SoftQuad Software Inc. announced the signing of five new XMetaL channel agreements – AGRA Systems Limited, American Computer Innovators Inc., Datalogics Inc., Movement, Inc. and Software AG – that add to SoftQuad’s network of over 70 VARs and OEMs in 13 countries. XMetaL has a familiar word processor-like environment, which makes it a broadly deployable solution that reduces training and implementation costs. XMetaL can increase performance, productivity and stability for users of all skill levels, while giving developers additional tools and functionality to create a more intuitive and integrated XML authoring environment. www.softquad.com
Category: Content technology news (Page 550 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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Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the availability of the Java API for XML Parsing Optional Package (“JAXP” ), and the formation of an expert group for the XML Data Binding project. The expert group for this project, which is going through the Java Community Process, consists of Allaire, Ariba, BEA/Web Logic, Bluestone Software, AOL/Netscape, Extensibility, Fujitsu, IBM, Object Design, Oracle, webMethods and Sun Microsystems. Sun’s announcement of the Java technologies for XML provides universal application logic that complements XML. The Java 2 platform and XML are complementary technologies that each have common features critical for Web-based applications, including platform-independence, industry standards, extensible, reusable, and global language support. Together, the Java 2 platform and XML will allow enterprises to simplify and lower the cost of information sharing and exchange in Web applications. The JAXP Optional Package allows developers to easily build Java-based applications enabled by XML for e-commerce, enterprise application integration, and web publishing. An optional package is a standard Java API that is not part of the Java Runtime Environment but can be optionally added depending on specific application needs. JAXP is now in early access release and available free-of-charge at http://java.sun.com/xml. The final version of JAXP is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 2000. The JAXP optional package provides basic functionality for reading, manipulating, and generating XML documents through pure Java APIs. Seamlessly integrated with the Java 2 platform, JAXP provides a standard way for a Java platform-based application to plug in any XML-conformant parser. While the reference implementation uses Sun’s experimental high performing Java Project X as its default XML parser, the software’s pluggable architecture allows any XML- conformant parser to be used, such as the xml.apache.org XML parser, code named Xerces. (For information on this community project to which Sun donated technology visit www.apache.org) Sun also announced the expert group of industry leaders within the JCP that is working to create XML Data Binding software for the Java 2 platform. This project, code-named Project Adelard, will enable developers to deliver and maintain high-performance XML-enabled applications with a minimum of development effort. Project Adelard provides a two-way mapping between XML documents and Java-based objects along with a schema compiler tool. The compiler will automatically generate Java classes from XML schemas without requiring developers to write any complex parsing code. In addition, the compiler will contain automatic error and validity of checking of XML messages, helping to ensure that only valid, error-free messages are accepted and processed by a system. As with JAXP, Project Adelard is being developed through the JCP. Sun is working with the W3C XML Schema Group and other standards consortia, such as OASIS and XML.org. The specification and reference implementation for Project Adelard are under development by the expert group. Project Adelard will be available during the second quarter of 2000. www.sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that its Forte Fusion enterprise application integration (EAI) suite will feature enhanced support for XML and Java-based technologies that have emerged as the foundation for standards-based e-commerce solutions. Fusion uses an XML-based integration backbone and XSL for data integration. In addition, Sun announced that Forte Fusion will be enhanced to support Java technology-based adapters and Sun’s Java Message Queue 1.0 enterprise messaging software, giving customers increased access to open technologies to dot-com their businesses. The Fusion XSLT Data Transformation Engine employs XSLT to solve the core data transformation problem at the heart of any EAI solution. To support the development of XSLT rules, the Fusion Workshop for XSLT provides a graphical interactive workshop for authoring and testing. These XSLT capabilities will be available in the beta release of Forte Fusion 2.0 scheduled for the first quarter of 2000. During 2000, Forte Fusion will be enhanced to support Sun’s Java Message Queue 1.0 enterprise messaging software as a transport for its XML-based data integration backbone. Within Forte Fusion, messaging services are used to link separate applications into the Fusion backbone, which in turn provides services for data transformation and connectivity into the Fusion Business Process Engine. Fusion’s Java Message Queue support will complement existing support for HTTP and IBM’s MQSeries. In the Forte Fusion architecture, adapters are application wrappers whose sole purpose is to XML-enable applications that are not equipped with native XML support. Adapters connect to the Fusion backbone through a message transport, while the backbone provides semantic integration through the transformation of XML with XSL rules. This approach ensures that adapters are lightweight, quick to develop and reusable as general-purpose XML adapters. www.forte.com/product/fusion
The Graphic Communications Association announced the creation of the not-for-profit International Digital Enterprise Alliance (IDEAlliance). IDEAlliance will provide comprehensive support to working groups engaged in developing industry- specific applications of both vertical and cross-industry open information standards. Current member groups of the IDEAlliance include: the Information and Content Exchange (ICE), which establishes standards for the syndication and aggregation of information across industries; the Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM), which is developing a standard XML metadata vocabulary for the publishing industry; the Customer Profile Exchange Network, a vendor-neutral open standard for the privacy-enabled exchange of customer profile information across disparate systems and applications; and the Independent Consultants Cooperative (ICC), an organization of XML/SGML consultants. Like its predecessor, the Graphic Communications Association Research Institute, IDEAlliance will serve as a host for meetings of the committees and other working groups of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), OASIS, ANSI, and W3C – groups responsible for the development and maintenance of structured information standards, XML, SGML, and their derivatives. www.IDEAlliance.org
