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Last modified: June 27, 2002
XML Industry News: 2002 Q2

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]

  • [June 27, 2002] "BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet Version 2.0 Launched At the Microsoft Silicon Valley High-Tech Solutions Launch. New Version Includes Support for All Current PIPs And Improved Suite of Development, Management and Deployment Tools; Broad Adoption by Industry Leaders Including Intel and Others." - "Today at the Microsoft High-Tech Solutions launch, Microsoft Corp., one of the founding members of the RosettaNet consortium, announced the availability of the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet version 2.0. Built on top of Microsoft BizTalk Server, the second version of the Accelerator for RosettaNet combines prebuilt support for all current RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes (PIPs) with an improved suite of development, management and rapid deployment tools to significantly reduce the time and resources required to build, deploy and manage RosettaNet solutions. High-tech companies can use the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet to quickly and easily implement RosettaNet, which allows them to integrate applications with supply chain partners and orchestrate sophisticated, collaborative business processes. Intel Corp., a founding member of the RosettaNet consortium, and Flextronics Corp. are presenting at the conference, discussing the benefits of automating their entire supply chains via XML Web services and the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet... The BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet is a set of tools and technical resources that enhances the functionality of BizTalk Server to significantly reduce the amount of time and resources required to build, deploy and manage RosettaNet solutions. Version 2.0 of the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet includes all the functionality of the first version plus new features: (1) Full support of the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF) versions 1.1 and 2.0. The RosettaNet consortium recently introduced version 2.0 of its RNIF. The BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 2.0 supports both releases of the framework simultaneously, giving developers and IT professionals easy access to the most up-to-date framework. (2) Inclusion of all published Partner Interface Processes. The BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 2.0 includes all published PIPs along with tools to rapidly and securely import and deploy new and custom PIPs from trading partners. (3) Partner Agreement Wizard for importing, deploying and testing new and customized PIPs rapidly. This wizard allows companies to import and deploy new and customized processes created by trading partners, dramatically reducing the time it takes to change, update, test or add a new process or trading partner and lowering the solution's overall cost of ownership. (4) Support for additional industry standards including Chemical Industry Data eXchange (CIDX) and Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX). The BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet 2.0 includes support for the chemical industry's e-chemical standards from the CIDX consortium as well as standards defined by the PIDX consortium. (5) Support for all versions and editions of Microsoft BizTalk Server. This version of the BizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet is built on the latest versions of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, including all editions of BizTalk Server 2002..." See "RosettaNet."

  • [June 27, 2002] "IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign Submit WS-Security Specification to OASIS for Standardization. Advanced Web Services Security Specification Broadly Supported by Industry." - "IBM, Microsoft Corp., and VeriSign, Inc., today announced they will submit the latest version of the Web Services Security (WS-Security) specification to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for ongoing development. The WS-Security specification is one of the first Web services standards to support, integrate and unify multiple security models, mechanisms and technologies, allowing a variety of systems to interoperate in a platform- and language-neutral manner. Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Cisco Systems, Documentum, Entrust, Inc., Intel Corporation, IONA, Netegrity, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and Systinet have all expressed plans to participate in the OASIS development effort. With this announcement, IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign are furthering their commitment to build and deliver standards-based security solutions that meet customer requirements. The three companies will continue to work together to advance standards-based specifications that will allow for comprehensive Web services security solutions as outlined in the 'Security in a Web Services World' road map, which was drafted by IBM and Microsoft in April 2002. The WS-Security specification, which provides the foundation for that road map, defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions, or message headers, that can be used to implement integrity and confidentiality in Web services applications. Web services are applications that can be accessed through XML and SOAP-based protocols, making them platform- and language-independent. WS-Security provides a foundation layer for secure Web services, laying the groundwork for higher-level facilities such as federation, policy and trust..." See: "Web Services Security Specification (WS-Security)."

  • [June 26, 2002] "BEA, Intalio, SAP, Sun Publish Web Services Choreography Interface, Take Web Services Collaboration to New Level. New XML-Based Specification Helps Developers Build Web Services for Open Application to Application Collaboration." - "BEA Systems, Intalio, SAP AG, and Sun Microsystems today announced the publication of the XML-based Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI). This new specification is available for public comment at the companies' respective Web sites. WSCI provides an important foundation for realizing the promise of Web services to deliver automated, application to application collaboration... WSCI describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web service in a particular process, and also describes the collective message exchange among interacting Web services, providing a global view of a complex process involving multiple Web services. Today's service description languages are adequate for simple information retrieval, such as a stock quote, but they do not provide the rich behavioral detail that describes the role the service plays as part of a larger, more comprehensive collaboration. One of the key benefits of WSCI is that it bridges the gap between business process management and Web services by describing how a Web service can be used as part of a larger, more complex business process. These business processes may reside entirely within the confines of a single company, or span across multiple organizations or companies. After a public review period, WSCI will be submitted, on a royalty-free basis, to an industry standards body..." See: "Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI)."

  • [June 24, 2002] "FISD Market Data Definition Language (MDDL) Version 2.0 Beta. MDDL Version 2.0 (Fixed Income) Scheduled for Release July 1, 2002." - "The beta version 2.0 of FISD's Market Data Definition Language (MDDL) covering the information required to set-up municipal, corporate, government and agency bonds is scheduled for release on July 1, 2002. The market data industry is encouraged to provide comments on the vocabulary structure, terms and definitions. The working spreadsheet (version 5c) of MDDL 2.0 vocabulary and hierarchical relationships is now online. The decision on the scope of 2.0 was made during the June 18, 2002 MDDL working meeting in NYC. FISD is working to deliver a functional MDDL specification to meet the application requests of the Bond Market Association's Security Master Database Project. Version 2.1 will cover the information required to disseminate price, yield and accrued interest data and will be released shortly after v2.0. In addition to the decision on the scope and timeframe for MDDL v2.0, the following issues were discussed during the working meeting. There will be no modifications to 1.0. Edits and missing features will be incorporated into v2.1. MDDL 2.0 terms and definitions need global review and validation. FISD is appending definitions in the following order - BMA required data elements; ISO standard terms; industry recommendations. Documentation for the vocabulary definitions is being reviewed by a small group and will be released for global review by mid-July (even though the beta specification will be released on July 1, 2002). Richard Robinson (Deutsche Bank) is the chair of the MDDL Vocabulary Committee and is managing the vocabulary process. Comments and suggestions should be directed to him. FISD reinforced its commitment to incorporating MDDL terms and definitions (semantics) into ISO 15022 data dictionary. Comments and suggestions should be directed to Michael Atkin. Practical applications of MDDL are FISD's primary focus. We have spoken with a number of firms in various stages of MDDL development and are interested in finding candidates to test the validity of the MDDL schema. If you are interested in working with us as a pilot case study, please contact Michael Atkin. MDDL 2.0 documentation is in process. The technical specification is being edited and an implementation overview is being written. James Hartley (Reuters) is the Chair of the Technical Committee..." See: "Market Data Definition Language (MDDL)."

