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Last modified: June 03, 2002
XML Industry News: 2002 Q1

XML News

This XML Industry News section consists mainly of links to company press releases announcing support for XML/XSL/XLink/XQuery etc. Other documents with reference collections:

Major articles on XML in the trade magazines, as well as the more substantive refereed articles on XML in technical publications, are listed in the dedicated database sections: Current XML Surveys and Overview Articles

Search: [Indexed Search]

  • [March 28, 2002] "Fuego Launches UXOs: The Market's First Ubiquitous Translator for XML. Unifying Technology Reduces Need for XML standards, Significantly Reducing IT Costs." - "Fuego, a global leader in Business Services Orchestration software, today launched Unidentified XML Objects, (UXOs) a stand-alone technology that incorporates small enterprises effortlessly and for free into the B2B world. With UXOs, customers, partners and providers can dynamically conduct transactions with no change in current infrastructure, no programming effort and no maintenance issues. Fuego will be demonstrating UXOs at the Java One Conference... XML, a set of rules for designing text formats, was established to enable widespread B2B communication on the Web without the need to translate disparate document formats. Programmers started developing their own XML definitions, resulting in thousands of flavors of XML that do not communicate. UXOs alleviate this problem with self-interpreting XML Objects that execute on the client side, enabling faster B2B integration and easily automating interactions. UXOs are executable XML Objects that can be delivered via email or any Internet protocol using XML/SOAP, FTP or any other messaging systems currently in place. They can execute off line and will automatically route themselves back to the orginator's process or other target processes when submitted. They provide consistent data according to the needs of each business process and are encrypted, signed and secure... B2B has proven to be very complex and expensive for the small and medium sized businesses that make up more than 80 percent of the traditional B2B interaction chain. UXOs completely eliminate these friction points for third and fourth tier suppliers in situations such as healthcare and insurance claims processing, process manufacturing or other complex, multi-tiered value chains..."

  • [March 27, 2002] "LegalXML Joins OASIS." 2002-03-27 communiqué from Patrick Gannon (OASIS President and CEO) to OASIS Membership: "We are happy to announce that the LegalXML Consortium has become the newest OASIS Member Section. Since 1998, LegalXML has united standards development within the legal community, bringing technical and legal experts together in a common forum. Its members work to develop standardized structures, vocabularies and data exchange protocols for legal documents such as court filings, citations, contracts, and transcripts. LegalXML members include lawyers, developers, application vendors, government agencies and members of academia. Several existing OASIS members, including Reed Elsevier and Thomson Corporation, are active participants of LegalXML. Under the new agreement, LegalXML will adopt the OASIS technical process, bylaws and IPR Policy. Members of LegalXML will join OASIS and be eligible to contribute to all OASIS technical work. As existing OASIS members, you will have the option to participate in LegalXML technical committees without additional membership dues. LegalXML expands the breadth of the OASIS technical agenda in an exciting way. We understand that in today's economy, it's not practical to expect you to join a multitude of consortia in order to participate in all the relevant standards development being done. At OASIS, we strive to give you many opportunities for involvement within one organization. Please join me in welcoming LegalXML to the OASIS community..." See also the news item.

  • [March 25, 2002] Iona Announces Web Services Security Framework. IONA Security Services Deliver Open and Comprehensive Solution for End 2 Anywhere Integration of Enterprise Applications Across the Internet." - "IONA, a leading e-Business Platform provider for Web Services Integration (NASDAQ: IONA), today announced the IONA Security Services framework for secure Web Services Integration... One of the most significant obstacles to the adoption of Web services is the need for security. The Orbix E2A XMLBus Edition v5.1 security features are implemented through the IONA Security Services framework and authenticate Web services by calling on LDAP v.3 based directory services. In later releases, IONA will add single sign-on and other security features to the product. The optimal way to secure Web services is to leverage the security infrastructures already implemented by corporations around the globe. The IONA Security Services framework allows IONA's Orbix E2A product family to integrate easily with leading products from Netegrity, Verisign, Entrust, and Microsoft to secure Web services. It will span all the products of IONA's Orbix E2A Platforms during 2002... The IONA Security Services framework integrates with other authorization servers to support customers who have already made a product choice or created their own authorization service. This integration flexibility is enabled by IONA's Adaptive Runtime Technology (ART), a modular architecture that provides major advances in scalability, performance, and deployment flexibility. Other IONA Security Services framework features include: (1) An end to anywhere security solution, meaning that security mechanisms present the appearance of a single, unified security approach across the entire enterprise; (2) Open, pluggable architecture that adapts to arbitrary security environments; (3) Federation of security domains for increased interoperability across groups, departments, or enterprises; (4) Integration with a wide variety of authentication, authorization, and Public Key Infrastructure services implemented by third parties such as Netegrity SiteMinder and Entrust Authority; (5) Support for XML Encryption, XML Signature, SAML, XKMS, and ITU X509-compliant digital certificates to reliably authenticate users and to securely send and receive information between partners; (6) 24 x 7 availability..."

  • [March 22, 2002] "Cyclone Commerce First to Deliver Certified Support for ebXML. Cyclone and BEA Systems Collaborating to Deliver and Certify Interoperable ebXML Solutions." - "Cyclone Commerce, a leading provider of solutions that allow companies to 'simply connect' to their trading partners over the Internet, today announced that they are the first company to deliver a commercially available electronic business XML (ebXML) solution. Many industry experts expect ebXML to be a boon to numerous industry sectors, allowing companies to more easily exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms and define and register business processes over the Internet. ebXML represents the leading effort to bring consistency and unification to business processes and transactions, which previous industry-wide standards initiatives have not yet adequately addressed. Through Cyclone's new Open Business Connections suite, also announced today, customers can now engage in ebXML-based initiatives while simultaneously ramping communities of partners using other open, secure messaging standards such as RosettaNet RNIF 1.1/2.0 and Internet EDI AS1/AS2... Cyclone and BEA Systems have been collaborating to deliver and certify interoperable ebXML solutions. As part of this collaboration, BEA WebLogic Integration Business Connect was made available earlier this year. Originating from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Cyclone Commerce, BEA WebLogic Integration Business Connect uses ebXML to help businesses accelerate and automate the connection of supply and demand chains down to the smallest partners and suppliers." See also: "Cyclone Commerce Unveils New Open Business Connections Suite. Cyclone First To Deliver Web Services With Built-In Security, and Inherent Support For ebXML and XKMS." See the news item: "Report to the Uniform Code Council (UCC) on ebXML Interoperability and Conformance Validation."

  • [March 21, 2002] "European Chemical Industry Supports Chem eStandards to Enhance Electronic Transactions Value. Large, Mid-sized Chemical Companies Share Business Cases to Demonstrate Economic Value of Common Data Exchange Standards at European CIDX Conference." - "Nearly 200 business and IT executives from 90 European chemical companies and their partners - distributors, logistics providers, Internet hubs/marketplaces, software vendors and consultants met in Brussels February 19 - 20, 2002 to learn more about adopting Chem eStandards, the open and free XML standard for data exchange developed by and for the chemical industry. The Chemical Industry Data eXchange (CIDX) organized and hosted the meeting. eBusiness leaders and early adopters of CIDX's Chem eStandards led case study workshops and made presentations documenting the benefits gained by large and mid-size chemical companies from electronic connectivity between trading partners' back-office systems including improved transaction efficiency and a reduction in supply chain costs... In describing the journey from business case to implementation, several speakers noted that the first connection may be a challenging process. In recommendations, speakers repeatedly highlighted further adoption of Chem eStandards, participation in CIDX working groups and the use of newly developed implementation tools as means of significantly reducing the complexity, time and costs of connecting. Speakers and attendees emphasized the need for seamless electronic business transactions across industries and agreed that standardization is a key success factor. Leaders from standards bodies for the petroleum, agrochemical, electronic and pulp and paper industries participated in a workshop focused on facilitating connectivity with trading industries. CIDX continues to work to ensure standards convergence between the chemical industry and key trading industries." See: "XML-Based 'Chem eStandard' for the Chemical Industry."

  • [March 20, 2002] "OASIS and ISO TC154." - "OASIS and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC154 have established a formal liaison relationship that will strengthen our ability to collaborate on technical work. OASIS is now a Class A Liaison member of the ISO TC154, and ISO TC154 has joined OASIS a Contributor. While OASIS and ISO have long had many active members in common, this new liaison relationship grants official representatives from each organization the right to participate in technical discussions of the other. With its focus on e-business, ISO TC154 is involved in work that relates to many OASIS TCs. We expect the OASIS UBL, BTP and ebXML TCs, in particular, to benefit from increased participation in TC154 and visa versa. This announcement follows recent news of OASIS' liaison with the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34, and OASIS' inclusion in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Electronic Business with ISO, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE)..."