Arbortext, Inc., announced that Epic 3.0 and Adept 9.0, now support key Web standards aimed at easing customer and third-party developer efforts and maintaining interoperability with other key software platforms. In addition to extended Java support, Epic and Adept now support XSL, XSLT, DOM and COM standards. Combined with support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and additional scripting languages, these new standards offer Epic and Adept users a wide new range of interoperability options for developing XML-based e-Content. In addition, Arbortext software can now run as COM servers to provide Windows applications access to the DOM. This allows Windows programmers to write document-processing applications in Visual Basic, C, C++ and Java. With these new releases, developers on Windows can now write programs in Java that call, or are called by, Arbortext Command Language (ACL) scripts. Arbortext supports XSLT for those customers who have complex electronic publishing requirements that require the transformation of multiple types of tag sets. For customers who want to continue to use their existing stylesheets for their electronic publishing needs, Arbortext will continue to support them in both Epic and Adept. Arbortext uses CSS in the published output for the Web. CSS allows users to customize the display of HTML in a Web browser without having to edit transformation stylesheets. Arbortext also announced that in upcoming releases, it plans to support additional scripting languages such as Perl, TCL, Python and Microsoft scripting languages. Support for these scripting languages will provide another option to programmers who write document-processing functions. Pricing for Epic 3.0 and Adept 9.0 varies, depending on number of seats purchased, type of licensing, and number of modules. Epic 3.0 and Adept 9.0 will be available Dec. 15. www.arbortext.com
Interwoven, Inc. launched TeamSite 4.0, the latest version of its product. With a range of new features, TeamSite 4.0 builds on Interwoven
Scriptics Corporation announced the release of a full-production version of Scriptics Connect, the company’s business-to-business integration server. Scriptics also unveiled a beta release of Scriptics Connect v1.1, which provides support for the Red Hat Linux operating system and Netscape Enterprise Web servers. Scriptics Connect is an XML infrastructure for developing business-to-business applications. Scriptics Connectfeatures a number of innovative new technologies that significantly reduce the programming skill level required to capture business logic and create business integration applications. It provides a simple point-and-click mechanism for mapping between differing data structures. Scriptics Connect Author enables business and data analysts to create applications by dragging and dropping elements in a schematic view of an XML document. Much like pasting “Post-It” notes on a paper form to indicate how it should be processed, Scriptics Connect Author makes it easy for the analyst to attach actions to XML elements indicating how to process the corresponding elements. Many actions are pre-defined with action wizards, and because Scriptics Connect is built on the popular Tcl scripting language, developers can write simple scripts or develop custom wizards for custom actions. Unlike lower-level approaches that restrict programming to just one language, Scriptics Connect allows programming in a variety of languages, so users can use the language that is most appropriate to the task or that they’re most familiar with. Scriptics Connect 1.0 includes the Apache Web server on UNIX and contains an interface to Microsoft IIS Web server on Windows NT. Scriptics Connect 1.1 also provides support for the Red Hat Linux operating system and Netscape Web servers. With XML translation functionality. Scriptics Connect 1.0 is immediately available. Prices start at $62,500 for a complete development and deployment environment. Scriptics Connect 1.1 is currently available as a beta release and will be available for general release before the end of 1999. www.scriptics.com
Informatica Corporation announced PowerCenter.e, an expanded version of its PowerCenter data-integration software with new features added to enable e-business analysis. PowerCenter.e will help companies leverage their data across multiple sales, supplier and customer-interaction channels for business intelligence by integrating huge volumes of Web-transactionand clickstream data with information from more traditional enterprise sources such as ERP systems, relational databases, mainframe systems and external demographic databases. Informatica PowerCenter.e offers a set of unique capabilities that effectively extend PowerCenter’s reach to address the e-business market. By adding support for IBM’s MQSeries PowerCenter.e will provide near real-time support for extraction and loading of data from a company’s message queue infrastructure. PowerCenter.e’s support for message queuing will provide the vital framework for asynchronous, event-based, real-time e-business analytics. With PowerCenter.e, e-businesses will be able to import their XML data into a relational format while importing the metadata about that XML file into the data warehouse repository. As XML begins to gain widespread adoption, companies’ ability to source XML data will be vital to enabling e-business analysis. PowerCenter.e will ease the process of retrieving data from Web logs by providing tools to import and consolidate Web logs, and transform proprietary Web-log formats into standard, readable structures. PowerCenter.e will support sourcing and parsing of data from today’s three leading Web server products from Microsoft, Netscape and Apache. PowerCenter.e will be generally available in Q1 ’00. Pricing will start at $100,000, with upgrades for current PowerCenter customers starting at $50,000. www.informatica.com
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