Category: Marketing & e-commerce (Page 54 of 73)

Inprise/Borland announced the immediate availability of Borland MIDAS 3, middleware technology and components for rapidly building Delphi and C++ Builder Internet applications. Now supporting XML and Dynamic HTML, MIDAS 3 substantially increases the scalability and flexibility of large-scale Internet applications. Inprise/Borland also announced modified MIDAS licensing that will now allow small- to medium-sized businesses to gain the same advantages as large corporations as they extend their businesses to the Internet. MIDAS 3 simplifies and speeds up the development, integration, and deployment of thin-client, distributed Internet applications. It speeds data access across all application tiers from the client to the database server through fast remote-data access and intelligent data synchronization, which together optimize network bandwidth. Solutions built with MIDAS can take advantage of its support for e-commerce standards including CORBA, COM/MTS, XML and dynamic HTML. This ensures application interoperability and extensibility. MIDAS will support Linux when Inprise/Borland’s Project Kylix ships later this year. Project Kylix is a Linux component based development environment for two-way visual development of graphical user interface, Internet, database, and server applications. Free development licenses of MIDAS are included with Inprise/Borland’s application development tools, Borland Delphi and C++Builder Enterprise. MIDAS server deployment is priced using a per-server license scheme. MIDAS 3 server deployment licenses with unlimited client access are available now directly from Inprise/Borland for $299.95. This price is in U.S. dollars and applies only in the United States. International customers should contact their local Inprise/Borland offices, distributors, or representatives. www.borland.com

Documentum announced the release of Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition, a content management platform for creating, personalizing, managing, and delivering web and enterprise content. Documentum 4i eBusiness Edition provides a common enterprise infrastructure that dynamically combines business-critical enterprise content with web content to fuel every e-business initiative: B2B, B2C and B2E. This release also introduces advanced content personalization that can target rich content to an individual, a local geography or a target device in a closed loop system that can, based on user profile and usage, “learn” from past behavior to enrich subsequent interactions and further personalize content delivery. At the heart of the 4i eBusiness Edition is the eContent server. In addition to version control, audit trail, and security capabilities, the eContent server automates and implements the business policies and workflows to manage all types of content stored in the content repository. Complementing the eContent server is WebPublisher which streamlines and expedites the entire process of content creation, contribution, and collaboration with an easy-to-use user interface. Documentum 4i includes the new Web Development Kit, offering Java application classes and components. 4i Web Development Kit takes advantage of standards such as ASP, JSP and Java. 4i eBusiness Edition also comes with a set of eCommerce integrators to integrate with application servers and commerce servers such as BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, ATG Dynamo, and BroadVision one-to-one Enterprise.

HAHT Software, Inc. and Commerce One, Inc. announced the execution of a preliminary, non-binding memorandum of understanding to facilitate the creation of “open” dynamic B2B trading communities. The two companies intend to work together to make it possible for sellers to gain immediate access to a broad range of buying organizations. HAHT is integrating its entire e-commerce suite with the Commerce One MarketSite Global Trading Portal for exchanging goods and services among businesses worldwide. The suite includes all of the HAHT Commerce e-Scenarios, plus HAHT Sellside Links and HAHT Sellside Exchange. The joint effort will enable HAHT’s enterprise e-sellers to connect once to Commerce One MarketSite, reaching a vast number of buyers on MarketSite as well as other business-to-business Internet portals on the Commerce One Global Trading Web. This will allow for more efficient intra-company workflow, enhanced information-sharing capabilities, and more closely integrated buyer-seller relationships. HAHT and Commerce One will define open XML-based solutions spanning product configuration, quotation, requisition, order management, fulfillment and payment processes. In addition, HAHT and Commerce One intend to collaborate on XML schemas and business document definitions and interfaces, enabling accurate document exchange between heterogeneous systems and multiple trading partners. HAHT’s solutions will support Commerce One’s XML-standard, xCBL (Common Business Library), and utilize Commerce One’s XCC (XML Commerce Connector) toolkit to implement the joint business libraries. XML-based solutions provide a basis for rapid development and deployment of transactions and business processes across dissimilar applications, systems and software. www.commerceone.com, www.haht.com

The World Wide Web Consortium announced the release of the first Public Working Draft of the XForms Data Model. The XForms Data Model Working Draft, along with the XForms Requirements document, provide the first cross-industry efforts in seven years to produce the next generation of Web-based forms. When HTML Forms were introduced to the Web in 1993, they provided a means to gather information and perform transactions. The structure of forms served the needs of many users at that time, as well as the devices used to access the Web. Seven years later, the Web is a space where hundreds of millions of users expect to use many different devices to perform increasingly complex transactions, many of which exceed the limitations of the original forms technology. The XForms Subgroup has produced a forms architecture that separates data modeling, logic, and presentation. XForms aims to ease the transition of the Web from HTML to XML. As XHTML 1.0 allows HTML content authors to make a smooth entry into the XML world, XForms allow Web application authors to combine the modularity of XML with the simplicity of HTML to gain key advantages in the areas of device independence, accessibility, business-to-business and consumer e-commerce, and embedded devices. The XForms Data Model deliberately separates the purpose of a form from its presentation. This allows the application author to rigorously define the form data, independent of how end-users interact with the application. The separation facilitates the development of Web applications with user interaction components, and provides advantages to Web application developers. In the XForms suite of specifications, the rules for describing, validating, and submitting application data are expressed in XML, as well as the submitted data. By providing the rules and data in XML, XForms lays the foundation for combinations with other XML applications, supporting the extensible Web. Separating purpose and presentation also makes device independence easier to achieve by allowing Web application authors to write the data model once for all devices. Because the data model is not tied to presentation, developers may customize the presentation in a way that best suits each device’s user interface. Support for device independence paves the way for a Web that is accessible to all users. www.w3c.org