  • [March 19, 2002] "First Native XML Web Services Tool For the Java Language Nears Completion. Second Beta of Visual J# .NET Now Available for Download." - "Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the second beta of Microsoft Visual J# (TM) .NET, a development tool for Java-language developers who want to build applications and services on the Microsoft .NET Framework. Visual J# .NET is the first Java-language development tool to run on a platform offering native support for XML Web services. This support enables an easy transition for Java-language developers into the world of XML Web services and dramatically improves the interoperability of Java-language programs with existing software written in a variety of programming languages. Visual J# .NET helps Microsoft Visual J++ customers and other Java-language programmers take advantage of existing skills and code to fully exploit the .NET Platform... Visual J# .NET is part of Microsoft's Java User Migration Path to Microsoft .NET (JUMP to .NET) strategy, announced over a year ago, which outlines a set of independently developed technologies to help programmers preserve, enhance and migrate Java-language projects to the .NET Platform... Features: (1) Full access to the .NET Framework. The .NET Framework provides the first and best platform with native support for XML Web Services. Visual J# .NET is designed to take full advantage of the platform, including ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Windows. Forms and XML Web services, as well as full cross-language integration. (2) Integration with Visual Studio .NET. Visual J# .NET provides programming tools support through its integration with the award-winning Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment (IDE). All the features of the IDE are easily accessible to the J# developer. (3) Visual J++ 6.0 upgrade tools. Visual J# .NET includes tools to automatically upgrade existing Visual J++ 6.0 projects and solutions to the new Visual Studio .NET format. These tools help ensure that a current Visual J++ 6.0 developer can easily move to Visual J# .NET and produce .NET applications and components. The second beta release of Microsoft Visual J# .NET is available today from the Microsoft Web site.

  • [March 14, 2002] "Deutsche Telekom Will Adopt Microsoft .NET Technologies to Power Delivery of New XML Web Services, Windows Powered Smartphone Devices and Mobile Services to Customers. Improved Mobile Access to Services, Cutting-Edge Smart Devices and Newly Developed XML Web Services to Be Delivered With Microsoft Technologies and Services." - "T.NET, which will be operated from the Deutsche Telekom T-Systems Division, will aim to deliver XML Web services that will be accessible any time, on any device. The T-Mobile division and Microsoft also will collaborate on the next generation of mobile devices (including Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone and Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition powered devices) and services, providing customers with access to the MSN network of Internet services, including MSN Messenger Service and MSN Hotmail Web-based e-mail service as well as Microsoft Exchange Server applications such as the Outlook messaging and collaboration client, and Telekom messaging and e-mail services provided by Deutsche Telekom. Committed to achieving interoperability of applications with T.NET, DT also will upgrade its internal infrastructure with selected .NET products to enhance its reliability, scalability and interoperability... Combining Deutsche Telekom's expertise in designing, deploying and delivering telecommunications services and Microsoft's .NET Platform technologies, the two industry leaders will collaborate on the innovative new services of T .NET, to deliver next-generation XML Web services, progressing the availability and development of advanced XML Web services throughout Germany and Europe. T.NET will provide a complete offering, serving as a base of communications for customers of Deutsche Telekom and providing access to services and the distribution channel for their products, while giving application service providers (ASPs) and application infrastructure providers (AIPs) power to successfully reach customers in the ASP service industry..."

  • [March 07, 2002] "OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Define XML Standard for Biometrics." - OASIS has announced that its members have formed the OASIS XML Common Biometric Format (XCBF) Technical Committee to provide a standard XML schema for biometrics. XCBF will describe information that verifies identity based on human characteristics such as DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, and hand geometry. XCBF will be used in biometric applications that measure attendance, grant access control to documents or other resources, and facilitate non-repudiation in commerce, particularly over open networks. "Biometrics, in essence 'what you are,' are destined to replace 'what you know' items, such as PIN numbers, and to augment 'what you have' forms of identification, such as cards," explained Phillip H. Griffin of Griffin Consulting, chair of the OASIS XCBF Technical Committee. "Existing biometric standards use binary encoding formats, which severely limit their use in XML systems and applications. XCBF will provide a standard way for biometric functions to be done using XML." The charter of the OASIS XCBF Technical Committee is to define a set of XML encodings for the Common Biometric Exchange File Format (CBEFF), which describes data elements necessary to support biometric technologies in a standard way. Universal type definitions will allow biometric data to be validated and exchanged without ambiguity. The exact values specified in CBEFF binary encodings will be used in XCBF XML representations. CBEFF is a draft of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), managed and maintained currently by the National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST). "The message syntax for transferring information across the Internet seems to be focused on XML-based dialects, and biometric information is no different in this respect. What's critically important is that XCBF meets the American National Standard X9.84 security requirements regarding the authenticity and integrity of biometric data. By basing this XML work on the schema and security mechanisms defined in X9.84, it should be possible for XCBF to meet these requirements," said Jeff Stapleton of KPMG LLP, chair of the X9F4 working group of the X9 Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) of ANSI... Participation in the OASIS XCBF Technical Committee remains open to all organizations and individuals interested in advancing a standard XML schema for biometrics. For other details, see the announcement of 2002-02-11: "OASIS Technical Committee for XML Common Biometric Format (XCBF)." Compare: "ASN.1 Markup Language (AML)."

  • [March 6, 2002] "Microsoft BizTalk Server Helps Pennsylvania Quickly Build Pioneering E-Government Portal. First Phase of E-Government Portal Enables Pennsylvania Businesses To Slash the Time and Money Associated With State Registration." - "Microsoft Corp. announced that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has built its new one-stop business services e-government portal using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000 and the family of Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers. The portal, dubbed Pennsylvania Open for Business (PAO4B), is another example of Pennsylvania's focus on e-government. PAO4B's vision enables businesses to electronically identify, complete and submit all forms required for registration with the departments of Labor and Industry, Revenue and State by using a single electronic interface, saving time, effort and money. [Said Marty Rupert], project manager for Pennsylvania Open for Business: 'we were able to complete the interactive phase from concept to release in five months. Since the live date of September 10, 2001the portal has received 19 million hits and has completed more than 2,500 online registrations. Without this solution, businesses would have had to fill out multiple forms containing similar information for each agency. We have reduced the amount of time and effort that businesses need to expend with the registration process and in turn have allowed them to focus entirely on their core business.' Before the launch of PAO4B, businesses were required to complete a repetitive set of paper forms and submit data separately to each department since many have different legacy systems. Registrants sometimes ran into confusion using the old process and spent a lot of time finding the correct forms and filling them out. Today, registrants go online at http://www.paopen4business.state.pa.us/ and fill out one set of forms. Once they are submitted, BizTalk Server receives the XML from the Web site and applies business logic to determine what actions must occur next, dependent on the data received. These actions include sending e-mail messages, reformatting data, and enforcing the requirements for electronic signatures used by the Department of Labor and Industry. Finally, BizTalk Server distributes the XML data to the appropriate department in real time. Once registration is completed, a confirmation is sent immediately to the registrant. After delivering the date to each agency, BizTalk Server automatically reformats the data so that each department can process it using specific internal applications and databases. These departments can then send necessary information, such as a tax license number, back to the registrant within days instead of the weeks previously required..."

  • [March 05, 2002] "XBRL International's New XML-based Specification Now Being Used by World's Leading Financial Services Institutions, Government Regulators and Software Developers. Michael Sanderson, CEO of Nasdaq Europe, Addresses Importance of XBRL Use in the Capital Markets." - "XBRL International announced today that adoption and use of XBRL is gaining momentum worldwide. During its 4th International conference in Berlin, NASDAQ Europe CEO Michael Sanderson addressed delegates from more than 20 countries on the importance of XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) as a means to unclog the information pipeline between companies and investors, analysts, and regulators. Preparers and users of financial information can now exchange financials across all software and technologies to provide greater efficiencies in the global capital markets using the specification. In addition to hosting the international meeting in Berlin, the German jurisdiction announced that XBRL taxonomy for German Accounting Principles has been released. German companies can now use XBRL as they move forward with implementation to obtain straight-through reporting efficiencies. Deutsche Bank, one of the world's largest financial services institutions, has begun using XBRL to process loan information and streamline its credit analysis process. Deutsche Bank's adoption of XBRL follows closely on the announcement by Bank of America that it has begun to pilot XBRL for the same purpose in the U.S. For banking institutions, XBRL is designed to facilitate straight-through reporting of loan and credit analysis information between credit applicants and the lender while significantly reducing errors and shortening the amount of time needed to process the information..." See the news item: "XBRL Standard for Capital Markets Enjoys Growing International Adoption."