  • [June 20, 2002] "ANSI ASC X12 Develops New XML and EDI Transactions for Finance, Government, Mortgage and Transportation Industries." - "ANSI Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 members recently finished drafts for the following Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards: the Product Delivery Invoice created for use in the financial industry and the Status Notification, which allows a transportation carrier to send the status of a shipment to a shipper, consignee or third party. A formal member review of these new standards is slated for August 2002. Committee members are also embarking on the following new project proposals submitted at the most recent ASC X12 Meeting June 2-7 to: (1) Elevate the ASC X12 Reference Model for XML Design to an official X12 standard; (2) Create a specific set of XML Design Rules equivalent to the X12 Design Rules and Guidelines; (3) Create the X12 XML Syntax Standard. The following new transaction sets (TS) will be published in the next ASC X12 Version 4, Release 5, Subrelease 2, which includes 316 TSs and will be available in August 2002. [1] Residential Mortgage Insurance Explanation of Benefits (TS 259) - developed by the ASC X12 Finance Subcommittee - transmits the results of a claim for mortgage insurance benefits between a mortgage insurer and the customer receiving the financial benefit. This TS will be used for transmitting the results of both pool and primary mortgage insurance claims. [2] Tax Jurisdiction Sourcing (TS 158) - developed by the ASC X12 Government Subcommittee - transmits any address in the U.S. Postal Service format from a wireless telecommunications vendor to the tax jurisdiction sourcing information holder for the state in which the address resides. In exchange, the wireless service provider receives the set of taxing jurisdictions having governance over the address in question. This TS meets the requirements of the 2000 Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act (MTSA), which provides the industry with a method of determining the correct taxing jurisdictions for wireless service..." See "ANSI ASC X12/XML and DISA." [alternate source]

  • [June 18, 2002] "Excelon Announces Stylus Studio 4.0. Latest Release of Industry's Most Comprehensive XML/XSLT Development Environment Delivers Improved Productivity and Quality via new XML Schema Diagram, XSLT Debugging Support for Apache Xalan J, and XSLT Off-Line Stack Tracing." - "eXcelon Corporation today announced the latest release of its Stylus Studio XSLT Integrated Development Environment (IDE) at the XML Web Services One Conference and Expo. Stylus Studio 4.0 enables development teams to deliver higher quality XML and XSLT applications faster by enabling developers to visually define XML Schema and providing advanced debugging support including XSLT debugging support for Apache Xalan J. Stylus Studio 4.0 is the industry's only XML/XSL IDE to provide complete debugging traceability between XSLT code and dependent templates... Stylus Studio 4.0 contains a visual schema diagram editor, which reduces the complexity associated with creating and modifying XML Schema. By providing synchronized views of source XML Schema, a tree view and the XML Schema diagram, Stylus 4.0 enables developers to work with XML Schema at multiple levels, making XML Schema editing more accessible to a wider range of users... The Apache Xalan-J XSLT processor is a popular tool for deploying XML applications that utilize XSLT transformations. Stylus 4.0 now allows developers to debug these XSLT transformations interactively using the native Xalan-J processor. This provides Xalan-J developers with full debugging and back mapping capabilities of Stylus Studio while ensuring predictable behavior of XSLT across development and deployment environments... Stylus Studio is the only XML/XSLT IDE with back-mapping, which associates a defect with the related piece of XSLT source code to automate the process of debugging XSLT applications. Stylus Studio 4.0 extends this capability beyond the XSLT source code to the templates that comprise the XSLT to ensure an even higher level of traceability..."

  • [June 18, 2002] "X-Hive Corporation Launches Version 3.0 of Its Native XML Database." - "X-Hive Corporation today announced the release of version 3.0 of X-Hive/DB, the native XML database designed for software developers who need to process and store XML data in their applications. X-Hive/DB supports all major XML standards including XML 1.0, XQuery, XPath, XPointer, XLink, XSL, XUpdate and DOM. It also offers a transaction mechanism, versioning with branching, BLOB storage and various indexing methods, as well as support for J2EE and WebDAV. Next to overall performance improvements the following features have been added or enhanced in X-Hive/DB 3.0: (1) Support for XQuery the standard query language for XML data. (2) Support for DOM Level 3 Abstract Schema enables on-the-fly schema validation. (3) Support for DOM Level 3 Load & Save for loading XML documents into DOM and saving DOM trees as XML source. (4) New indexing method: element name indexes speeds up queries with element names. (5) Improved XPath/XPointer API makes it easier to specify and execute an XPath/XPointer query. (6) Improved administrator client with new functions and updated GUI. (7) Simplified database setup with default configuration based on best practices. X-Hive/DB 3.0 is available as of today on Linux, Solaris and Windows. A free 30-day evaluation license can be obtained from the company website." See previously: "X-Hive/DB 3.0 Technology Preview Adds XQuery, XPath, and DOM Level 3 Support."

  • [June 18, 2002] "ANSI ASC X12's Convergence and Outreach Task Group Addresses Universal Interoperability." - "With the goal of understanding and enabling universal interoperability in Extensible Markup Language (XML), the ANSI Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X12 Convergence and Outreach Task Group (COTG) met recently with numerous industry group representatives to speed development, harmonization and implementation of XML standards and specifications used for business exchange within and across industries. The ASC X12 COTG met with organizations such as the OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee, the Interactive Financial eXchange Forum, the North American Energy Standards Board, and many others during the dynamic ASC X12 meeting June 2-7 [2002] in Minneapolis. 'The discussions from the variety of groups defining XML vocabularies for their industries highlighted the very challenging goal of universal interoperability,' said ASC X12 COTG Chair Karen Raper of LittleSys Inc. 'ASC X12 has a long standing commitment to cross-industry interoperability in EDI [electronic data interchange]. We must honor and maintain that commitment as we proceed with our XML standards work. By collaborating with groups external to ASC X12 as a union of equals, together we can leverage all our work to address and resolve the issues that prevent cross-industry implementations of XML. We look forward to participating with those who joined us in Minneapolis, as well as many others who seek cross-industry interoperability.' Offering a place for global XML convergence and interoperability, ASC X12 COTG serves as a point of entry and outreach for organizations developing business message specifications for their industries. The COTG will continue this essential work over the summer via listserve discussions and teleconferences." To join the COTG listserve, subscribe via the forms interface. See "ANSI ASC X12/XML and DISA."

  • [June 18, 2002] "Fujitsu and Microsoft Announce Expansion of Global Alliance. New Initiatives Focus on XML Web Services, Business-Critical Computing and Mobility." - "Fujitsu Limited and Microsoft Corp. today announced a major expansion of their global alliance in Windows platform enterprise infrastructure and application solutions focusing on the Microsoft .NET Framework and .NET Enterprise Servers. Utilizing their deep experience and comprehensive expertise in business-critical enterprise systems and solutions, the companies will build on their previous collaborative efforts in Japan and other regions by launching new global-scale joint initiatives focused on XML Web services, business-critical computing and mobility. In addition, through the expanded alliance with Microsoft, Fujitsu's principal IT platform, consulting and services units and affiliates -- including Fujitsu Technology Solutions Inc., Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Fujitsu Consulting and Fujitsu Services -- will be combined into a unified corporate alliance structure. This consolidation will help position the Fujitsu Group as a leading one-stop source of end-to-end .NET enterprise solutions worldwide... Fujitsu will develop a Microsoft .NET version of its Interstage middleware, taking advantage of its distinguished consulting and integration expertise to offer comprehensive .NET-based services and solutions that utilize Microsoft's enterprise software, including the .NET Framework,Visual Studio .NET and .NET Enterprise Servers, worldwide. Fujitsu's field-proven Interstage middleware has been deployed in more than 30,000 servers in large-scale mission-critical business environments around the world. Fujitsu also will provide a vertical XML Web service offering for the insurance industry, called iFIRST, on .NET..."

