Intuit Inc. and Microsoft Corporation announced proposed additions to the next version of the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) specification. The new features would include 401(k) extensions, 1099 capability and transfers between brokerage accounts. In addition, the companies are proposing XML compliance in version 2.0 and intend to make the new version backward compatible with OFX 1.0.2, OFX 1.5.1 and OFX 1.6, the versions widely used by financial services companies today. Finally, Intuit and Microsoft have indicated that they will propose adding insurance data and transactions in subsequent versions of OFX. Intuit and Microsoft are actively engaged with the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) Working Group to support the creation and rollout of the IFX standard. At whatever point IFX becomes established and a certification process exists for high-quality implementations, Intuit and Microsoft plan to work closely with the IFX Working Group to create a migration path for existing OFX Solution Providers and to preserve the existing investment in OFX by these companies. This will be important as the number of financial institutions and technology providers that use OFX continues to grow, because OFX is here now, it works, and these companies have relied on OFX to bring their online financial services offerings to market quickly. Intuit is drafting the proposed 2.0 specification and will submit it to Microsoft and CheckFree for their review and input. Together, the three companies develop and maintain the OFX specification. Intuit is targeting release of the specification in Q1 2000. www.intuit.com, www.microsoft.com
Category: Content technology news (Page 550 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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webMethods, Inc. and KPMG LLP announced a joint software and services solution for implementing B2B e-commerce initiatives based on the RosettaNet standards. RosettaNet’s primary goal is to streamline the information technology supply chain and to improve the flow of critical information allowing information technology supply chain partners to fully leverage e-commerce applications and the Internet as a B2B e-commerce tool. This joint offering is specifically designed to address the needs of RosettaNet’s key constituents
Versant Corporation announced enhancements to its suite of software products for Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) compliant development environments, plus an early developer release of the Versant XML (VXML) Toolkit. VEC 2.1 now supports IBM’s WebSphere 3.0, IBM’s most current family of application servers. Versant’s early developer release of the VXML toolkit allows Versant’s ODBMS product to be used in applications based on emerging Internet corporate data interchange standard, XML. The VXML toolkit allows XML content to be cached in the middle-tier as objects, thereby leveraging Versant’s ODBMS product as a platform for transactional, fault-tolerant eBusiness applications. WebSphere 3.0 Advanced Edition brings improved deployment of EJB technology, application-level security for EJBs, and the IBM SecureWay Directory, which provides LDAP availability to other LDAP-enabled directories. WebSphere 3.0 also includes advanced XML support, to enable easier, standardized exchange of data between multiple web sites. VXML toolkit includes the XML parser, XSLT for content translation, XML/object mapping tools and APIs. VXML is available from the Versant web site as an early developer release. Commercial availability is scheduled for Q1 2000. www.versant.com
Intraspect Software, Inc announced that tSA Consulting Group has agreed to a strategic alliance to resell Intraspect Knowledge Server 3.0. tSA’s major objective is to provide their customers with intelligent E-Business solutions that enable information sharing and collaboration among knowledge workers. IKS integrates with tSA’s existing infrastructure, and also enhances the Microsoft desktop, by providing collaborative knowledge management capabilities that integrate with and leverage Microsoft technology. www.intraspect.com
Reuters is to introduce NewsML to present its news services. NewsML is an open standards-based format for the creation, transfer and delivery of news. It is based on the XML. Reuters has taken the initiative in the creation and adoption of NewsML through the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). The IPTC recently established a programme, IPTC 2000, which will deliver a single XML-based format for managing news production. An increasing number of Reuters subscribers are establishing themselves on the Internet and requesting delivery in XML. www.reuters.com
GoToWorld.com announced the launch of their Universal Translator Dictionary, an online translation dictionary offering translation in 33 languages. While most translation dictionaries focus on translating from or into English, Universal Translator Dictionary can translate directly between any of 33 languages, allowing both English and non-English speakers access to a multitude of languages. The result is instant understanding and comprehension of information. GoToWorld.com’s free Universal Translator Dictionary and Universal Translator Messenger are available at www.GoToWorld.com
Bowstreet delivered a universal directory service language for the Internet to three key Internet standards bodies. This language, called Directory Services Markup Language (DSML), is supported by the collective efforts of IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and the Sun-Netscape Alliance. By helping establish directories as the infrastructure for e-commerce applications, DSML enables easy sharing of valuable business data and processes within and across company boundaries. DSML will also accelerate the industry shift toward business-to-business applications built on Web services, modular units of software functionality located anywhere on the Internet. DSML and Web services will enable companies to develop dynamic e-commerce Web sites that can uniquely meet the needs of a company’s customers and business partners. The DSML 1.0 specification submission enables different vendors’ directory services to work together more easily by describing their contents – including data about people and computing resources – in XML. The announcement keeps the working group’s July 12 promise to reach consensus on a draft standard this year. The six companies turned over the DSML 1.0 specification draft to OASIS. In an effort to gain rapid and widespread acceptance, DSML 1.0 information is also being provided to the W3C and BizTalk. The DSML effort builds upon Bowstreet’s work over the past two years on the Bowstreet Web Automation Factory, a system for dynamically creating, managing, and linking mass-customized Web sites for B2B e-commerce. www.dsml.org, www.bowstreet.com
SoftQuad Software Inc. announced the release of XMetaL 1.2, a free upgrade for its advanced, yet easy-to-use, XML authoring solution. The upgrade increases XMetaL’s performance and productivity for users of all skill levels, and provides powerful new tools for publishing XMLdocuments to the Web. For content authors, XMetaL 1.2 includes a number of performance and productivity enhancements, including improved table handling, improved CSS rendering, improved spell checking and more intuitive editing functions. To help organizations produce Web-ready HTML from XML documents, XMetaL 1.2 includes a built-in XSL transformation engine. The engine is implemented as an XSLT COM object, which developers can access through scripts. Using XSL stylesheets, XML documents can easily be transformed to HTML for output to a browser or a file. In addition, developers can use the XSLT COM object for performing other complex document transformations on the fly, directly within XMetaL. Other improvements now found in XMetaL 1.2 give developers the ability to automate more processes to increase productivity when authoring XML documents. These include: Broader Event Trapping and Scriptable Entity Creation. XMetaL 1.2 is available December 10th as a downloadable upgrade for registered users of XMetaL 1.0. New users can purchase XMetaL 1.2 for $495.00 (U.S.) per single user license. www.softquad.com
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