  • [March 05, 2002] "Microsoft Becomes First Technology Company to Report Financials In XBRL Standard. XML-Based Technology Provides Easier Preparation, Exchange and Analysis of Financial Data." - "Today at the International XBRL Conference and Steering Board meeting in Berlin, Microsoft Corp. continued to demonstrate leadership in financial reporting by announcing that it has become the first technology company to publish its financial statements on the Internet using Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) an XML-based framework for financial reporting. By publishing financial statements in XBRL, Microsoft is providing easier access to the company's financial data and more efficient analysis capabilities to investors, analysts, accountants, regulators and others in the financial supply chain. The company's second-quarter earnings results, as well as the first- and second-quarter 10-Qs and fiscal year 2001 10-K statement, are published as XBRL documents on its Web site. XBRL represents a major step forward in the preparation, publication, exchange and analysis of financial data. Like XML, XBRL is a freely licensed standard that can be used across any platform, software format or technology. The financial community stands to benefit greatly from the increased adoption of XBRL, which demonstrates how XML can be extended to solutions for horizontal and vertical markets... XBRL uses tags based on standardized accounting industry definitions to describe and identify each item of financial information, such as net revenue. Tagging each financial item eliminates subjectivity when users compare financial results from industries and geographies, and the uniformity provided by tagging data makes it easier for users to extract and analyze comparable information from companies' published statements. Users will also be able to leverage these tags with XBRL-enhanced tools to search for specific historical data in company financial reports, rather than manually combing through multiple reports for the same data. Although XBRL makes financial information more consistent and accessible, it does not require companies to change the way they report financial results under current accounting standards..." See the news item: "XBRL Standard for Capital Markets Enjoys Growing International Adoption." [source]

  • [March 05, 2002] "It Starts with Standards: Laying Groundwork for the Next Generation of Innovation." - "In the high-tech world, a couple of years can be a lifetime. Consider XML. Known only as a promising new Web programming language just a couple of years ago, Extensible Markup Language is now rapidly maturing to the point where it's living up to its potential. Interoperability across systems, applications and programming languages isn't just possible, it's becoming pervasive. When it comes to technology, if there are two ways of doing something, there's a good chance one company will do it one way and another will do it the other way. And while both may be technically correct, those tools will never work together. On the road to true interoperability, these factors pose a problem. Fortunately for the high-tech industry, companies have by and large focused on cooperating in pursuit of standards and specifications that seek to define a common method for handling everyday computing, networking, information-sharing and connectivity issues. Companies across the industry have recognized and supported the tremendous potential of XML systems to unify the computing landscape. By fostering dialog and recognizing the best ideas from companies across the high-tech spectrum, the process of ratifying proposed specifications into industry standards is slowly bringing the entire high-tech industry together. If this trend continues, the next generation of technologies can take shape in an interoperable world. To move this effort forward, Microsoft is teaming with a variety of companies -- within and without the high-tech field -- to build a foundation of standards and agreed-upon specifications. The evolution of the Internet that began with HTML and gave rise to XML and SOAP continues today through widely adopted programming languages and standards such as C#, UDDI, SALT, SIP, WSDL, and the latest entrant, XBRL, which have been established through extensive industry cooperation that builds on past accomplishments to enable future innovations... Microsoft's own adoption this week of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) in reporting the company's financial information illustrates how standardized approaches are increasingly being used to bridge the gap between differing platforms and systems, and to provide increased interoperability of the information itself. XBRL extends the capabilities of XML through 'tags' that describe and identify each line item in a company's financial statements, making it easier to access and analyze that information. The result is an XML 'dialect' that closely maps to the specific needs of the financial industry. Tagging each item increases uniformity in financial information across geographies and industries, which can be rendered once in an XBRL document, then delivered and analyzed in whatever form is needed. The goal of the XBRL Consortium is to allow investors and analysts to compare financial information much more objectively and with greater accuracy than through traditional methods, which often require an extensive search through volumes of published statements that may or may not classify the information in the same way. XBRL is expected to help transcend not only the varying technology environments of the workers who use this type of information, but also to present the information itself more uniformly. An industry standard such as XBRL illustrates how the best ideas and systems can be brought together for greater efficiency and interoperability, says Christopher Kurt, group program manager for Web services at Microsoft -- a concept that is putting companies across the high-tech spectrum on the same page..." See "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [March 01, 2002] "XML Europe 2002 Conference and Exposition Brings Real-World Applications and Solutions to IT Professionals. Experts From Around the Globe Gather in Barcelona to Explore This Year's Theme, 'Down to Business: Getting Serious About XML'." - "IDEAlliance announces its annual XML Europe Conference and Exposition, being held this year, 20-23 May 2002, at the Princesa Sofia-Intercontinental, in Barcelona, Spain. The four-day conference will provide participants with plenary sessions, conference tracks broken down into specific topic areas, detailed tutorials, as well as a variety of informal business receptions, discussion groups and social events. Conference highlights will include keynote addresses from the leaders of XML technology and related Web-based standards. Presenters from more than 15 nations will deliver peer-reviewed technical papers before an audience of more than 1,000 IT professionals from the European community and beyond, including applications engineers, chief information officers, directors of e-business, project managers and team leaders from Fortune 1000 corporations, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. The Exposition floor will feature vendors from Europe, North America, and Asia. More than 50 providers of software, systems and solutions are slated to showcase their latest innovations this May at the Barcelona venue. Last year's event drew over 1,000 attendees, and this year's event promises to be just as well attended. 'This is an exceptional opportunity for IT professionals to really get down to business and decide how XML can be used effectively in their organization today,' says Edd Dumbill, Editor of XML.com and Conference Chair of this year's XML Europe event. 'Participants will discover dozens of important, new XML-based products and services, take part in hands-on demonstrations, and really get serious about XML, as this year's theme suggests.' ... Participants can register for XML Europe 2002 online by visiting www.xmleurope.com. Discounts are available for academics and members of organizations affiliated with IDEAlliance... IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit membership organization. Its mission is to advance user-driven, cross-industry solutions for all publishing and content-related processes by developing standards, fostering business alliances, and identifying best practices. IDEAlliance has been a leader in information technology since 1966 (founded as Graphic Communications Association) having fostered the development and adoption of standards such as ADIS, GRACoL, ICE, JIFFI, Mail.dat, papiNet, PRISM, PROSE XML, SPACE XML, SGML, and XML." See the main entry for the XML Europe 2002 Conference and Exposition.

  • [February 28, 2002] "Bind Systems Turns Web Services Design Upside Down." - "Bind Systems Ltd, an innovator in the area of open Web services based technology, announces BindStudio... the BindStudio environment lets business requirements drive Web services technology solutions by providing a seamless bridge between business process modeling and Web services application development and runtime environments. This top-down approach to Web services EAI and B2B enables the development of solutions that effectively implement business decisions. With out of the box support for best trade practices including RosettaNet PIPs, the xCBL library and OAG BODs coupled with UMM Business Transaction Patterns, BindStudio lets new initiatives build directly on industry proven solutions. BindStudio generates WSDL and ebXML descriptions directly from unambiguous models of real business requirements that can then be deployed and executed on 3rd party Web services platforms. BindStudio has been successfully tested alongside the leading Web services vendor toolkits and Microsoft.Net..."

  • [February 26, 2002] "X3D Open Web3D Standard Now Available. Adoption by MPEG-4 Group, Cooperation With World Wide Web Consortium, and Open Source Implementation to Propel Commercial Adoption of Royalty-Free Standard." - "The Web3D Consortium today announced the availability of the draft version of the X3D ('Extensible 3D') standard to bring state-of-the-art 3D graphics to the Web and broadcast environments for a wide variety of applications and devices. The draft specification was unveiled on Sunday, February 24, 2002 at the Web3D Symposium in Tempe Arizona, the industry's annual technical conference, and will form the basis for commercial implementation and evaluation of this open, royalty-free standard in preparation for submission to the International Standards Organization (ISO) in August of this year. The specification is available at http://www.web3d.org/fs_specifications.htm.... X3D enables new opportunities for the creation and deployment of state-of-the-art 3D graphics on small, lightweight web clients, and the integration of high-performance 3D into broadcast and embedded devices. X3D satisfies these demanding requirements with an advanced componentized architecture that enables compact client players with add-on components, as well as a set of profiles designed to meet the demands of sophisticated applications, including: an Interchange Profile for exchanging X3D content among authoring and publishing systems; an Interactive Profile to support delivery of lightweight interactive animations; an Extensibility Profile to enable the development of add-on components and robust applications; and a VRML97 Profile to ensure interoperability between X3D and VRML97 legacy content... In related news, the Web3D Consortium announced today that the X3D Interactive profile has been accepted by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as the basis for lightweight, interactive 3D graphics in the MPEG-4 multimedia standard. The X3D Interactive Profile defines a small footprint subset of X3D that enables interactive 3D functionality for MPEG-4 Systems. By enabling interactive 3D for devices with limited processing power, the X3D Interactive Profile defines a standard for 3D destined for low-power computers, set-top boxes, mobile phones, and personal digital assistants as well as more capable devices such a desktop devices and gaming consoles. The Interactive Profile will enable interoperability between X3D and MPEG-4 content, providing a consistent platform for 3D graphics and application development across Web and broadcast environments..." See also the version 0.8 XML DTD, 16-February-2002. See: "VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and X3D." [source

  • [February 26, 2002] "SyncML Turns Two, Releases Specifications v1.1 for Mobile Data Sync." - "The SyncML Initiative, Ltd. today [February 26, 2002], on the second anniversary of its founding, announced the release of the SyncML version 1.1 specifications for mobile data sync and device management. ... 'Building upon the success of our recent 2002 Congress in Amsterdam, featuring the public premiere of SyncML DM technology, we're pleased to announce the release of the SyncML version 1.1 specifications,' said Doug Heintzman, chairman of the SyncML Initiative. 'Hardware and software leaders worldwide are telling us that open standards-based mobile data sync and device management are essential for the market success of their offerings, today and in the future. The SyncML Initiative is actively advancing the evolution of these key standards, and accelerating the process by which our member organizations assure interoperability, and win in the marketplace.' In addition to many technical enhancements to SyncML v1.0 specification, the SyncML v1.1 specifications features: (1) Device Management: Remote management of mobile devices; provisioning, remote diagnostics, software downloads. (2) Large Object Delivery: Ability to sync large objects such as a complex calendar event, with multiple recurrence and exception elements, or a vCard with large embedded elements, such as a .wav file audio recording. (3) Improved MD5 Authentication: Scalable extension improves security, critical for corporate deployments, enabling the separation of authentication and SyncML servers..." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [February 26, 2002] "World Wide Web Consortium Releases New Draft of Patent Policy. Community and Member Feedback Shapes New Royalty-Free Draft." - "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today published a revised Patent Policy Working Draft which is based on strong, explicit commitments to producing Royalty-Free (RF) specifications. To achieve the goal of producing Royalty-Free specifications, the draft requires all who participate in the development of W3C Recommendations to make any essential patents they hold available for free. The option which would have permitted W3C Members the option to charge for the use of patented technologies in W3C Recommendations (called 'reasonable and non-discriminatory terms', or RAND) has been removed, pending final resolution of the question of what role RAND technologies should play in Web standards... Since the August publication of the first public Working Draft of the W3C Patent Policy, the Patent Policy Working Group has received thousands of email messages from both W3C Members and the public, with questions and concerns regarding the document. Many of the constructive suggestions provided direction and points of discussion for the Working Group. The Patent Policy Working Group has invited Members of the Open Source community as participants and has published publicly-readable minutes for each meeting..." See also the news item: "W3C Publishes Royalty-Free Patent Policy Working Draft."