  • [June 18, 2002] "OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Develop International Standard for Controlled Trade. Supports Coordinated Management Strategy for Transfer of Sensitive and Strategic Goods." - "OASIS announced that its members have formed the OASIS Controlled Trade Markup Language (CTML) Technical Committee to develop an international standard for the tracking of controlled materials as they move through trading processes. CTML will allow governments, industry, and non-governmental organizations to unambiguously identify essential business and legal documents that need to be exchanged, including trade applications, cases, licenses, and delivery verification certificates... Governments and suppliers around the world are participating in CTML development at OASIS. John Borras, Assistant Director of Technology Policy for the United Kingdom's Office of the e-Envoy, commented, 'The area of work being addressed by the OASIS CTML Technical Committee is something which the UK government sees as very important, and we are happy to co-sponsor and support its activities. The more we can standardize the vocabulary in this area, the better it will be for the exchange of information between governments and industry.' CTML will incorporate features of other XML business vocabularies and provide a clearly articulated interface to mutually supporting specifications. The OASIS CTML Technical Committee will align its work with other OASIS libraries and frameworks, such as ebXML, Universal Business Language (UBL), Business Transactions Protocol (BTP), and Customer Information Quality (CIQ). [According to] Steven Saboe, Director of the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund at the US Dept of State: 'Creating the means by which government and industry can communicate to control trade in dangerous materials is a worthwhile goal and strongly supported by the United States government. CTML will serve as a lingua franca, allowing the exchange of vital information in real time -- in a way that is cost effective for industry and that, above all, allows governments to assure the safety of their citizens'..." See "Controlled Trade Markup Language (CTML)".

  • [June 17, 2002] "Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 Partner and Standard Editions Bring Integration to the Masses. Microsoft Continues to Lower the Barrier for Integration by Offering Two New Editions Of BizTalk Server 2002 That Meet the Needs of Small to Medium-Sized Businesses." "Today at the Gartner 2002 Application Integration conference, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of the Partner and Standard editions of BizTalk Server 2002. The new editions are designed to empower the tens of thousands of small trading partners that have not been able to participate in integration because of the high costs typically associated with deploying and maintaining complex business-to-business (B2B) and enterprise application integration (EAI) software. Most products on the market today provide limited features and functionality for small trading partners. By contrast, both of these editions deliver the full capabilities of BizTalk Server Enterprise Edition but are tailored to companies that require minimal integration capabilities and processing power... Using XML, SOAP and other core Internet transports and protocols, BizTalk Server unites EAI, B2B and business process management technology in a single product to allow companies to easily orchestrate Web services and rapidly build dynamic business processes that span applications, platforms and businesses..." See "BizTalk Framework."

  • [June 14, 2002] "CNet Launches Termado. Publishes Multi-Lingual Term Catalogues With XML Technology." - "CNet Sweden, a developer of best-of-breed software for content publishers, has launched Termado, a complete tool for management and publishing of term catalogues, lexicons and dictionaries. Using the latest XML and Web Service technology Termado publishes term catalogues to different media but can also export term data to different applications helping businesses establishing common concepts throughout the organization. Termado consists of a termbase management system and a termbase publishing engine. The termbase management system has an easy-to-use interface for creating and managing a catalogue with terms. The termbase has been designed using linguistic and terminological models. It can represent anything from simple glossaries and dictionaries to very complex terminologies for different subject domains... The Termado publishing engine is based on XML technology and allows a term catalogue to be published to parallel media such as web or paper. The term catalogue can also be made available for searching and browsing from Internet. The web interface supports concept searches as well as free text searching in the term catalogue. Termado automatically creates links between related concepts in the database, which can be used to navigate and explore the termbase. It also supports multi-lingual catalogues which makes it easy to introduce a term catalogue in multi-national companies. Using the export functions of Termado, one can expose the term catalogue as a Web Service which can be accessed by different applications, such as translation systems or help systems, over the Internet..." See further details in the news item.

  • [June 07, 2002] "ISDA Issues Call for Participation For FpML Credit Derivatives Working Group." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) today issued a call for participation for the credit derivatives working group for the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. The working group will focus on credit default swaps as a product to include in the FpML standard and will work in close collaboration with the ISDA documentation group currently reviewing the 1999 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions. The work on credit derivatives will form part of version 4.0 of the FpML standard. The target completion date for the version 4.0 working draft is December 2002. The working group will start from an initial proposal that can be found on the FpML website. The charter of the credit derivatives working group and the full scope of the work for version 4.0 can be found at www.fpml.org/wg/cd/index.asp... FpML is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial swaps, derivatives and structured products, over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. Version 3.0 of the standard covers Interest Rate Derivatives, FX and Equity Derivatives. All categories of privately negotiated derivatives will eventually be incorporated into the standard... ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 575 member institutions from 44 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities." See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."

  • [June 06, 2002] "Microsoft Windows 'TrustBridge' to Enable Organizations to Share User Identities Across Business Boundaries. Cornerstone of Comprehensive Federated Security Product Roadmap Based on XML Web Service Standards." - " Taking the next step toward a more connected and secure Web services environment, Microsoft Corp. today announced a new Windows technology, code-named 'TrustBridge,' that will enable businesses to share user identity information between applications and organizations. 'TrustBridge' technology will allow different organizations using the Windows operating system to exchange user identities and interoperate in heterogeneous environments using industry-standard XML Web services protocols including Kerberos, WS-Security and forthcoming protocols in the WS-Security family. Federated identity management makes it easier for businesses to build deeper and more dynamic relationships with customers, partners and suppliers, and helps mobile employees increase their productivity. Microsoft also delivered a product roadmap, the Microsoft Federated Security and Identity Roadmap, for federated security and identity management across the Microsoft product line. Both 'TrustBridge' and the Microsoft products, tools and services outlined in the roadmap build on the WS-Security specification to establish a federated model for user identity exchange. Introduced by Microsoft, IBM Corp. and VeriSign Inc. in April of this year, WS- Security is a security specification that defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions or message headers for exchanging secure, signed messages in a Web services environment and provides a foundation on which to build federated and interoperable Web services... In the roadmap announcement, Microsoft outlines the products and approach it will take in implementing support for the WS-Security family of specifications. Microsoft will embrace WS-Security, building support for a federated security model throughout current and future products, tools and services, including the following: (1) .NET Passport: an Internet-scale authentication service for business-to-consumer interactions, will support SOAP messages over HTTP, add support for Kerberos and embrace WS-Security in 2003. These enhancements will enable .NET Passport to federate with 'TrustBridge' and other WS-Security-based authentication systems. (2) Visual Studio .NET: Later this year, Microsoft will provide support for WS-Security and federated security within Visual Studio .NET. This will allow developers of Web services to easily add digital signature support and SOAP message encryption as outlined in the WS-Security specification. (3) Enterprise infrastructure products..."

  • [June 06, 2002] "Mozilla.Org Launches Mozilla 1.0. Open Source Browser Suite Powered by Gecko Enables Developers to Create Standards-Based Web Applications and Devices." - "Mozilla.org, the organization that coordinates Mozilla open-source development and provides services to assist the Mozilla community, today announced the release of Mozilla 1.0, the first major-version public release of the Mozilla software. A full-fledged browser suite based on the latest Internet standards as well as a cross-platform toolkit, Mozilla 1.0 is targeted at the developer community and enables the creation of Internet-based applications. Mozilla 1.0 was developed in an open source environment and built by harnessing the creative power of thousands of programmers and tens of thousands of testers on the Internet, incorporating their best enhancements. Built on the Gecko layout engine, Mozilla 1.0 is cross-platform and integrates a core set of applications that allow users to access the capabilities of the Web, including a web browser, an email reader and a chat client... Mozilla 1.0 also expands the range of developers who can write complex applications since Mozilla's architecture enables the creation of such complex applications by building upon the same technologies that are used to create web content. For instance, Gecko displays web content on the user's screen and parses and renders HTML and XML content, and this ability to understand and display HTML and XML is valuable in numerous applications beyond the browser. In addition, Mozilla's cross-platform component implementation, Mozilla's cross-platform XML-based user-interface development technology ('XUL'), its networking libraries, its ECMAScript (JavaScript) implementation, and its security and encryption libraries are all part of the Mozilla 1.0 cross-platform toolkit for application development... By virtue of embedding Gecko, Mozilla 1.0 and products based on Mozilla code support more web standards, more deeply, more consistently across more platforms than any others. Mozilla 1.0 features full support for HTML 4.0, XML 1.0, Resource Description Framework (RDF), Cascading Style Sheets level 1 (CSS1), and the W3C Document Object Model level 1 (DOM1). Mozilla 1.0 also has the industry's best support for Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 (CSS2), the Document Object Model Level 2 (DOM2), and XHTML. Standards support also includes XML data exchange and manipulation of XML documents with SOAP 1.1, XSLT, XPath 1.0, and FIXptr, as well as support for display of mathematical equations using MathML. Finally, it features a solid foundation of support for data transport protocols (HTTP, FTP, and SSL/TLS), multilingual character data (Unicode), graphics (GIF, JPEG, PNG and MNG) and the latest version of the world's most popular scripting language, JavaScript 1.5..." See: "XML in Mozilla."

