Category: Marketing & e-commerce (Page 53 of 73)

XMLSolutions Corporation announced the immediate availability of Vocabulary Builder for E- Business. Vocabulary Builder is a program designed to bridge a company’s existing business vocabulary to today’s e-commerce language while maintaining contextual definitions on both ends. XMLSolutions’ Vocabulary Builder allows companies to conduct business using the same syntax it has always used by XML-izing existing business vocabulary, semantics unchanged, so that the company can communicate electronically. Vocabulary Builder extends business operations across the Internet without revolutionizing core business processes. XMLSolutions utilizes Schema Central and their META-X Methodology to identify corporate metadata crucial to the successful implementation of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and e-business initiatives. The Vocabulary Builder program pinpoints strategic business information and executes a crucial step in developing e-commerce solutions. Creating DTDs that represent key business information is a primary function of Vocabulary Builder. www.xmls.com

Delano Technology Corporation announced the release of the Delano Component Pack for XML, which extends the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite to provide native support for XML and the standard XML document formats used in B2B applications. By leveraging XML, the Delano Component Pack for XML increases the level of integration between Delano e-business applications and enterprise applications, including ERP and legacy systems, enabling enterprises to reduce the costs and increase the effectiveness of interacting with business partners over the web, e-mail, and other communication channels. The Delano Component Pack for XML, coupled with the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite allows companies to leverage existing databases, enterprise applications and systems infrastructure to automatically exchange data between disparate and/or legacy applications, as well as supplier and partner systems. Through the efficient use and integration of XML and e-business applications, an enterprise can significantly reduce the costs associated with B2B interactions via EDI or manual processes. The Delano Component Pack for XML facilitates commerce interactions between trading partners, enabling buyers and suppliers to tighten relationships and extend trading opportunities. Leveraging the open nature of the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite, the Delano Component Pack for XML provides support for all current and emerging B2B communication standards, including BizTalk, OASIS, cXML, xCBL, OBI, W3C XML, and RosettaNet. This enables enterprises to extract and understand data from these XML standards to further support the automated exchange of B2B documents, such as purchase orders and invoices, through electronic channels. The Delano Component Pack for XML is immediately available from Delano, or a Delano authorized reseller. www.delanotech.com

Mediasurface Limited announced availability of its third generation software. Mediasurface 3 has rules-based one-to-few personalization, high performance caching for dynamic content delivery, WAP support and e-services integration with localization and syndication providers. For most customers, Mediasurface 3 implements in 6-8 weeks, providing a boost in time to market for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and communities-based Web sites. Mediasurface 3 was designed as the hub of e-business to manage all interactions between people, content and applications with high levels of integration and support. Mediasurface 3 takes the ideal content management infrastructure and expands it to include customer features that enhance delivery of content. The dynamic caching capability enables customers to confidently increase site traffic and content bandwidths in line with demand. By separating content from presentation and structure, Mediasurface 3 returns the ownership of content to the business user. The software delivers ease of use and enables non-technical people to disseminate content with virtually no learning curve. Mediasurface 3 builds on Mediasurface’s existing solution for Web content management. New features of Mediasurface 3 include: Group-based personalization out-of-the-box; Linux 6.1 & WAP support ,High performance caching, localization for multilingual sites, syndication for import and export of content via Mediasurface Integrator & Gateway, and full support for Macromedia Dreamweaver as a Mediasurface template design tool, including access enabled through an HTTP connection. Mediasurface 3 is an enterprise strength application suite – not a toolset or commercialized custom-developed software. Mediasurface 3 integrates with e-commerce, knowledge management, design, localization and personalization software, and is delivered through select, highly trained service partners. In addition, Mediasurface 3 follows previous versions by operating in a multi-server environment where content is shared in real time between multiple Mediasurface servers. This content sharing is controlled by workflow rules and allows content to be synchronized in multiple repositories on multiple physical severs. The three-tiered approach to the Mediasurface product also allows the data repository to be held on separate highly tuned database servers where disk is optimized for access speeds and volumes. Pricing for Mediasurface 3 begins at $100,000 and is available directly from Mediasurface, through alliance partners or through ASP partners including Andel Consulting. www.mediasurface.com

Xerox Corporation and Microsoft Corp. joined forces to launch ContentGuard, Inc., a new Internet company that will deliver comprehensive software solutions to protect and manage books, documents, music, software and other valuable content distributed over the Web. The solutions give publishers and authors more control over their digital material, thus allowing them unprecedented freedom and innovation in delivering and marketing digital content to consumers. ContentGuard, Inc.’s technology, originally developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), is the foundation for various products and services to deliver secure, user-friendly solutions for protecting and distributing digital content over the Internet. These digital rights management (DRM) solutions are designed to allow content developers and publishers to establish and retain control over how their materials are used, copied and purchased. Xerox will retain a majority stake in ContentGuard, Inc., formerly the Xerox Rights Management group. Microsoft will be a minority investor, and other investors are expected to be announced in the future. ContentGuard, Inc., Microsoft and Xerox also will collaborate on future development of DRM technology and standards, including the establishment of XrML (eXtensible rights Markup Language) as a common standard for all forms of digital information and entertainment. XrML will be licensed royalty-free to the industry to enable interoperability across rights management systems. Microsoft will use ContentGuard’s technology to extend future versions of Microsoft’s DRM solutions. Microsoft Reader, a new software product for displaying eBooks, will be the first Microsoft product to incorporate the ContentGuard technology when it debuts this summer. ContentGuard technology will also enhance future releases of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Rights Manager. The ContentGuard portfolio includes the ContentGuard Internet content protection software suite and the electronic Publishing Clearing Service (ePCS) offered jointly with Reciprocal Inc. Today ContentGuard can protect and manage digital content such as market research, business reports, patent applications, books, sheet music and academic course packs. Plans are under way to enable DRM solutions for audio and video material. In addition, ContentGuard products and services enable publishers or authors to deploy materials over the Web in new ways; for example, to create free time-restricted previews, single-chapter previews or one-time use scenarios. www.xerox.com, www.microsoft.com