  • [February 25, 2002] "ISO/IEC and OASIS Collaborate on E-Business Standards. Standards Groups Increase Cross-Participation to Enhance Interoperability." - "OASIS announced it has entered into a liaison relationship with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Joint Technical Committee One on Information Technology. The relationship will allow representatives from each group to participate in the standards development work of the other. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34, the JTC1 subcommittee for Document Description and Processing Languages, has joined OASIS as a contributor, and OASIS has become an ISO/IEC Category A Liaison member. 'This is a wonderful opportunity for two organizations with a long history of commitment to structured data to cooperate,' said Dr. James David Mason, chairman of the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34. 'Mutual participation between JTC 1 and OASIS will result in synergistic effects. OASIS already has developed specifications that may be good candidates for JTC 1 standardization. Likewise, there are a number of ways OASIS can support existing ISO/IEC standards.' As examples of current collaborations, Mason points to RELAX NG, an XML schema language that was developed at OASIS and is currently under consideration as an ISO/IEC standard. Conversely, XML Topic Maps, a JTC 1 Standard (ISO/IEC 13250:2000) that provides a model for organizing, retrieving and navigating information resources, is now being advanced within OASIS... This announcement follows recent news that OASIS has joined in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Electronic Business with ISO, IEC, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). Working together, the groups plan to increase coordination across many different international programs for more efficient standards development and more rapid adoption in the global marketplace..." See also "OASIS Joins International Alliance of Standards-Setting Bodies for Electronic Business XML Consortium Unites in MoU with IEC, ISO, ITU, and UN/ECE."

  • [February 25, 2002] "Industry Leaders to Conduct Two-day Web Services Interoperability Forum." 'Event to Demonstrate WSDL Interoperability Between SOAP-based Web Services Toolkits; IONA's http://www.xmlbus.com/interop/ to Serve as Information Resource for Round III of the Interoperability Forum.' - "IONA, a leading e-Business Platform provider for Web Services Integration, and Microsoft Corp. today announced the companies will co-host Round III of the Web Services Interoperability Forum, at IONA's Waltham, Massachusetts headquarters on February 27 and 28, 2002. Joining IONA and Microsoft to test and demonstrate WSDL interoperability between SOAP-based Web services toolkits will be other members of the newly created Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization (www.ws-i.org) including BEA, Borland, Cape Clear, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Macro Media, and Oracle. Other companies involved in the event will include Lectrosonics, Mindreef, Phalanx, PocketSOAP, Rogue Wave, Software AG, Systinet, The Mind Electric, Xmethods, and Zolera Systems. Earlier rounds of cooperative interoperability testing have shown that clients can consume WSDL from many different servers. The primary goal of this forum is to demonstrate compatibility and interoperability of a wide range of Web service client and server tools to process the same WSDL definitions. During the event, engineers from participating organizations will use an extensive test-suite to review the most common interactions of Web services defined in WSDL to demonstrate interoperability between WSDL/SOAP-toolkits and ensure interoperability of those specifications moving forward. Other expected deliverables from the forum include a date and agenda for the next round of interoperability testing, a roadmap for product compliance to new releases of the WSDL and SOAP specifications, and details of WSDL-interoperability testing in relation to WS-I and the W3C-WSDL Working Group..."

  • [February 21, 2002] "General Electric Implements enumerate Software To Streamline Financial Reporting." - "Software developer enumerate Solutions, Inc. today announced that the Corporate Tax Department of General Electric, the world's eighth largest corporation, has signed a contract to use enumerate's software tool -- the XBRL Creator -- to simplify and speed its tax reporting processes. GE will use enumerate's technology to more efficiently coordinate and consolidate financial information from its global subsidiaries. 'GE's federal tax return -- running more than 40,000 pages -- is the largest return received by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),' said Steve Francis, Director of Tax Systems at GE. 'To generate the return, we must gather and evaluate information from over 150 distinct general ledgers, each with its own financial system. It's both time consuming and error-prone.' XBRL Creator, based on the new reporting standard known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), will now allow GE to streamline its tax reporting processes. XBRL Creator will enable accountants in GE's individual business units to easily map financial information from their systems to a tax sensitive chart of accounts, store these maps in a central corporate database, and then use this information over and over again to prepare tax returns, all with a few mouse clicks... XBRL Creator includes three integrated components to implement XBRL. Companies can readily adopt XBRL without having to abandon any of their own long-standing accounting practices. (1) Designer: This component of XBRL Creator allows corporations to easily create a master chart of accounts or other schemas specifying the financial information they want reported from outlying business units. (2) Mapper: With this component, accountants in the outlying units map the information in their financial databases to the items requested by corporate headquarters. (3) Builder: Most companies collect thousands of pieces of financial data, but for any one report, only a few may be needed. enumerate's Builder lets users drag-and-drop specific pieces of financial information from a schema to build an XBRL document..." See: "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [February 20, 2002] "ICE Authoring Group Releases Draft Requirements for Industry Comment. ICE2 Moves Content Syndication into Web Services Environment." - "IDEAlliance and the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) Authoring Group have announced that the Draft Requirements for ICE2 Specification will be released to the public on February 21, 2002. The release will take place during the XML and Publishing Hot Technology Day of the Seybold Conference and Exposition in New York City. According to Dr. Richard Martin, Chairman of the ICE2 Specification Development Committee, 'For the next version of the ICE protocol, it is critical to consider integration of Web Services' related standards for the ICE2 definition. Given that ICE content syndication and the Web Services standards are squarely focused on distributed computing space, the synergy between the two sets of standards should be exploited to make ICE2 more complete and easier to adopt.' The ICE Authoring Group has initially identified 15 draft requirements that identify the lessons learned during the past four years of ICE implementations, coupled with continued innovations in the XML community, to review and refine ICE to meet the growing demands of business. The goal is to express the ICE content syndication standard as a Web Service. This first major revision of the ICE Specification will focus on compatibility with the three major Web Services Standards -- WSDL, SOAP and UDDI. In addition to the exciting new technical work being undertaken by the ICE Authoring Group, the shift toward opening the technical work to industry involvement is another major milestone for the ICE Authoring Group. According to David Steinhardt, President and CEO of IDEAlliance, 'ICE1 was developed by the activity sponsors, who held a vested interest in solving the problem of automating and managing content exchange. Today, four years later, the environment has changed dramatically. We are opening the technical development and seek input from the entire industry to ensure that ICE2 meets the requirements of a broader community.' Development of the ICE2 specification is an open industry activity. Anyone interested in participation can begin by reviewing the Draft Requirements Document at www.icestandard.org. Comments relating to the ICE2 Specification Draft Requirements are due back to the ICE-AG by March 8, 2002... ICE (Information and Content Exchange) is a key industry initiative hosted by IDEAlliance and sponsored by a group of companies who have a common interest in solving the problem of automating and managing the exchange of every type of content. The group consists of software developers and companies who distribute or consume content, whether commercially or within intranet and extranet frameworks." See "Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol." [draft]

  • [February 13, 2002] "Microsoft Launches XML Web Services Revolution With Visual Studio .NET and .NET Framework Bill Gates Highlights Customers and Partners Autodesk, Borland, Computer Associates, Groove Networks, L'Oreal, Macromedia, Merrill Lynch and IBM Reaping Gains on .NET Platform." - "In the most significant product launch of the new Microsoft .NET era, Microsoft Corp. Chief Software Architect Bill Gates today launched Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, the application development tool and platform for .NET applications, at the VSLive! 2002 Conference in San Francisco. In a keynote address and worldwide webcast, Gates kicked off launch events around the world and hailed the two products as key to the development experience that will drive the phenomenon of XML Web services. Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework are the cornerstones of .NET and represent a major milestone in bringing Microsoft's vision of XML Web services to reality... With Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, developers can easily create and deploy XML Web services on the .NET Platform. XML Web services provide businesses with a new way to employ the Internet as a development platform, and enable businesses to seamlessly interoperate across disparate systems and platforms. With support for more than 20 programming languages, these products enable developers to extend their existing skills to embrace the new world of XML Web services... In addition to the growing industry momentum for building and deploying XML Web services on the .NET Platform, Gates' keynote also highlighted news that Microsoft released new Web services toolkits for BizTalk Server 2002 and SQL Server 2000 for integrating with Visual Studio .NET. The BizTalk Server Toolkit for Microsoft .NET will provide additional support for orchestrating XML Web services through its integration with Visual Studio .NET. The SQL Server 2000 Web Services Toolkit will enable developers to easily use Visual Studio .NET to extend the capabilities of applications built on SQL Server 2000..."