  • [June 06, 2002] "ICE Authoring Group Seeks Comment on ICE2 Draft Use Cases." - "IDEAlliance and the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) Authoring Group have announced an open comment period for the Draft Use Cases for ICE2 Specification. 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 syndication was one of the first XML-based web services (ICE won the Seybold Technology Trailblazer award for 1998), it only makes sense that with ICE2 the ICE Authoring Group would endorse the foundational standards that have emerged to support web services. Building on the Web Services standards will make ICE easier for learn and implement.' The ICE Authoring Group and IDEAlliance are now seeking comments or any other feedback from firms who have interest in putting the proposed ICE2 specification to use. The tentative release date for the ICE2 specification is September 2002. The deadline for comments is June 17, 2002 and additional use cases will be accepted through June 30, 2002... ICE2 identified and released a requirements document in February of 2002 which was based upon the lessons learned during the past four years of ICE implementations. With the present innovations taking place in the XML community, the ICE Authoring Group has reviewed and is refining ICE to meet the growing demands of businesses. The goal is to express the ICE2 content syndication standard as a Web Service. This first major revision of the ICE Specification focuses on compatibility with the three major Web Services Standards -- WSDL, SOAP and UDDI... 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. The ICE standard reduces the cost of doing business online and increases the value of B2B relationships. ICE facilitates the controlled exchange and management of electronic assets between networked partners and affiliates. Applications based on ICE allow companies to easily construct syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels by establishing Web site-to-Web site information networks. The ICE Authoring Group is open to all companies and include companies such as Adobe Systems, Vignette, Active Data Exchange, Oracle, and Tribune Media Services..." See "Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol."

  • [June 05, 2002] "Galileo International First to Offer GDS Web Services." - "Galileo International, a leading provider of electronic global distribution services (GDS) for the travel industry, today announced that it is the first GDS to offer complete Web services solutions to the travel industry. Web services are technology-platform independent interfaces that allow customers to directly access Galileo's travel information and services. Galileo's Web services will enable its customers, which include travel agencies, software developers and suppliers of air, hotel, car, tour and cruise services, to deliver travel and booking information to their consumers faster while saving significant costs... With Web services, customers can easily access information from Galileo to do anything from building an Internet booking engine to integrating travel information within their Web sites with Web access as their only requirement. For example, if a hotel wished to provide up-to-date flight information on its Web site, they could use Galileo Web services to do this without the long integration times and intimate technical knowledge previously required... To deploy Web services, Galileo is using the standard, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), which provides a way for applications to communicate with each other over the Internet, independent of platform. SOAP relies on structured XML data from the Apollo and Galileo systems to define the format of the information and typically uses HTTP to send it. Web services will be the next evolution of Galileo's current XML Select product offerings..."

  • [June 05, 2002] "Metadata Spec for Standards Information Nears Completion. Progress Report Featured at Interoperability Summit." - "Formed last fall as a result of discussions between ANSI staff and industry experts during World Standards Week activities, the Standards Registry Committee (StdsReg) has been working on a metadata specification to promote the exchange of information between standards developing organizations (SDO), which would make more coherent and systematic information about these organizations' activities available to their peers and the general public. Many standards registries listing SDOs and their documents already exist, but the information is currently stored in diverse ways. What the StdsReg committee members seek to develop is a common description or format for storing this data that will allow someone surfing the web for specific standards information to locate every relevant initiative currently in-progress or already completed. A later phase of the project will include developing a method to facilitate the connection of the various existing and future registries that can be accessed by a single query... Both OASIS and ANSI plan to implement the specification in their respective organizations. OASIS will use the metadata to catalog XML initiatives posted to the XML.org website. ANSI's Bob Hager, director of publishing and committee editor, indicated that the Institute would apply the specification to the NSSN: A National Resource for Global Standards. 'The metadata standard will improve the efficient flow of information from national and international SDOs to the NSSN, thereby improving the accessibility and speed of updated information about standards activities,' he explained. 'In addition, it will greatly improve the efficiency of our aggregation and dissemination of standards in our industry and will therefore fulfill important requirements of the U.S. National Standards Strategy.' Best will discuss the status of the project and introduce the draft metadata specification at the upcoming Interoperability Summit on June 27-28, 2002 in Orlando, FL, which is co-sponsored by OASIS and several other consortia groups... For additional information on the StdsReg Committee, please contact Karl Best or Bob Hager. [Source PR, spec]

  • [June 04, 2002] "Burton Group's Catalyst Conference to Showcase First Demonstration of SAML 1.0 Industry Standard. OASIS-Sponsored Demo Features Standards-Based Interoperability. Burton Schedules SAML 1.0 TeleBriefing for June 12, 2002." - "Burton Group, a technology-industry pioneer of network research and consulting, will showcase the first public demonstration of standards-based interoperability among SAML 1.0-conformant security software products on July 15 at its annual Catalyst Conference. Sponsored by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), the industry standards group that developed the proposed Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) standard for Web services security, the demonstration will feature products from several network security software vendors. SAML 1.0 is a proposed OASIS standard for exchanging authentication and authorization information among disparate Web access management and security products. SAML 1.0, which will soon come up for a vote by the full OASIS membership, addresses the need for secure single sign-on (SSO) across diverse Web access management environments implemented across various organizations, applications, Web sites and portals. The proposed standard defines standardized exchanges of identity and access management (IAM) information, leveraging such Web services standards as XML and SOAP... The SAML interoperability demonstration will involve several current and future commercial software solutions that support Web SSO, access management and other network security services. As of May 15, 2002, vendors who have indicated their intention to participate in the event are Baltimore Technologies, Crosslogix, Entegrity Solutions, ePeople, Novell, OverXeer, Netegrity, Oblix, RSA Security, Sigaba, Sun Microsystems and Tivoli Systems. The SAML 1.0 demonstration will feature cross-enterprise SSO across several vendors' Web access management products, which will support consistent vendor implementations of the SAML 1.0 Web Browser profile. In particular, the event will demonstrate the following scenarios: (1) IAM interoperability: Businesses using different vendors' Web access management products establish trust relationships for the purpose of sharing authentication, attribute and authorization decision information; (2) Cross-enterprise Web single sign-on: Browsers/users authenticate at 'portal' sites and then are able to access Web resources managed under other 'content' sites..." See: "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."

