software developers and the public via the Internet at www.e-speak.net. More than 1,000 software developers are working with HP to develop applications on the e-speak platform; HP also is working with more than 100 business partners to create e-speak services. Examples of such businesses include an engineer dispatch e-service by Ericsson and a multimedia broker for training services by Helsinki Telephone. E-speak, announced by HP in May, is an Internet software technology platform developed by HP Labs designed to revolutionize the way people and businesses use the Net. Much like how HTML made it easy for people to find and access information anywhere on the World Wide Web, e-speak will make it possible to request and locate services on the Net. The e-speak development project is leveraging existing technologies and standards. Therefore, even some of the innovations in e-speak, such as the specification of negotiation policies and contracts that programs can understand and execute, use existing standard protocols such as XML. E-speak complements device-to-device communication, such as HP’s Chai, Sun’s Jini and Microsoft’s UpnP. E-speak leverages key collaborative technology-standardization efforts, such as RosettaNet, ontology.net and Microsoft’s BizTalk. E-speak utilizes open technology standards on the Internet, including XML, LDAP, HTTP, WAP, SSL, SLP and SNMP. www.hp.com
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