  • [February 13, 2002] "Microsoft Extends XML Web Services Support in .NET Enterprise Servers Through Visual Studio .NET. New Toolkits for SQL Server, BizTalk Server Integrate With Visual Studio .NET For Deepened Support for Building, Deploying and Orchestrating XML Web Services." - "Microsoft Corp. today announced toolkits for Microsoft. SQL Server and BizTalk Server that enhance the native XML Web services capabilities of two of its industry-leading .NET Enterprise Servers. The toolkits, dubbed the SQL Server 2000 Web Services Toolkit for Microsoft .NET and the BizTalk Server 2002 Web Services Toolkit for Microsoft .NET, are freely downloadable add-ons that empower developers to quickly and easily create and integrate XML Web services with their enterprise server environments. XML Web services allow businesses to connect their computing assets regardless of vendor, platform or programming language, enabling deeper digital relationships with customers and partners. XML Web services also provide the flexibility to adapt to business and market changes and capture new revenue opportunities... The SQL Server 2000 Web Services Toolkit for Microsoft .NET enables developers to easily build XML Web services that extend the capabilities of applications built on SQL Server 2000: (1) Developers can quickly build XML Web services on SQL Server 2000 to share data and applications securely both inside and outside the firewall. (2) Support can be added for XML Web services (or .NET) incrementally, without writing code for the data tier or reconfiguring SQL Server. Developers can make existing stored procedures or server-side XML templates available as XML Web services, enabling quicker, easier deployment. (3) XML Web services built with SQL Server and Visual Studio .NET dramatically improve business efficiency by enabling systems with differing protocols to effectively communicate and perform routine business functions... Through its integration with Visual Studio .NET, the BizTalk Server 2002 Web Services Toolkit for Microsoft .NET provides additional support for orchestrating XML Web services. This integration enables developers to use BizTalk Server components in the Visual Studio .NET development environment as well as turn BizTalk Server business processes into XML Web services. The toolkit offers a number of features for working with XML Web services, including the following: (1) Seamless access is available from any managed language supported by the .NET Framework. All the interfaces and object models of BizTalk Server can be accessed seamlessly from any managed language. (2) Samples demonstrate how to integrate BizTalk Server with Common Language Runtime (CLR) elements. A sample integration component illustrates the interface necessary for custom code to communicate with BizTalk as well as a sample processor that illustrates how to use managed code before BizTalk takes over processing. (3) Examples and design guidelines available for creating scalable and available XML Web services include design patterns for leveraging synchronous processing, asynchronous processing and sync-on-async processing..."

  • [February 13, 2002] "RealNames Announces Keyword Registration Web Service. New SOAP-Based Keywords Registration Service Built in Less Than Two Weeks with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET." - "RealNames Corporation, the extended naming services company, today announced the availability of its Keywords Registration Service as a XML Web service. It was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. RealNames' Registration Service application programming interface, or approximately 35 interface calls, will be available as a XML Web service to the more than 50 RealNames registries and registrars, who can deploy it to sell and manage Keywords on their Web sites. Keywords are modern Web addresses that complement the Domain Name System (DNS), making Internet naming and navigation easier with simple names and brands that work in all languages and character sets. Like DNS, RealNames Keywords are available through a worldwide channel of registries, registrars and resellers, each of whom implements the RealNames Registration platform on their Web sites to sell and manage Keywords. The new SOAP-based Registration Web service interface, in combination with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, will enable RealNames channel partners to deploy their Web sites up to three times faster than they can now, with significantly enhanced consistency. The more than 35 interface calls enable RealNames partners to quickly create the functionality to, for example, subscribe Keywords, check Keyword availability, and manage customer accounts... RealNames Corporation simplifies Internet naming for the next generation Internet with the Keyword platform. Keywords are modern Web addresses that complement the Domain Name System, making Internet naming and navigation easier with simple names and brands that work in all languages and character sets. The RealNames registration and resolution name services platform provides a modern naming layer on top of DNS that is available to all application developers. The RealNames Keyword system is integrated into the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser software. RealNames Keywords and name services are available through a worldwide channel of Registries and Registrars. RealNames has developed a business model where local country Registries, having negotiated the exclusive license to Keywords in their territory, will license Registrars to sell Keywords directly to customers. The country Registry retains local control over the Keyword namespace while sharing revenues from Keyword sales among the local channel partners. This model encourages the proliferation of Keywords as the next generation naming standard for the Internet..." See "Context-Intelligent Naming and Resolution Services," from Aberdeen Group (profile on RealNames).

  • [February 12, 2002] "eXcelon to Power Distributed XML and J2EE Applications Deployed on HP Netaction Application Serve." - "eXcelon Corporation today announced that it will offer an XML database and an EJB caching engine to Hewlett-Packard Company's Netaction software customers. eXcelon has agreed to optimize its XIS and Javlin products to 'extend and enhance' the HP Netaction software suite to enhance the speed, scalability, flexibility and continuous availability of applications built and deployed on the HP Netaction Application Server 8.0. eXcelon's XIS and Javlin products complement the HP Application Server by persisting XML and Java software assets in a middle-tier operational data store that allows the real-time propagation of data across complex, distributed Internet applications. HP Netaction products are designed to provide businesses with a flexible foundation to develop, integrate and deploy voice and data services, help solve customer business problems and enable the transformation to an always-on Internet infrastructure. XIS is eXcelon's market-leading native XML database management system. It allows corporate developers and software engineers to manage large collections of XML documents essential in today's distributed computing architectures, including Web Services. Javlin, the EJB Data Caching Server, employs a patented, distributed cache architecture to meet the distributed data caching and persistence requirements of middle-tier enterprise J2EE applications. The Javlin data cache server provides the highest performance, flexibility, developer productivity, and scalability of any Java caching solution available... eXcelon Corporation is a leading provider of data management software designed to accelerate the performance of distributed applications built using XML and Java and deployed on market leading software platforms. eXcelon's core products, XIS, Javlin and ObjectStore, deliver enhanced levels of speed, flexibility, scalability and run-time availability to Web services and distributed applications, which can result in substantial cost savings and significant competitive advantage for large and mid-sized enterprises. For corporate developers and software engineers who need to manage XML in a distributed environment, eXcelon Corporation's eXtensible Information Server (XIS) is a native XML database management system that provides the speed and throughput necessary to manage the extreme flexibility of XML. The product is unique in that it provides node-level management. Javlin, the EJB Data Caching Server, offers high performance distributed Java data caching that enables organizations to meet the productivity requirements of mid-tier J2EE application environments while attaining greater extensibility and scalability. ObjectStore delivers best of breed data-management for Java and C++ to ensure the rapid propagation and availability of data for complex Web transactions, dynamic content, network management systems and a multitude of applications for independent software vendors (ISVs)..."

  • [February 12, 2002] "Software AG, Inc. Announces Availability of Tamino XML Server Version 3.1. Award-Winning Comprehensive XML Server Further Extends Corporate Web Service and Data Integration Capabilities." - "Software AG, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Software AG, Europe's largest systems software provider and a pioneer in XML technologies, announced today the availability of the Tamino XML Server Version 3.1. The newest release of Tamino represents comprehensive advancements in functionality, support and development that includes XML-based access to external database systems, migration tools, schema editors, a WebDAV server and interfaces to Java-based applications... Through initiatives such as UDDI and Web services, XML-based communication is becoming the universal format for data exchange. Tamino XML Server stores and processes XML data without the need to having to convert the data. This means that Tamino is faster, more flexible and more efficient than other systems that have to continually deconstruct and reconstruct XML before they can process, output or store it. Tamino users benefit from shorter response times and the fact that XML is an accepted standardized data format for the Internet... Highlights of some of the new functions and features of Tamino Version 3.1 include: (1) Tamino Schema Editor: A new schema editor used for writing and maintaining schemas is based on the new Tamino Schema Definition (TSD3), derived from the recently released W3C standard, XML Schema Definition Language (XSD). (2) Tamino WebDAV Server: An additional server that puts the Tamino XML Server right on the user's desktop, acting as an Internet file system. With simple drag-and-drop technology, users can store data in Tamino via the Internet. Document access control mechanisms allow teams to work on documents in enterprise/content management systems over the Web and store them without conflict with locking and authentication functions. (3) Tamino X-Plorer -- An intuitive Tamino-specific browser that has a similar look and feel as an Internet browser. It offers a convenient means of creating and managing queries of data stored in any Tamino XML server in the network. (4) Tamino X-Application: A flexible framework for fast and easy creation of dynamic Web applications. It enables users without any programming knowledge to link Web pages to content that is stored in a database such (5) Tamino API for Java: A new API empowers developers to program new standards-based accesses (DOM2, JDOM, SAX2) to XML documents in Tamino quickly and easily. This feature complements existing Tamino APIs (DOM1-based HTTP-client APIs for Java, JScript und ActiveX). (6) Support for Enterprise JavaBeans Technology: Support via EJB Resource Manager and EJB API complements widely used Java-based application servers such as IBM WebSphere, HPAS 8.0 and BEA Systems WebLogic. In addition, it enables existing java-based applications to store XML data persistently. (7) Tamino Manager Batch Interface: Enables automatic execution of server-side administration tasks such as (8) Tamino Data Loader: Fast loading for large volumes of XML data in and out of Tamino. Tamino XML Server will support all major operating systems for PCs, Unix and mainframes. Tamino XML Server V3.1 is now available for purchase from Software AG and its distribution partners on the following platforms: Windows, Solaris, OS/390, Linux, AIX and HP-UX..."