Interwoven, Inc. and BEA Systems, Inc. announced an alliance and the integration of Interwoven TeamSite enterprise-class content management software with BEA WebLogic Personalization Server 2.0 and BEA WebLogic Commerce Server 2.0. The integration allows businesses that serve the e-generation to rapidly and reliably create, manage and deliver dynamic, personalized Web content to enrich their customers’ e-commerce experiences. Interwoven TeamSite software includes a workflow engine that enables organizations to develop, manage and ensure the integrity of the content, and streamline complex project management. TeamSite’s content architecture manages the development of all types of Web assets. BEA WebLogic Personalization Server enables companies to apply business rules to customer profile information and to personalize the customer’s Web experience and create dynamic, tailored interfaces. BEA WebLogic Commerce Server provides highly customizable, out-of-the-box e-commerce functionality that is fully Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) compliant. Together, these solutions enable companies to create value for their customers by developing and delivering personalized content within a flexible, extensible e-commerce application. The complete integration package, which includes documentation and pre-configured sample template and workflow, are available today from Interwoven. BEA WebLogic Commerce Server 2.0 and BEA WebLogic Personalization Server 2.0 are available from BEA. www.interwoven.com, www.bea.com

Liaison Technology released Dexter DE, a software solution that enables companies to succeed in B2B online commerce by enriching the information exchanged between buyer and seller. All enterprises participating in online commerce can benefit from Dexter DE. Companies building an online marketplace use Dexter DE to collect content from supplier Web sites. Sellers of products or services use Dexter DE to obtain descriptive content from their intranet and partner Web sites. Buyers in an online market use Dexter DE to aggregate online product and price information to create custom procurement catalogs. Dexter DE is based on Liaison’s Adaptive Content Recognition technology. Dexter DE harvests content from Web pages that change frequently. The software can be trained to gather any content from unlimited sites and pages. In addition, Dexter DE requires no programming to establish or maintain the data feeds. Users train Dexter DE by surfing to a’ URL and selecting the content to be collected. Once the software is trained to recognize the target content, Dexter DE will automatically gather similar content from other product pages in that site. Even if the target Web page changes, Dexter DE continues to locate the specified content. Dexter DE can automatically harvest content as often as necessary to keep information current. In addition, Dexter DE provides a sophisticated data normalization or rationalization function via the inverse Thesaurus engine. This feature helps ensure that only accurate and consistent data is being loaded into the marketplace’s database. When Dexter DE executes, it downloads the selected pages from the targeted Web sites, parses the required content, rationalizes the data for consistency, and loads the data into any ‘database. XML, flat file and API data interfaces are supported. Dexter DE is available immediately direct from Liaison Technology. The software is licensed on an annual lease basis. The costs vary depending on number of servers and clients required. Dexter DE is compatible with all databases and e-commerce platforms. The minimum server requirements for Dexter DE are: Pentium II 450 MHz processor; 128 MB RAM, 20MB disk space for Dexter DE and 250MB for data capture and audit logs; Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 SP4; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0; and minimum 128KB per second Internet connection. www.liaison.com

ActionPoint, Inc., formerly Input Software, Inc., unveiled its ActionPoint Interaction Management System for Global 1000 organizations and net marketplaces. A high performance e-commerce software suite, the ActionPoint System simplifies the wide range of complex Web interactions — interactions between people and e-commerce systems — needed to conduct business on-line. It then delivers validated and formatted content to enterprise or B2B process automation systems, triggering real-time fulfillment processes. The ActionPoint System enables e-businesses to build dynamic and intelligent Web interfaces for action points. Action points include generating requests for quotes, bid responses, or purchase orders; configuring complex products; or applying for credit cards, mortgage loans or life insurance on line. The ActionPoint Interaction Management System consists of three complementary software products: ActionPoint Dialog Server – an XML-based product that allows organizations to rapidly deploy and easily maintain dynamic, personalized Web interactions at all action points needed to consummate end-to-end business on the Internet. (The Dialog Server was previously announced under the project name DynamicInput.); ActionPoint Enterprise Server – a customizable and scalable system for post-session processing and integration with enterprise systems; and InputAccel – ActionPoint’s capture system. The ActionPoint Interaction Management System will run under Windows NT and UNIX. The ActionPoint Interaction Management System will be available as separate components or as an entire solution suite in 3Q 2000. Full system pricing begins at $150,000. www.actionpoint.com