  • [June 04, 2002] "Oblix Announces Availability of the NetPoint FEDERATEDid Layer for Enhanced Identity Management Within the Enterprise. Oblix Delivers Industry's Most Comprehensive Set of Federated Identification Services Including Full Support of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)." - "Oblix, a leading developer of identity-based security solutions, today announced the immediate availability of the NetPoint FEDERATEDid Layer -- an integration layer within Oblix NetPoint that allows an enterprise to identify users from multiple authentication sources while maintaining tight control over access to Web-based applications and resources. The NetPoint FEDERATEDid layer enables enterprise customers to accept user identifications from a third-party such as Microsoft .NET Passport and rely on Oblix NetPoint to seamlessly provide authorization and identity management actions. The NetPoint FEDERATEDid Layer enhances an enterprise's identity management capabilities and increases the user experience, as users authenticated by a third-party will not have to log-in again when accessing protected applications... Oblix reiterates its support for SAML and other emerging industry standards and will be one of the first vendors to deliver a 100% SAML-compliant product. The company is an active member of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee (SSTC) working on the ratification of SAML 1.0, and the company plans to participate in a SAML interoperability demonstration at Burton Catalyst in July. Ratification of the SAML 1.0 specification is expected by the end of this month. The NetPoint FEDERATEDid Layer can be used in cooperation with SAML and does not mandate customers use SAML. Instead, the NetPoint FEDERATEDid Layer gives customers the choice in deciding how they will implement SAML or use other options for interoperable authentication such as the Liberty Alliance or .NET Passport..." See: "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."

  • [June 03, 2002] "Enosys Software Introduces the First XML-Based Real-Time Enterprise Information Integration Platform. Early Adopters Of Enosys' XML Query (XQuery) Solution Attest to Reduced Cost of Custom Data Integration, Rapid Deployment of New Web Applications, and Improved Customer Service." - "Enosys Software, an XML platform software provider, today introduced the Enosys XQuery-based suite of products, the industry's first XML-based platform to enable real-time information integration inside and outside company firewalls... Enosys Software addresses the need within large enterprises to provide an integrated, real-time view of the vast amounts of data that are distributed across multiple information sources, in the form of relational databases, mainframe applications, legacy systems, documents or spreadsheets. These information sources are frequently owned by multiple departments or even trading partners of the enterprise, making it extremely difficult and expensive to create a single view of relevant data in a time-sensitive manner... The Enosys platform is an advanced Enterprise Information Integration (EII) solution that is based on open Java standards and patent-pending XQuery technology. Unlike other proprietary EII-based solutions, Enosys provides a universal layer for accessing enterprise data and eliminates the need to develop specific stovepipe solutions for each backend enterprise data source and application. Developers simply build queries that retrieve the information end users and applications need--independent of the source, location, and access method of the data-- and deliver the information as reusable XML results or web services components... Enosys Software was founded in 2000 by two experts in the area of XML processing, professors Yannis Papakonstantinou (University of California, San Diego) and Vasilis Vassalos (New York University). Their work on data integration and semi-structured data (XML) started at Stanford, where they were members of the same Computer Science program as founding members of Junglee and Google, and worked alongside Computer Science and database research luminaries Hector Garcia-Molina and Jeff Ullman..." See "XML and Query Languages."

  • [May 24, 2002] "HR-XML Consortium Approves Background Checking Standard Specification Enables Easy Integration Between Employers and Background-Checking Services." - "The HR-XML Consortium, the global non-profit organization dedicated to creating data interchange standards for human resources, has approved a background-checking standard. The specification supports the generation of background-check requests using data sourced from HR systems or from applicant-tracking and similar recruiting systems. 'The background-checking specification is designed to support background-check requests to third-party screening services,' said Chuck Allen, Director HR-XML Consortium, Inc. 'Using a reputable third-party screening service can help employers ensure that legal requirements are met and can help support privacy by avoiding the needless replication of data back to employer systems,' according to Allen. The schema explicitly supports screenings relating to criminal records, department of motor vehicle records, education, employment history, and credit worthiness. In addition, the background checking standard is sufficiently flexible to transmit information required to execute custom screenings that a client might arrange with a background checking service provider. The specification also supports the transmission of background check results to a client of a background checking service provider..." ['Version 1.0 of the HR-XML Background Checking specification includes two schemas: (1) A schema to support background-check requests to third-party providers. The schema explicitly supports screenings relating to criminal records, department of motor vehicle records, education, employment history, and credit worthiness. In addition, the BackgroundCheck schema is sufficiently flexible to transmit information required to execute custom screenings that a client might arrange with a background checking service provider. (2) A simple schema to transmit background check results to a client of a background checking service provider.'] See: "HR-XML Consortium."

  • [May 23, 2002] "Exegenix Launches New XML Document Conversion System. Reliable and Cost-Effective Conversion Now Available for Organizations of Any Size." - "Exegenix, an innovator in content access and conversion solutions for business, today announces The Exegenix Conversion System, a unique technology that reliably and cost-effectively transforms an organization's new and legacy content into XML. Until now, organizations who needed to convert their existing content into XML have had two options: manual conversion, or error prone automated solutions that try to map a word-processor document's existing formatting styles to XML. For organizations with large quantities of content, manual conversion is a slow, expensive, labor-intensive process. The re-keying and hand-tagging of content, whether undertaken in-house or via a third party, not only requires an extensive knowledge of XML, it can introduce both typographic and syntactic errors into the conversion process. Existing automated solutions fare no better. These conversions rely on rigid conformance to styles. Anything that deviates from the expected styling introduces errors and ambiguity into the process, and will require manual correction. These 'solutions' can also involve costly and lengthy custom programming for each type of document, and for each proprietary application that is used to create those documents. Exegenix solves the problems of content conversion using a revolutionary approach that allows any PostScript or PDF document, regardless of its complexity, to be quickly and cost-effectively transformed into XML. Exegenix technology uses visual cues to uncover a document's structure, much the same way that humans do. People rarely have problems determining the hierarchical structure of any document they encounter because they look at a document as a whole, taking into consideration each graphical object's format, position, and context. Exegenix technology does the same thing -- it interprets a document's logical structure based on the appearance and position of its components. The valid XML output file not only presents the document's content and logical structure, but also retains all relevant formatting information, and is designed for ease of use with XSLT and other transformation scripts. Using this approach, the Exegenix Conversion System has successfully identified simple and complex structures for a wide variety of business documents, including legal rulings, textbooks, trade publications, and software manuals..."

  • [May 23, 2002] "SNIA Announces Technology Contribution." - "The Storage Networking Industry Association is pleased to announce today that it has received an offer of a substantial new contribution of technology aimed at advancing standards-based SAN Management by a group of storage industry vendors. The contributors have developed a draft specification that applies CIM/WBEM object technology to create the basis of a complete management solution for interoperable, multi-vendor SANs. The contributing companies and the SNIA are cooperating to create a transition plan that addresses the appropriate level of incorporation into SNIA technical and marketing activities. The transition plan is expected to be complete in July [2002]... Recognizing the need for a standards-based approach, the contributing companies have worked together to draft a specification for a proposed common interface for SAN management that can reliably identify, classify, monitor and control physical and logical resources across the enterprise using a common transport for communication. The specification, code-named "Bluefin," employs technology from the Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative that uses the Managed Object Format (MOF) to describe system resources based on a Common Information Model (CIM). Bluefin introduces new technology for security, locking, and discovery for SAN management. By contributing the specification the contributors seek to leverage the technical workgroup and marketing resources of the SNIA to complete and extend the Bluefin work. The contributing companies are: BMC Software, Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., Computer Associates, Dell Computer Corporation, EMC Corporation, Emulex Corporation, Gadzoox Networks, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi Ltd., IBM, JNI Corporation, Prisa Networks, QLogic, StorageTek, Sun Microsystems, and VERITAS Software..." See the news item "SNIA Announces Bluefin SAN Management Specification Using WBEM/MOF/CIM."