Softshare announced the immediate availability of Softshare Delta 2.0. The new Softshare Delta release includes many user-friendly enhancements to further assist in the integration between e-commerce and traditional data formats. The latest version of Softshare Delta is built upon a core mapping product that translates EDI and XML documents into flat file or database formats — and vice versa. Delta also supports mapping to text formats, such as HTML, to aid in Web integration. Softshare Delta 2.0 incorporates several new prominent features, including support of the Microsoft BizTalk Framework. Softshare Delta’s support of this XML framework allows Delta users to integrate BizTalk documents into their business environment. Delta users can generate and automatically address BizTalk documents using the framework’s approved set of XML tags as well as author BizTalk-compatible XML schemas for use throughout the trading partner community. Other features added in this release are Microsoft Visual SourceSafe integration for map version tracking, flat file optimizations for faster map execution, and improved trouble-shooting features. Available for $3,600-$5,800, Softshare Delta works with Softshare Vista 2.0 or Softshare’s Electronic Commerce Server (ECS) application for data communications, tracking and map execution management. Current Delta users will receive the Delta 2.0 upgrade at no additional cost. www.softshare.com

Input Software Inc. announced a new release of its InputAccel information capture solution. InputAccel 3.0 transforms mission-critical information trapped on traditional paper and fax documents into e-business ready content such as XML. InputAccel delivers this e-content to customer databases and the Web, or uses the information to trigger e-commerce transaction workflow processes. InputAccel 3.0 includes new automation technologies that allow Internet businesses to significantly increase the speed and accuracy with which they can transform paper into e-content. InputAccel 3.0 includes: InputAccel/Forms, a suite of InputAccel modules that incorporate advanced recognition technologies to automatically extract critical business data from paper or faxed forms; InputAccel/Document ID, which automatically distinguishes between hundreds of different document types so that each may be routed to the appropriate capture process; and InputAccel/Index, which enables high-speed data entry operations for those documents requiring human intervention. InputAccel 3.0 is scheduled to ship to Beta at the end of Q2 2000. www.inputsw.com

CardoNet joined the Ariba Supplier Link program as a technology member to aid supplier enablement on the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform by offering access to CardoNet’s catalog content aggregation solutions. CardoNet’s MarketStand solution will facilitate the syndication and aggregation of catalog data between the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform and suppliers. As part of Ariba’s supplier ecosystem, CardoNet will be able to expand its catalog content aggregation solutions to suppliers involved in various forms of trade, including online auctions. CardoNet’s MarketStand technology enables suppliers to rapidly build and manage clean, integrated multi-vendor catalogs. In addition, MarketStand offers an advanced, scalable cost-effective solution that eliminates the complexity of managing catalog content. Moreover CardoNet’s catalog content aggregation solutions helps suppliers develop and maintain complete, up-to-date, accurate catalogs. Through its open Ariba B2B Commerce Services, the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform provides CardoNet with a single, Internet-based point of access and integration with buyers and e marketplaces worldwide. Ariba B2B Commerce Services will also provide CardoNet and its customers with access to efficient trading mechanisms and commerce processes such as content management services, global supplier directories, sourcing tools, B2B auctions and reverse auctions, electronic payment and streamlined transaction services. CardoNet also announced that it will collaborate with Ariba on the continued development of cXML. CardoNet will use cXML to make its MarketStand product available via the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform. www.cardonet.com

arcadiaOne, Inc. and Intershop Communications, Inc. announced the Content Exchange Server (CES) cartridge. CES integrates arcadiaOne’s syndication technology into Intershop enfinity, a sell-side e-commerce application. The CES cartridge is the latest development in a collaborative relationship initiated in June 1999. arcadiaOne and Intershop Communications have developed solutions that enable businesses to solve the problem of distributing up-to-date content to their partners and customers on the web. The agreement announced today enables Intershop to offer its customers an additional solution that seamlessly integrates catalog creation and management with syndication-based content exchange. arcadiaOne’s technology is based on the XML ICE (Internet Content Exchange) application for content syndication. By standardizing content exchange, the ICE protocol enables businesses to reduce the costs of online distribution networks while increasing the value of business alliances. The Content Exchange Server cartridge will be available in the second quarter of 2000. www.arcadiaOne.com, www.intershop.com