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 547 of 640)
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
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
InterWorld Corporation announced a strategic partnership with Interwoven, Inc. InterWorld’s Dev Station 3.0, an integrated development environment for developers and systems integrators, and InterWorld’s Design Station 3.0, an integrated environment for Web designers and content authors, will include pre-built adapters for Interwoven’s, TeamSite a product built specifically for enabling the creation, production and management of Web content. These adapters enable out-of-the-box integration with Interwoven TeamSite software. www.interwoven.com, www.interworld.com
fourthchannel customers can now easily link the Internet company’s e-commerce selling solutions to dozens of front- and back-office applications, thanks to a strategic partnership with Oberon Software Inc.. The new arrangement brings together fourthchannel, inc. with Oberon Software Inc. to provide a complete Internet Business Environment (IBE) for mid-market manufacturers and distributors. Oberon’s e-Enterprise Integration Platform provides the means for fast and complete integration with numerous front- and back-office applications and information-sharing technologies. This includes enterprise applications such as J.D. Edwards, Ariba, Manugistics, SAP, Oracle, Siebel, Peoplesoft , and Baan , as well as technologies such as IBM’s MQSeries and XML, without costly and time-intensive custom programming. Integration between fourthchannel Release 2.0 and Oberon’s e-Enterprise integration platform will be available in the first quarter of 2000 through fourthchannel’s existing sales channels. www.oberon.com, www.fourthchannel.com
A “dialect” of XML specifically designed to let on-line businesses and service providers manage the delivery of services to their customers across extranets has been developed by Manage.Com. The new manageXML language enables users of Manage.Com’s FrontLine e.M eBusiness management software to create a set of document-like descriptions of managed objects, including Internet infrastructure devices, transactions and business processes. The documents, which establish inter-object relationships and dependencies, supply FrontLine e.M with the basis for provisioning services and taking corrective action. manageXML can model not only physical objects but also logical entities. This is essential in representing logical objects such as managed services, for example, and modeling eCommerce sessions that simulate a user’s progress through a series of transactions. manageXML has four major components: object data sources, object definitions, service management logic and service control panels. manageXML Included with manageXML is an Authoring Kit that provides software tools, templates, examples and documentation designed to facilitate the creation, validation and testing of manageXML documents. Key components of the kit include manageXML authoring tools, which help vendors and integrators wishing to build new manageXML documents using previously defined vendor-specific documents or transfer managed definitions originally created as SNMP MIBs; the manageXML static validator, which ensures correct syntax and format of documents created in manageXML; and a manageXML object validator, which enables correct formation of manageXML documents. manageXML and the manageXML Authoring Kit are available free of charge to users of Manage.Com’s FrontLine e.M software. In addition, an initial set of manageXML documents, developed by Manage.Com, is available now for six managed objects: Windows NT, IIS, SQLServer, Microsoft Exchange, MIB II and the Cisco 2500/7000 routers. A second set of documents, to be available in January, will cover HTTP transactions, UNIX, Oracle, Apache, Netscape Enterprise Server, Check Point Firewall-1, POP3, Cisco Catalyst 5000 and Cisco PIX Firewall. www.manage.com
The HR-XML Consortium announced that more than 25 organizations have endorsed an XML framework designed to enable web-based workforce management and recruiting services. Based on open, business-to-business e-commerce models, these next- generation workforce management and recruiting services promise to deliver employers greater ROI for their staffing expenditures, while giving HR and staffing vendors new opportunities for growth and profit. The HR-XML Consortium is a newly formed non-profit group dedicated to the development and promotion of standardized human-resources-related XML vocabularies for enabling business-to-business e-commerce and the automation of inter-company exchanges of human resources data. Staffing and Recruiting is the first of many HR areas that the HR-XML Consortium will standardize. www.icarian.com