  • [May 20, 2002] "Inktomi Unveils Next-Generation Information Retrieval Technology to Provide Advanced Search Functionality within Enterprise Applications. New XML-Based, OEM Offering Combines Keyword and Parametric Search Capabilities to Improve Application Usability and Increase End-User Productivity." - "Inktomi Corp., developer of scalable network infrastructure software, today announced next-generation information retrieval technology for software developers and systems integrators that will provide advanced search functionality within enterprise applications. Built with native XML support, Inktomi Search Toolkit is an innovative OEM solution for extracting highly relevant data from structured, unstructured and semi-structured content. This new OEM offering will deliver significantly enhanced information retrieval within content-rich applications such as content management, enterprise portal, CRM and commerce solutions. Inktomi Search Toolkit helps customers develop cutting-edge software solutions, reduce time to market, increase cost savings and deliver an enhanced end-user experience. As enterprise applications continue to build upon XML and evolve toward Web services, it is critical that they include search functionality that is fully compatible with XML. Inktomi Search Toolkit is the first OEM solution that delivers the advanced XML-based retrieval capabilities for finding structured, unstructured and semi-structured content within enterprise applications to improve application usability and increase end-user productivity. 'XML plays a major role within Interwoven's product architecture and the integration of XML-enabled search from Inktomi within Interwoven TeamSite software will allow our customers to best leverage the valuable information created and stored within their global networks,' said Kevin Cochrane, vice president of product management at Interwoven. 'After an extensive evaluation of the leading OEM search technologies, we selected Inktomi Search Toolkit for our TeamSite software because of its advanced semi-structured search capabilities and innovative approach to information retrieval.' Inktomi Search Toolkit will enable software developers and systems integrators to leverage next-generation OEM search technology; the native-XML search engine is schema independent, offering an embeddable solution designed to support the applications being built today as well as future versions... Inktomi Search Toolkit provides the unstructured search functionality of a keyword search engine, such as relevance ranking, natural language search and filtering for various file formats. Additionally, it delivers XQuery-based structured query capabilities that allow sophisticated retrieval functions such as parametric searching and retrieval of content based on a document's structure. Inktomi Search Toolkit returns results that include references to documents as well as the actual documents or fragments of those documents that contain the precise information requested. For example, in a commerce application, a user can find all invoices that include 'television' and '36-inch' dated after January 1, 2001 and return item descriptions and invoice amounts..." See the news item: "New XML-Based Inktomi Search Toolkit Combines Keyword and Parametric Search."

  • [May 18, 2002] "E-Business Standards Developers Move Ahead to Advance Collaboration at Second Interoperability Summit. HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL Host Event. Interoperability Summit Series." - "The Interoperability Summit Series gains momentum as standards developers from around the world make plans to gather in Orlando, Florida, 27-28 June 2002 and advance their mission of collaboration. Hosted by HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL, the Interoperability Summit brings industry groups, consortia and their members together in an ongoing initiative to coordinate development of electronic business specifications. Building on core issues identified at the first Summit meeting last December, the June event will focus on removing barriers to interoperability and managing against duplication of effort. Several tactics for encouraging real collaboration between e-business standards groups were targeted in the first meeting, and Interoperability Summit participants now plan to actively move forward to implement solutions... The June Interoperability Summit will also focus on the various initiatives underway to define core vocabularies and related best practices for enabling e-business, including: (1) UN/CEFACT's eBusiness Transition Working Group (eBTWG); (2) ASC X12's E-Business Cross-Industry XML architecture; (3) OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee; (4) Open Applications Group Integration Specification; (5) OMG's Model Driven Architecture Initiative... As an outcome of the first Summit, organizers, HR-XML, OASIS, OMG, and XBRL, have created the Interoperability Pledge, which recognizes the need to identify intersections between major horizontal and vertical standards and promote acceptance of common models and approaches..." Details in the news item of 2002-05-17. See also the Electronic Business Interoperability Summit December 2001.

  • [May 16, 2002] "HR-XML Consortium Approves New XML Resume Specification. Versatile Specification Makes Resumes Easier To Search, Index, Match, and Manage." - "The HR-XML Consortium, the global non-profit organization dedicated to creating data interchange standards for human resources, has approved a new XML resume specification. HR-XML's Resume 2.0 specification will enable a range of innovative new applications and services that will benefit job seekers as well as employers. 'Today, employers are drowning in sea of unstructured resumes, which are difficult to match against business requirements,' according to Chuck Allen, Director, HR-XML Consortium, Inc. 'HR-XML's versatile, but structured XML Resume format, has great potential to change the search for qualified employees from a shot-gun approach' to a targeted exercise. Likewise, structured resumes may give job seekers an opportunity to more effectively communicate their unique abilities to potential employers,' according to Allen. The Resume 2.0 specification represents a substantial improvement over the resume definition included in HR-XML's Staffing Exchange Protocol 1.1. SEP 1.1 was defined using Document Type Definitions (DTDs). Resume 2.0 is defined using the World Wide Web Consortium's more powerful and flexible XML Schema Definition Language (XSD). This makes the Resume 2.0 specification more modular and extensible than the prior DTD-based version. Resume 2.0 has already been incorporated within HR-XML's Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES). The Employment History, Education History, and Military History modules within Resume 2.0 also are shared with HR-XML's new Background Checking specification. In addition, the Resume specification will be part of a future XSD-based version of HR-XML's Staffing Exchange Protocol... 'Resume 2.0 is an integral part of HR-XML's forthcoming Version 2.0 recruiting and staffing specifications,' said Nicholas Scobbo, HRIS Analyst, Mitre Corporation, and chair of HR-XML's Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup. 'HR-XML's Resume specification should go a long way in helping companies deal with the multiple sources and formats of resumes and in increasing the efficiency of recruiting systems and processes,' according to Scobbo..." See "HR-XML Consortium."

  • [May 15, 2002] "Sun Microsystems Announces Staroffice 6.0 Software: Provides Dramatic Savings To Cost-Conscious Businesses Worldwide. Enterprise Pricing at $25-$50 Provides Affordable Alternative to Proprietary Office Productivity Suites." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced general availability of StarOffice 6.0 software, the highly anticipated, full-featured office productivity suite that runs across multiple platforms, including Linux, Solaris and Windows on May 21, [2002]. StarOffice 6.0 software provides customers with an economical alternative to proprietary office productivity suites that are expensive and have restrictive licensing policies. With StarOffice 6.0 software, consumers and enterprises can expect to save at least 75 percent in licensing costs. Additional savings can be realized through Sun's user-based pricing model, flexible upgrade policies, and the potential extension of the life of existing hardware... StarOffice 6.0 software is a full-featured office suite available in 10 languages for day-to-day tasks, such as creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations on the Linux, Solaris and Windows platforms. Users will find all the features they expect available in a familiar, easy-to-use, integrated, and configurable interface. Through Software AG's database engine Adabas D, StarOffice software also delivers integrated database functionality on all platforms. StarOffice 6.0 software also works transparently with a variety of file formats, enabling users familiar with other office suites, such as Microsoft Office, to open, modify, and share files. StarOffice 6.0 software uses an open and published Extensible Markup Language (XML) based file format as its default, enabling anyone the ability to use widely available tools to open, modify, and share StarOffice content. Users will also enjoy more robust Microsoft Office import and export filters, including support for Office XP, redesigned dialog boxes, additional templates, graphics, clipart and enhanced, revamped help. The Asian language versions of StarOffice 6.0 software, known as StarSuite 6.0 software, add support for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean languages. Additionally, the integrated desktop has been removed to support native desktop environments such as Common Desktop Environment (CDE), GNOME and Windows..." See references in the news item.