  • [February 12, 2002] "Altova Inc., Announces Availability of World's First SOAP Debugger and Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SQLXML in XML Spy 4.3 Suite." - "Altova, Inc. today announced the release of the XML Spy 4.3 Suite, a comprehensive product-line of developer tools for advanced XML application development, consisting of the XML Spy 4.3 Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the XML Spy 4.3 XSLT Designer, and the XML Spy 4.3 Document Editor... XML Spy Suite is the essential developer tool for testing & debugging web services based on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The XML Spy SOAP Debugger acts as a web services proxy between a web services client and server, letting you inspect WSDL files, single-step through web services transactions, inspect every request and response XML document, set breakpoints on SOAP functions (either on the request or on the response), and even define conditional breakpoints that trigger if a certain request or response contains selected data that is specified by means of an XPath query. Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SQLXML: XML Spy is the only tool to support graphical editing of XML Schemas which use Microsoft SQLXML schema extensions, a powerful technology which effectively bridges the gap between Extensible Markup Language (XML) and relational data by creating XML views of relational data, abstracting away the underlying data format... The XML Spy 4.3 Suite is available immediately for download and purchase from the XML Spy Online Shop. All current XML Spy 4.x customers are eligible to receive the new XML Spy 4.3 ... Altova is a leading provider of XML software solutions with offices in Beverly, MA and headquarters in Vienna, Austria..."

  • [February 11, 2002] "OASIS Joins International Alliance of Standards-Setting Bodies for Electronic Business XML Consortium Unites in MoU with IEC, ISO, ITU, and UN/ECE." - "OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, joined the four International Standards Organizations in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Electronic Business. Founding members of the MoU include the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE). As the newest invited member of the MoU, OASIS adds its resources to the efforts of these international standards-setting bodies to coordinate the development of global standards for electronic business... The Electronic Business MoU establishes a coordination mechanism under a unique cooperative model to produce mutually supportive standards required in business transactions (data interchange and interoperability), as well as product design and manufacturing to meet the urgent needs of both industry and end-users. 'The purpose of the MoU is to minimize the risk of divergent and competitive approaches to standardization, avoid duplication of efforts and confusion amongst users,' said Houlin Zhao, Director of ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. 'Under the MoU's Management Group, for instance, ITU technical groups will be able to share their agendas with OASIS technical committees to promote convergence where appropriate and advance the interests of the marketplace at-large'..."

  • [February 7, 2002] "Object Management Group Charters MDA Infrastructure Task Force. Adopts First MDA-based Domain Standard." - "Members of the Object Management Group (OMG) gathered in Anaheim, CA, USA from January 28 through February 1, 2002 at a meeting co-sponsored by Hewlett-Packard Company and the Borland Software Corporation.A key development was the formation of the Middleware and Related Services (MARS) Platform Task Force (PTF) to adopt infrastructure and services standards in the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). The new task force will standardize both object-oriented and message-oriented request broker technology, as well as Pervasive Services for the multiple middleware platforms supported by the MDA including Web Services, Enterprise JavaBeans, and XML/SOAP, in addition to OMG's vendor-independent middleware platform, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). The MARS PTF replaces the Object Request Broker and Object Services (ORBOS) PTF, whose scope was restricted to CORBA. Members also chartered the Business Enterprise Integration (BEI) Domain Task Force, which will adopt MDA-based standards for integration in general business and electronic commerce... At this meeting, the Life Science Research (LSR) Domain Task Forces (DTF) completed member evaluation and started the final adoption vote on OMG's first MDA-based domain specification. The Gene Expression Representation and Exchange Standard is based on a model built in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). In the MDA, this platform-independent base model is used to generate equivalent versions of the standard on one or several middleware platforms, as needed by the industry that uses it. LSR DTF members selected the popular data language XML as the best platform for the Gene Expression standard, defining it as a set of DTDs. Under the MDA, OMG standards are not restricted to any single platform -- each can be defined and implemented on the platform or platforms best suited for it, and its industry. The LSR DTF also issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) initiating work on a new specification to manage biochemical samples..." See: "OMG Model Driven Architecture (MDA)."

  • [February 07, 2002] "Industry Leaders Align Around Web Services Interoperability. Accenture, BEA Systems, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP Form Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to Speed Development and Deployment of Web Services. Provide Support and Road Map for Developers and Customers." - "A broad group of technology leaders today announced the formation of the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization. This cross-industry initiative is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of interoperable Web services across a variety of platforms, applications and programming languages. Web services are a platform- and language-independent means of building distributed systems that can connect and interact with one another easily and efficiently across the Internet, based on industry standards. WS-I, whose founders include and, Accenture, BEA Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG, is open to all organizations committed to promoting interoperability among Web services based on industry-accepted definitions and open standards support. The mission of WS-I will be to provide implementation guidance to support customers deploying Web services, promote consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services, and articulate a common industry vision for Web services... To assist in ensuring the interoperability of Web services, WS-I will initially create a suite of tools and materials for testing implementation and conformance with "basic level" Web services standards: XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. These testing capabilities are important so customers can ensure that their implementations comply with the best-practices use of these Web services specifications. Tests will be self administered and aimed at uncovering unconventional usage or errors in specification implementations, thus improving interoperability between applications and across platforms..." See (1) the topic document "Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)", (2) the news item: "IBM and Microsoft Announce Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)." [source]

  • [February 06, 2002] "IONA Ships Orbix E2A Collaborate and Partner Editions - Industry's First Enterprise Web Services Integration Solutions With ebXML Support. Orbix E2A Eliminates Barriers to Integrating J2EE, .NET, CORBA, Mainframe and Message-Oriented Technologies for Business Efficiency and Return-on-Investment." - "IONA, a leading e-Business Platform provider for Web Services Integration, today announced the general availability of the Collaborate and Partner Editions of its Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform... IONA's Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform is a comprehensive integration solution that marries Web services standards with powerful business-to-business and enterprise application integration capabilities. Unlike solutions from other vendors that add Web services as a feature, Web services are at the heart of Orbix E2A. This eliminates the barriers to integrating independent technologies such as J2EE, .NET, CORBA, mainframes and message-oriented middleware. Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform allows organizations to create, deploy, consume and manage Web services integration solutions for immediate and tangible improvement in operational efficiency and return-on-investment. The Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform Collaborate Edition extends the creation, deployment and management capabilities offered by the Orbix E2A XMLBus Edition with enterprise Qualities-of-Service including security, packaged application adapters for Baan, PeopleSoft, SAP and others, and support for emerging Web services standards-based protocols including ebXML and RosettaNet. These enterprise capabilities, along with support for emerging B2B standards, provide organizations the tools and management services required for reliable, scalable, and secure dynamic data exchange, business process automation, and composite applications both inside and outside the firewall... 'ebXML provides companies a standard method to exchange business messages, communicate data in common terms, and define business processes,' said Klaus-Dieter Naujok, Chief Scientific Officer at IONA, former chair of ebXML, chair of UN/CEFACT's eBTWG and member of the UN/CEFACT Steering Committee. 'Because Orbix E2A is Web-services centric in design and ebXML's process centric framework and use of the SOAP standard, Orbix E2A allows organizations to truly automate an entire business process with customers or partners from discovery to settlement'... In addition, Orbix E2A Collaborate Edition provides (1) application adapters to systems such as Siebel, SAP, JD Edwards, Baan and PeopleSoft that extend the value of internal systems by seamlessly incorporating them into business process flows (2) technology adapters to systems built on MQ-Series, mainframes, JMS, J2EE, CORBA, XML and relational databases (3) support for key B2B standards such as ebXML, RosettaNet, cXML, xCBL and EDI for rapid implementation of business processes (4) a patent-pending security system that provides encryption, authentication, non-repudiation, and digital signatures to ensure secure transactions between business partners..."

  • [January 29, 2002] "Rogue Wave Software Announces Availability of Ruple Alpha Version Two. Second Version of Ruple Technology Extends Web Services Capabilities." - "Rogue Wave Software, Inc., a leading global software and consulting services company, today introduced the second alpha version of its Ruple technology on the company's online Technology Access Center (TAC). Ruple Alpha Version 2 lets users include MIME attachments with XML documents and offers a Ruple Forum Server download, giving users the opportunity to create and host their own forum for exploration and discovery. This latest version incorporates code examples and comprehensive documentation, demonstrating insight into the technology and the flexibility of Ruple. In addition, the company will gather examples of user applications developed with the Ruple technology and will post selected applications on the live site for other visitors to download and explore. Originally introduced to the public in early November 2001, Ruple uses the existing Internet infrastructure to provide a shared memory space for multiple applications from which XML documents can be read or to which XML documents can be written. Ruple provides asynchronous and one-to-many communications, in addition to targeted security measures and simple interactions... Currently, the company is focusing on both introducing Ruple technology to the marketplace and gaining experience in its many possible uses. To support this strategy, Rogue Wave has two distinct teams concentrating on Ruple: the Ruple development team and the Ruple business development team. This two-pronged approached allows Rogue Wave to obtain input from the myriad of developers exploring the technology, and to work with interested participants to help solve their business challenges..." See: "Tuple Spaces and XML Spaces."

