Category: Marketing & e-commerce (Page 73 of 77)

XMLSolutions Corporation announced the completion of a $3.6 million round in venture capital financing with Verticality Investment Group, LLC, a Jersey City, N.J.-based venture capital firm that invests in private technology companies. The investment, which marks the company’s first round of funding, will be used to continue the rapid expansion of XMLSolutions’ superior professional services group and accelerate deployment of the Exeter family of e-commerce software products. The Exeter family of products will be released on August 1, 1999. www.xmls.com

Bowstreet Software, Inc. announced that it will lead work to define an industry standard for describing directory service information in XML. The effort to develop a Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) builds upon work performed by Bowstreet while creating its Web Services Architecture. The DSML effort will be supported by industry leaders IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, and the Sun-Netscape Alliance to provide customers more flexibility in using and sharing directory information in XML-enabled applications. DSML provides a way to use directory information without knowing the specific data formats of each directory. End users will benefit because Web-based applications can be aware of their directory policy and profile information and adapt accordingly. Additionally, DSML enables “friction-free” eCommerce value chains to be integrated across corporate boundaries based on directory information. This capability provides an essential building block as directories play a more significant role on the Internet. Furthermore, DSML complements the goals of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and helps to extend the power of LDAP to web-based applications. Bowstreet and supporting companies plan to submit a proposal to appropriate standards bodies. There is an information Web site at www.dsml.org. Additional group members are expected to be added in the future. www.bowstreet.com

Information Architects Corporation has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent Office covering its Web application server technologies. The patent allowance covers technologies at the core of Information Architects’ (iA) Metaphoria Virtual Web Server products. Metaphoria enables rapid development of Internet products and applications for business users that require efficient access to data from multiple sources. Metaphoria enables data residing in mainframes, client server systems, web servers, Internets and Extranets to be divorced, parsed, combined, personalized and viewed REAL-TIME from any Internet accessible device such as a PC, PDA, WebTV, Palm VII or WinCE device. Metaphoria can not only let the user view selected data but it can update the data across multiple systems in real time with the click of the mouse. www.ia.com

Macromedia, Inc. announced a definitive agreement under which Macromedia will acquire Elemental Software for $24 million in a stock for stock transaction. Elemental’s products Drumbeat 2000 and eStore Builder combined with Macromedia’s products like Dreamweaver and Generator, will enable Web developers to create dynamic Web sites for e-commerce, corporate intranets and personalized content. The addition of the Elemental products to Macromedia’s Web publishing product family provides a standards-based end-to-end solution of software for efficiently creating, producing and maintaining dynamic Web sites that automate the process of linking database information to Web applications with reusable code. In the transaction, Macromedia will exchange approximately 625,000 shares of its stock for all of the outstanding equity of Elemental, for a total purchase price of approximately $24 million. The transaction will be accounted for as a pooling of interests, and is expected to close within 45 days, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Macromedia expects to take a one-time charge of approximately $3.0 million for expenses related to the acquisition in the current quarter. www.macromedia.com

Webb Interactive Services, Inc. announced a technology partnership with Switchboard, Inc., focused on bringing Webb’s XML-based community publishing and commerce platform to Switchboard’s network of merchants, users and distribution partners. Switchboard, Inc., a majority-held subsidiary of Banyan Worldwide is a leading Internet directory that represents thousands of merchants nationwide. Webb’s XML-based Internet publishing and advertising platform will strengthen online business/consumer interaction in areas such as offer management and comparison-shopping. This will allow consumers to easily find merchants who best fit their needs, and merchants will be able to interact with targeted consumers more effectively. Switchboard will integrate Webb’s technology into its merchant services on Switchboard.com and through its distribution network. No financial terms of the partnership were disclosed. The partnership with Switchboard is the first deployment of Webb’s e-commerce platform using XML. www.webb.net

Interleaf announced the establishment of “the e-content company. ” Recognized as a separate business segment, the e-content company is dedicated to the development of XML-based content management solutions for e-business applications. The e-content company develops and delivers BladeRunner, the division’s solution that provides end-to-end content management solution for e-business applications. BladeRunner enables companies to create, manage, and publish e-content – targeted, timely, personalized, intelligent business information – for web-enabled applications using XML as its technology backbone and Microsoft Word for content creation. Companies are able to apply intelligence, structure and style to their business information, generate output in a variety of formats, and dynamically integrate that information with other electronic and business processes in support of their e-business initiatives. BladeRunner enables organizations to leverage information content and facilitate business transactions through the information chain, connecting companies with their customers, suppliers and distributors. In addition to the establishment of the new business segment, the e-content company will launch their own website, www.xmlecontent.com when it goes live on July 12, 1999. www.interleaf.com

Progress Software announced Progress Apptivity Version 3.1, its Java application server and integrated development environment. The new version’s support for XML facilitates the deployment of broadly available business-to-business and e-commerce applications. In addition, enhanced SQL functionality strengthens e-commerce applications by allowing custom, vendor-specific queries on enterprise databases. Progress Apptivity Version 3.1 greatly increases the ability for enterprises to exchange information via support for documents formatted with the XML data interchange language. Progress Apptivity Version 3.1’s integrated XML support enables more rapid deployment of business-to-business transactions such as procurement and cataloging without the need for external XML servers. Via enhanced Progress Apptivity SmartAdapter technology, inbound XML data are integrated into local applications as relational data, reducing the need for manual conversion. Additional enhancements include: Improved SQL Functionality, Conditional HTML, Java 2 Support, and a Refined Look and Feel. Progress Apptivity server prices start at $10,000 USD. Availability is immediately. www.apptivity.com

Differential and UWI.Com, announced a strategic relationship. The combined technology provides a safer than paper solution for enterprises and financial institutions to securely send and receive legally binding transactions and other contractual agreements for conducting business-to-business e-commerce. Differential’s Digital Receipt Infrastructure compliments InternetForms by providing a complete non-repudiation solution for e-commerce and legacy systems. Non-repudiation is the use of strong electronic evidence to prove to an independent third party that a document or transaction was sent and received at a specific time by a specific person or company. Non-repudiation requires an irrefutable trail of digital evidence, as well as protocols and procedures for transaction verification, dispute resolution, auditing and reconciliation. A Digital Receipt is an XML document, which captures the digital signatures of the sender and the receiver, a verifiable time stamp and standardized transaction details. Digital Receipts may contain information about related receipts permitting complicated transactions to be re-assembled and reconciled. Digital Receipts also support real-time assurance such as online notaries, insurers and auditors. An InternetForm is an XML document that preserves in a single, digitally signed form all of the elements of a transaction required to produce a binding record. InternetForms capture the questions a form posits, and the answers a person provides, as well as any internal form logic and attached related documents, to provide non-repudiation and preserve the signer’s intent. www.uwi.com, www.differential.com