  • [May 08, 2002] "Microsoft Releases Tools That Will Enable Mainstream Developers To Add Speech to Web Applications. Microsoft .NET Speech SDK Version 1.0 Beta Is First Software Product Based on Speech Application Language Tags Specification." - Microsoft has announced "the beta release of the Microsoft .NET Speech Software Development Kit (SDK), the industry's first Web developer tool and the industry's first product deployment based on the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification. The SDK seamlessly integrates into the Visual Studio .NET development environment and will make it faster and easier for Web developers to incorporate speech functionality into Web applications and create new business opportunities by leveraging their existing Web development knowledge and skills... The .NET Speech SDK is a set of SALT-based speech application development tools and speech controls that integrate with Visual Studio .NET. It is the first speech toolkit to integrate with a Web server programming environment, Microsoft ASP.NET. The SALT specification, currently under development by a diverse group of industry leaders including Microsoft, defines a lightweight set of extensions to familiar Web markup languages, in particular HTML and XHTML, that will enable multimodal and telephony access to information, applications and Web services from PCs, telephones, cellular phones, Tablet PCs and wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs). The specification is slated to be released to an international standards body by midyear 2002... The .NET Speech SDK, which will ship this week [2002-05-05/11], will allow developers to write combined speech and visual Web applications in a single code base that is easy to maintain and modify, and test those applications at their workstation. It includes tools for debugging and creating simple and robust grammars and prompts, as well as sample applications and tutorials. It also includes a set of SALT-based ASP.NET controls that will allow developers to add speech capabilities into their HTML and XHTML Web applications. The .NET Speech SDK will ship with speech extensions for Microsoft Internet Explorer browser software, effectively extending Internet Explorer to support both speech and visual input and output, as well as a desktop version of Microsoft's new speech recognition engine and a test-level version of the Microsoft Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine..." See: "Speech Application Language Tags (SALT)."

  • [May 07, 2002] "Hitachi Data Systems Sets New Standard for a Collaborative Approach to Storage Management with the TrueNorth Initiative. Outlines Vision and Strategy for Open Information Management." - Hitachi Data Systems "announced Hitachi TrueNorth -- a vision and strategy for open information management designed to provide enterprise customers with freedom of choice in integrating best-of-breed products to manage their storage infrastructures while leveraging high-performance storage systems... Hitachi TrueNorth provides a vision and strategy that is based on three key elements: (1) HiCommand Management Framework -- an open, standards-based, storage management framework that enables the choice of best-of-breed solutions. Beginning with HiCommand Device Manager, the framework will expand to provide a modular design, based on industry standards, the Common Information Model (CIM), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and a policy-based automation module. The CIM/SOAP standards-based message bus allows individual functional components from Hitachi or independent software developers to 'plug and play.' The HiCommand Management Framework is open, modular, and extensible. This enables customers to build their most suitable management environment based on a combination of Hitachi products and best-of-breed storage hardware and software from other vendors. HiCommand is customizable to integrate easily with existing infrastructures and accommodate future growth plans. (2) Hitachi Freedom Storage Intelligent Systems -- a family of scalable storage platforms with different levels of management assist features. (3) Collaborative business model -- an approach that leverages the strengths of Hitachi Data Systems and its partners and enables freedom of choice. The HiCommand Developer's program provides a set of APIs, support, and a testing environment for independent software vendors (ISVs). Hitachi Data Systems will also work with partners such as Sun with its complimentary Storage ONE strategy, to drive open industry standards for storage management, easing the administration burden for enterprise customers..."

  • [May 07, 2002] "Tibco Software Announces Integration Platform for Secure Web Services. TIBCO ActiveExchange Provides Single Platform for Seamless Enterprise Application Integration With Partners and Customers." - "TIBCO Software Inc. has announced the release of TIBCO ActiveExchange 3.0, a business integration software product line that allows companies to effectively utilize Web Services to automate processes and transactions with other businesses over the Internet. TIBCO ActiveExchange provides a single platform for seamless Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Business-To-Business (B2B) that accelerates integration with partners (suppliers, distributors, resellers) and customers. Version 3.0 adds enhanced support for today's Internet protocols and industry standards such as XML, SOAP, EDI, RosettaNet, ebXML and more. TIBCO ActiveExchange's added functionality also serves as a platform for packaged solutions that address specific industry initiatives, such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) compliance for healthcare, RosettaNet integration for high-tech manufacturing, and ChemXML for pharmaceuticals. New Features of TIBCO ActiveExchange 3.0: (1) Built-in support for Web Services specifications, including SOAP, WSDL and XML Signature. (2) Support for ebXML Messaging Specification version 2.0. (3) Support for the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF) version 1.1 and 2.0, and all published Partner Interface Processes (PIPs). (4) Enhanced support for EDI, including AS1 and AS2 interoperability. (5) Support for ChemXML and other industry-specific B2B standards. (6) Enhanced functionality to accelerate integration of small and medium-sized trading partners, including a new Web form generator to provide browser access for conducting B2B transactions... TIBCO Software Inc. is a leading provider of total business integration solutions delivering infrastructure software that enables businesses to seamlessly integrate business systems in real-time. TIBCO technology was first used to digitize Wall Street and has since been adopted in diverse industries including financial services, telecommunications, electronic commerce, transportation, logistics, manufacturing and energy..."

  • [May 07, 2002] "Netbeans: First Open Source Tools Platform to Implement Model Driven Architecture (MDA). MDA to Simplify Implementation of Web Services by Separating Architecture from Deployment Infrastructure." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced that the company has contributed a series of modules supporting Object Management Group's (OMG's) Model Driven Architecture to the NetBeans open source project. This makes the NetBeans platform the first of its kind to support the Model Driven Architecture. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) helps protect organizations' software investments by capturing business logic -- business processes and their appropriate interactions -- in re-usable models. The MDA can help significantly simplify the implementation of Web services, as the architecture insulates models from changes in the deployment infrastructure for the services. The MDA represents an advanced approach to software design based on models created using languages such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML). As business requirements change or evolve, components of model-driven applications can easily be replaced, as long as they are standards based. Models use a set of metadata -- the data describing the structure and characteristics of program elements or data. For example, customer data might include a first name, last name, address, and phone and customer numbers. Metadata describing customer data would specify whether these elements are alphanumeric or numeric, the maximum length and format of the phone and customer numbers, and so forth. Sun has recently contributed Metadata Repository (MDR) modules to NetBeans, to make it easier for developers to support another programming language without extensive extra programming and to write NetBeans-based tools that interoperate with standards-based modeling tools. These new modules underline NetBeans commitment to a totally standards-based, language-independent approach to software design. The Sun ONE Studio developer products (formerly Forte tools) are based on the NetBeans platform... The MDR implements OMG's Meta Object Facility (MOF) -- an abstract language for describing metamodels -- and integrates it into the NetBeans IDE. The MOF implementation uses the Java Metadata Interface, a standard for expressing metadata in the Java language that is currently in review by the Java Community Process as JSR-40. The MDR adds features such as event notification to help integrate it with the IDE. The MDR also supports XML Metadata Interchange (XMI), another OMG specification that has already been implemented by several leading vendors. The MDR includes an engine library, the module integrating it with the NetBeans IDE, a development toolkit and tools for viewing and interacting with metadata. These tools represent the foundation for robust language-neutral refactoring support in the NetBeans IDE. The MDR can be used as a stand-alone library independent of the NetBeans IDE by third parties, such as modeling tools vendors that need a standards-compliant metadata repository..." Details in the news item of 2002-05-07. See: "OMG Model Driven Architecture (MDA)." [source]

  • [May 06, 2002] "Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) Announce Historic First Joint Standards Meeting." - "The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) today announced that both groups have agreed to a first-ever formal joint meeting to be held in London Wednesday June 26, 2002. Joint work will spotlight development of standards for Workflow and Business Process Management, with collaboration focusing on the standards revolving around Wf-XML, BPML and XPDL. A definition of the business process being managed is key to workflow management technology. Accordingly, some experts feel that workflow technology is a superset of business process definition technology. Conversely others believe that, because business process management goes beyond workflow, workflow is a subset of business process management. The WfMC and the BPMI have acknowledged, at a minimum, a substantial overlap in process definition exists. Informal discussions have recognized that both organizations would benefit from common techniques for defining the business processes. These informal discussions have led to this forthcoming historic formal meeting... The joint meeting is open to members of either organization. The WfMC and BPMI organizations will share in any intellectual property resulting from this joint initiative and their contributions will recognized appropriately through branding..." See XML-Based Workflow and Process Management Standards: XPDL, Wf-XML"