  • [January 25, 2002] "ISDA and FpML.org Integration Finalized." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) announced today the completion of the integration of Financial products Markup Language (FpML) into ISDA's organizational structure. FpML.org and ISDA finalized documents assigning assets related to the FpML standard to ISDA. Today's action is the final step in the integration process initiated last year to combine ISDA's organizational strengths with FpML's technology base for sharing information on, and dealing in, OTC derivatives. In recent activity, a Trial Recommendation was issued last week for FpML Version 2.0, the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. FpML Version 2.0 extends interest rate product coverage to include interest rate options such as swaptions, caps and floors, and extends the swap definition to include FX resetables, cancelables and early termination provisions..." See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."

  • [February 02, 2002] "The SALT Forum Welcomes Additional Technology Leaders as Contributors. New Members Add Extensive Expertise in All Aspects of Multimodal and Telephony Application Development and Deployment." - "Today the SALT Forum, a group of companies with a shared goal of accelerating the use of speech in multimodal and telephony systems, announced the addition of 18 contributors that will assist in formulating the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification. The announcement marks a milestone in the SALT Forum's effort to create an open, royalty-free, platform-independent markup language for speech-enabling applications. SALT will enable multimodal and telephony access to information, applications and Web services from PCs, Tablet PCs, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), telephones, and other mobile devices. The 18 new SALT Forum contributing members are Compaq Computer Corp., Edify Corp., Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel), Glenayre Electronics Inc., HeyAnita Inc., InterVoice-Brite Inc., Kirusa Inc., Korea Telecom, LOBBY7 Inc., Loquendo (a Telecom Italia company), NMS Communications, PipeBeach AB, Siemens Enterprise Networks LLC, Telera Inc., Tenovis GmbH & Co. KG, T-Systems (a division of Deutsche Telekom AG), VoiceGenie Technologies Inc., and Voxeo Corp. As recognized technology leaders, their active participation in specification development will ensure that SALT serves diverse industry needs, thus accelerating the investment in and adoption of applications that permit spoken input and output... In the months since the Forum was established, members have made significant progress toward formulating the SALT specification. SALT is based on a unique structure combining a core language specification with device-specific capability profiles, making it suitable for a wide spectrum of multimodal and telephony platforms throughout the world. To speed its adoption, SALT is harmonious with today's popular speech engines and Web development tools. Today the SALT Forum also is releasing a technical white paper that outlines its guiding design principles. The SALT Forum expects to make its markup language draft specification available for public comment in the first quarter of 2002, and to submit the specification to one or more international standards bodies by midyear [2002]. Over the coming months the SALT Forum will continue to broaden its reach through additional supporters. The forum seeks to develop a royalty-free standard that augments existing Web markup languages to provide spoken access to many forms of content through a wide variety of devices..." See "Speech Application Language Tags (SALT)."

  • [January 30, 2002] "OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee Approves Updated Specs. Consortium Membership to Vote on OASIS Standards." - " The OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee announced its approval of the ebXML Registry Services Specification v2.0 and the ebXML Registry Information Model v2.0. Both are updated versions of specifications originally developed under the ebXML Initiative, jointly sponsored by OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT). The new versions of the specifications have advanced under the OASIS technical process and have been submitted to the OASIS membership at-large for consideration as OASIS Standards. The OASIS membership will vote on the ebXML Registry specifications in April 2002. The use of registries facilitates business-to-business and intra-enterprise transactions by enabling a manageable method of discovering and connecting with partners, and exchanging business data. ebXML Registry specifications provide a set of services that allow information to be shared between interested parties, enabling prospective trading partners to find one another and conduct business. The shared information, which may include company profiles as well as industry-specific messages, vocabularies and other data, is maintained as objects in a repository and managed by the ebXML Registry Services, defined in the new versions of the specifications... In addition to defining the interface to the ebXML Registry Services, the ebXML Registry Services Specification also identifies message definitions and XML schema. A separate document, the ebXML Registry Information Model, provides information on the types of metadata that are stored in the registry as well as the relationships among the various metadata classes... The two revised specifications have been approved by the members of the OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee, which include Boeing, Fujitsu, IONA, Logistics Management Institute, NIST, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, Vitria Technology, webMethods, and others. The specifications are now under review by the entire membership of OASIS; voting on OASIS Standards will be held in April 2002." See (1) "OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee Releases Approved Version 2.0 RIM/RS Specifications" and (2) "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."

  • [January 30, 2002] "NTT Communications to Become Asia's First UDDI Business Registry Node Operator." - "NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) announced today that it has received approval to become Asia's first business registry node operator under the Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project. UDDI is a worldwide industry initiative to enable businesses to quickly, easily, and dynamically find one another, leading potentially to new business-to-business e-commerce. UDDI enables a business to describe its business and its services on the Internet, discover other businesses that offer desired services, and integrate with these businesses. The project was launched in the U.S. in September 2000 and now counts over 300 corporations as members, including NTT Com, one of the original members. The UDDI Business Registry is a global, platform-independent, open-architecture database for companies to register their business and the services they offer. Individuals and companies use the registry to find a business or service based on information provided by the registered business, covering categories such as business entity, business service and specifications, transaction methods, and other technical information about the service... A node operator is a company that provides access to the UDDI Business Registry. Operators regularly update their nodes to include registrations made via other operators, resulting in a complete set of registrations available to all users. Other node operators include Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett Packard and SAP. Consistency among these operators is assured by the UDDI Operator's Council, which sets overall policy and quality-of-service guidelines...NTT Com, as Asia's first node operator, will launch a UDDI Business Registry using cross-industry platforms and systems based on the latest Internet technology, including Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Web Services Description Language (WSDL)." See "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)." [source]

  • [January 23, 2002] "Adobe InDesign 2.0 Now Available. Major Upgrade Sets New Standards for Professional Layout and Design. Includes Hundreds of New Features and Performance Improvements." - "Adobe Systems Incorporated, leader in network publishing, today announced the immediate availability of Adobe InDesign 2.0 software, Adobe's professional layout and design program. Version 2.0 introduces editable transparency effects such as drop shadows, table creation, long document support, Extensible Markup Language (XML) import/export support and a greatly enhanced printing interface...InDesign 2.0 also enables creative professionals to more effectively create, manage and deliver visually rich content to multiple channels including print, Web, eBooks and PDAs. In addition, this upgrade supports Adobe's XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) technology, an XML-based framework for embedding, tracking and exchanging metadata so that content can be deployed more efficiently across different media. 'Designers are accustomed to occasional product upgrades with a few new features, but never before have their needs and recommendations been considered so comprehensively as in the release of InDesign 2.0,' said Susan Altman Prescott, vice president of cross-media publishing at Adobe. 'With hundreds of new features important to designers, InDesign 2.0 is more than an upgrade, it represents a revolution in professional page layout and design that will dramatically change cross-media publishing.' Performance enhancements have made InDesign 2.0 significantly faster. In addition, InDesign 2.0 provides native support for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP and tighter integration with other Adobe products including Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Graphic designers, production artists, and prepress professionals in advertising agencies, magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and book publishers are adopting InDesign 2.0 worldwide to exercise creative freedom and true design innovation while improving productivity..." See the news item: "Adobe InDesign 2.0 Supports Generalized XML Import/Export and the Extensible Metadata Platform."

  • [January 22, 2002] "OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Develop Localization Interchange File Format. Commerce One, HP, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, and Others Unite on Multi-Lingual Data Exchange Standard." - "OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced its members have formed the OASIS XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) Technical Committee to advance a specification for multi-lingual data exchange. XLIFF will allow any software provider to produce a single interchange format that can be delivered to and understood by any localization service provider. Supporting the entire localization process, XLIFF will be product independent, open enough to allow the development of tools compatible with an implementer's own proprietary data formats and company culture... Initial development of XLIFF was begun by an independent group of localization experts who plan to submit their work to the new OASIS technical committee. Many existing XML formats such as UIML, OpenTag and Translation Memory Exchange (TMX) were used as points of reference in building XLIFF. Yves Savourel, author of XML Internationalization and Localization, applauded the consolidation under OASIS, saying, "The creation of an OASIS Technical Committee for XLIFF is good news for our industry. XLIFF brings the promise of much greater interoperability between the tools used by customers and providers of localization services. This should lead to more efficient and less costly processes." Members of the OASIS XLIFF Technical Committee include consortium sponsors, Commerce One, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Xerox, and other OASIS members..." See: (1) "XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF)", and (2) the announcement of December 17, 2001: "OASIS Technical Committee to Standardize an XML Localisation Interchange File Format (XLIFF)."

  • [January 16, 2002] Lightspeed Completes Deal With Xerox Corporation to Acquire Chrystal Software Assets. Acquisition Positions Lightspeed as Major Enterprise Software Player." - "Lightspeed Interactive, Inc., a leading provider of information management and delivery solutions, today announced that it has finalized a deal with Xerox Corporation to acquire the assets of Chrystal Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox Corporation. The assets include the source code to Astoria Content Management System, Eclipse and all other Chrystal software products. Effective January 1st, 2002, Lightspeed Interactive became the sole source for Chrystal products to provide sales, customer support and maintenance. The acquisition will provide Lightspeed with an element of critical mass and allow the company to accelerate its domestic sales and marketing operations, as well as develop international business activities. Lightspeed will be able to offer Chrystal customers an upgrade path through the provision of content delivery capabilities, thus preserving their existing investment and significantly extending functionality... Lightspeed Interactive, Inc. is best known for its information infrastructure software solutions, XML transformation engine, efficient development platform, and delivery solutions. The company has successfully developed and delivered personalized information software solutions targeted at sales and marketing support, e-learning, e-commerce and product support for large blue chip technology companies..."

  • [January 14, 2002] "New Microsoft Office XP Tools Bring XML Web Services To Knowledge Workers. New Tools Bring Powerful .NET Experiences to the Desktop Through Integration With XML Web Services." - "As part of the ongoing Microsoft .NET strategy, Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of two new tools that will enable new user experiences by integrating the power and efficiency of XML Web services and the familiar computing environment of Office XP. Both the Office XP Web Services Toolkit and the Smart Tag Enterprise Resource Toolkit enable developers to deliver XML Web services data directly into Office XP, making it easy for users to access important information in the applications they use every day. These offerings further deliver on the Office XP goal of enabling strong business value for organizations, new solution opportunities for developers and exciting new user experiences for knowledge workers... These new Office XP tools are important steps in realizing the Microsoft .NET vision because they enable developers to combine the best of XML Web services with the rich services of Office XP to deliver new, exciting user experiences... The Office XP Web Services Toolkit enables developers to discover and integrate XML Web services into Office XP solutions directly from within the Visual Basic for Applications editor. The toolkit will be available as a free download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/ on January 14, 2002 and will enable developers to do the following: [1] Quickly discover XML Web services using the standards-based UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) service; [2] Integrate XML Web services directly into Office XP solutions with a single click. The Smart Tag Enterprise Resource Toolkit provides a roadmap on how best to plan, architect, implement and deploy robust and scalable smart tags within the enterprise. The toolkit will be available as a free download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/ on January 14, 2002 and will include the following: [1] A robust sample, with complete source code, which illustrates how XML Web services can be used to structure and develop an enterprise smart tag solution; [2] A set of whitepapers on planning, implementing and deploying enterprise smart tags, along with a set of tools that enable developers to more efficiently develop smart tag solutions..." [source]

  • [January 12, 2002] "Pageflex Releases Persona 1.5. New Release Provides Enhanced Support for PPML and VPS Output." - "Pageflex, Inc. announced today the release of Pageflex Persona 1.5. Persona is Pageflex's desktop application for variable content publishing. Persona 1.5 provides improved optimization for PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language) and CreoScitex VPS (Variable Print Specification) output drivers. In addition, Persona supports other vendor specific output drivers, such as, Indigo JLYT and Xeikon Intellicache. The VPS driver for Persona is available through Xerox. PPML and all other vendor specific output drivers may be purchased separately from Pageflex. Persona provides page layout and composition tools, including the ability to design page templates and modify composition settings, such as leading, kerning, justification, and hyphenation. Persona users can create conditional rules that determine which content is used in each copy of a document based on a database of customer profiles. Text and image containers then "flex" (resize) based on the size or orientation of the dynamic content that flows into them. In addition, surrounding containers move in concert to adjust with the change, maintaining the page design integrity. Persona is the first variable publishing solution to use XML as the intermediate data format between a profile database and the page composition process. PPML is a new XML-based industry standard print language for high-speed production of reusable page content. It is an open, interoperable, device-independent standard that will enable the widespread use of personalized print applications. PPML was developed by the world's leading manufacturers of print technology (including Pageflex) as part of the Print on Demand Initiative (PODi)." See (1) the news item "Pageflex Persona Publishing Application Supports Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML)" and (2) "Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML)."

  • [January 08, 2002] "MPEG-7 Alliance Pushes the Standard for Multimedia Content Description." - The Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG) has announced the "launch of the MPEG-7 Alliance, a focus group of industry and academic experts. The main objective of the alliance is to act as an interface between MPEG, industry and academic organisations to promote the adoption of MPEG-7, the metadata standard for the description of audio-visual content. Based largely on XML schema, the MPEG-7 standard is designed to facilitate the archiving, searching and browsing of multimedia content on the web or any online database, and has recently achieved FDIS (final draft of international standard) status. The MPEG-7 Alliance (MP7A), held its first official meeting on 8-December-2001 in Pattaya, Thailand. The focus of the meeting was to bring together the creators of the MPEG-7 standard and potential users in order to forge working partnerships to use, promote and develop the MPEG-7 standard. The meeting was well attended with 39 attendees from over 30 organisations, including people from organisations such as Reuters, Sony, Hitachi, Samsung, LG Electronics, IBM, Fujitsu, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Canon, Panasonic and Siemens. MPEG-7 enables users to search for multimedia content as easily as text-only files. The key lies in providing a flexible and extensible framework for describing audio-visual data, providing description tools that are based on catalogue, semantic and structural features of the content. Examples of the technology created by MPEG-7 working groups include visual tools to search images by colour, textural patterns, or by certain objects and shapes, such as specific logo designs. Searches by motion trajectory -- which are especially useful in remote surveillance systems -- and queries-by-humming/melody clips, and spoken sentences are also possible. The strength of MPEG-7 lies in its open-standards technology. This ensures maximum interoperability with other leading audio-visual standards groups and consortia. The XML-based standard also creates an attractive environment for content creators, distributors, content-management vendors and start-up enterprises already familiar with metadata technologies... Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is a working group of ISO/IEC in charge of the development of standards for coded representation of digital audio and video. Established in 1988, the group has produced MPEG-1 the standard on which such products as Video CD and MP3 are based, MPEG-2, the standard on which such products as Digital Television set top boxes and DVD are based, MPEG-4, the standard for coding multimedia objects and applicable to the fixed and mobile web and MPEG-7, the standard for description of audio and visual content. Work on the new standard MPEG-21 'Multimedia Framework' was started in June 2000." See: "Moving Picture Experts Group: MPEG-7 Standard" and "MPEG Rights Expression Language."

  • [January 07, 2002] "First XML Cup Award Presented to Industry Pioneer James Clark. Recognized for Achievements and Work on the XML Standard." - "IDEAlliance, an independent, not-for-profit membership organization, presented the first XML Cup Award to James Clark at their annual XML 2001 event held in Orlando, Florida, December 9-14, 2001. Lauren Wood, Conference Chair and Director of Product Technology at SoftQuad Software, awarded Clark the Cup before a packed audience of XML enthusiasts and community leaders. 'We are honored to present this premier award to James. He has been one of the vital contributors to the standard and continues to be very much involved in the future of XML,' said Wood. 'Many individuals have made significant contributions to XML, James's contributions have not always been recognized. Therefore, he was the obvious choice.' 'IDEAlliance is honored to present the first XML Cup Award to James Clark,' said Marion Elledge Executive Vice President of IDEAlliance. 'Our XML conference and exposition has been in existence since XML was first announced at one of our standards events more than five years ago. We thought it was time to recognize those who have helped to make XML an important standard. The XML Cup Award was created to honor talented individuals whose vision and contributions have made a lasting impact on XML technology.' James Clark is the founder of the Thai Open Source Software Center and has been involved with SGML and XML for more than 10 years, both in contributing to standards and in creating open source software. 'I am truly honored to receive this award, and I look forward to the new challenges facing those of us working with XML and other related standards,' Clark said. Clark was the technical lead of the XML Working Group during the creation of the XML 1.0 Recommendation. He was editor of the XPath and XSLT Recommendations. He was also the main author of the DSSSL (ISO 10179) standard. Clark has also been the author of several open source software applications. Currently, he is chair of the OASIS RELAX NG TC and editor of the RELAX NG specification... Next year's XML Cup will be presented during the XML 2002 Conference, December 9-13, in Baltimore, Maryland... IDEAlliance (International Digital Enterprise Alliance) is a not-for-profit membership organization. Its mission is to advance user-driven, cross-industry solutions for all publishing and content-related processes by developing standards, fostering business alliances, and identifying best practices. IDEAlliance has been a leader in information technology since 1966 (founded as Graphic Communications Association) having fostered the development and adoption of standards such as ADIS, GRACoL, ICE, JIFFI, Mail.dat, papiNet, PRISM, PROSE XML, SPACE XML, SGML, and XML." See from 2001-12-12: "James Clark First Recipient of the IDEAlliance XML Cup Award."

  • [January 03, 2002] "Covisint to Implement ebXML and Open Applications Group OAGIS Standards." - "Covisint has announced "the adoption and implementation of the ebXML message transport layer and use of the Open Applications Group's OAGIS standards for the XML document payload as its technology strategy. A message transport layer is a set of electronic protocols that works very much like a paper envelope works to 'envelop' a message or letter. It contains information as to who sent it and directs where to deliver the document. The XML payload, in an electronic sense, is the letter inside the envelope. This approach will give Covisint the ability to exchange Internet-based messages between trading partners wrapped in a standard message framework that is being adopted globally.Covisint's adoption of these standards allows OEMs, automotive suppliers and software providers to make critical business decisions on applications and products that also use these common standards. This will promote software and application interoperability that enhances business agility, improves communication and reduces integration costs..." See also the news item, with additional references in "Open Applications Group" and "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)." [source]

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