  • [May 06, 2002] "ISDA Issues Call for Participation. FpML Working Group to Extend Equity Derivatives Coverage." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) today issued a call for participation for the Equity Derivatives Working group for the Financial products Markup Language (FpML) standard. FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting OTC trading of financial derivatives. After the inclusion of the basic equity derivatives in FpML Version 3.0, the working group intends to cover more exotic equity derivatives. 'There is interest in the industry for equity derivative coverage and a great deal of momentum within the working group,' said Brian Lynn, Co-Chair of the FpML Standards Committee and Vice President e-Trading, Cross-Business e-Commerce group for JP Morgan Chase. The working group plans to immediately start work on version 4.0 of the standard focusing on inclusion of option features such as Asians, Barriers, Baskets, Bermudans, Binaries, Quantos, Composites, different forms of deferred term options and different option trading strategies. 'We are pleased with the continued progress of FpML in the area of equity derivatives and the success of the FpML working group in developing products in coordination with the ISDA documentation working group,' said Robert G. Pickel, Executive Director and CEO of ISDA. ISDA's documentation working group on equity derivatives is currently reviewing the Equity Definitions. The charter of the Equity Derivatives working group and the full scope of the work for version 4.0 can be found at http://www.fpml.org/wg/equity/index.asp. Parties interested in participating in this working group should complete the form available on the FpML website; the time commitment for this working group is one-half a day a week. FpML is a business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial derivatives over the Internet. It is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for describing data shared between applications. All categories of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives will eventually be incorporated into the standard... ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 560 member institutions from 44 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities." See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."

  • [May 03, 2002] "OASIS and UN/CEFACT to Host ebXML Conference at XML Europe 2002 in Barcelona." - "... the one-day conference 'Implementing ebXML' will "be sponsored jointly by OASIS and UN/CEFACT in Barcelona, Spain on 23 May 2002. Highlighting the growing use of ebXML in a range of industries as well as ebXML's role in Web services, the one-day conference will be held in conjunction with IDEAlliance's XML Europe 2002 show. The ebXML conference is expected to draw developers and business managers from around the world who are interested in implementing ebXML's modular suite of specifications for conducting business over the Internet. 'Implementing ebXML' will offer technical guidance on how to adopt the UN/CEFACT and OASIS ebXML standards for exchanging business messages, conducting trading relationships, communicating data in common terms and defining and registering business processes. Attendees will also hear about the general business benefits of managing electronic commerce through ebXML from existing ebXML end users and software suppliers... Keynote presentations from Isidro Laso of the European Commission and Ray Walker, Special Advisor on Trade Processes and Electronic Business for the United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry, will be featured at 'Implementing ebXML.' The program will also include updates from ebXML users in the finance, insurance, retail sales, e-commerce and automotive industries. Representatives of the United Nations, EAN International, Uniform Code Council (UCC), Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR), Pan Asian e-Commerce Alliance, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, IONA, Cyclone Commerce, Sybase, Sterling Commerce, XML Global, and others will present..."

  • [May 02, 2002] "CIP4 Releases JDF 1.1 Specification. New Version of JDF, Workflow Automation Standard." - "The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) today announced the public release of version 1.1 of CIP4's Job Definition Format (JDF) Specification. The new version of the specification includes provision for variable data print needs. The organization, writing, and graphics have also been greatly enhanced. Additional areas of modification include: color workflow, eCommerce, finishing, and device capability description. The new specification can be freely downloaded from www.cip4.org. The specification was enhanced in cooperation with industry groups including CGATS, ICC, IDEAlliance, IFRA, PODi, PrintTalk, and UP3i. An updated schema will follow in several weeks, followed closely by an update of the JDF API. 'With JDF Release 1.1, CIP4 has developed a backwards compatible extension of JDF that incorporates feedback from real world implementation experience and that will serve as the foundation for end to end workflow solutions in the graphic arts industry.' said Dr. Rainer Prosi, Technical Officer of CIP4... JDF is an upcoming industry standard designed to simplify information exchange between different applications and systems in and around the Graphic Arts industry. To that end JDF builds on and extends beyond pre-existing partial solutions, such as CIP3's Print Production Format (PPF) and Adobe Systems' Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF). It also enables the integration of commercial and planning applications into the technical workflow. JDF joins the growing number of standards based on XML, ensuring maximum possible portability between different platforms and ready interaction with Internet-based systems..." PR also in PDF format. See: "Job Definition Format (JDF)."

  • [May 02, 2002] "ebXML Adoption in Asia Speeds Up." - "Asian countries are gearing themselves up for the adoption of ebXML. In the 5th ebXML Asia Committee Meeting, held from 18th - 19th April [2002] in Chinese Taipei, the representatives from Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka (UNCTAD) and Thailand congregated to work on the measure for ebXML promotion and implementation in Asia. In the Meeting, the Committee, on the basis of review on the ebXML activities of each country and its work items, discussed measures to adopt ebXML and made several resolutions. Above all, participants agreed that ebXML implementation in real business was critical for the widespread adoption of ebXML. To promote ebXML implementation, the Committee decided to develop pan-Asia message design guideline by integrating the message design guideline prepared by KIEC with the ECOM's work on message assembly and core component definition. The Committee also decided to improve the ebXML registry linking model prepared by KIEC for the submission to OASIS ebXML Registry TC as a draft. During the Meeting, NII of Chinese Taipei and KIEC of Korea, which are operating ebXML registries, agreed to work on linking each other's ebXML registries to support eBusiness between Chinese Taipei and Korea. To promote participation of Asian experts and to facilitate the activities of ebXML Asia Committee members, the secretariat of ebXML Asia Committee will open an official ebXML Asia Committee website by the third quarter of 2002. The ebXML Asia Committee held five (5) meetings since its first meeting in December 2000. The Committee started with representatives from 3 Asian countries and economies: Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea. However, in reflection of the increasing worldwide support for ebXML, the 5th meeting, hosted by TCA (Taipei Computer Association), marked wide participation of Asian countries. 30 eBusiness experts from 8 Asian countries and economies gathered together for this Meeting. Though ebXML is a comprehensive top-notch eBusiness solution, ebXML is not a cure-all. ebXML has many issues to resolve for implementation. Nonetheless, ebXML has great potential for Asian countries to leap forward. Especially, ebXML can provide a good opportunity for those Asian countries with no EDI infrastructure but planning to do eBusiness to jump in because they do not have to go through transition path. The ebXML Asia Committee plays the role of ebXML facilitator and promoter in the regional context. The Committee members will continue their joint activities on the selected ebXML issues, through close cooperation, until the next meeting. The next (6th) meeting will be hosted by ECOM (Electronic Commerce Promotion Council of Japan), which is scheduled on July 18 - 19 2002 at Tokyo, Japan..." [ebXML Asia Committee contact: Sangwon Lim of KIEC.] See: "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."

  • [April 30, 2002] "RSA Security Grants Royalty-Free Use of Patents to Vendors Implementing SAML-Based Solutions. License of Patents Aims to Speed Implementations, Interoperability and Adoption of SAML-Based Applications and Products." - RSA Security "today announced that it will grant non-exclusive royalty-free license use of two of its patents to companies deploying applications that make use of the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) specification. The SAML specification, which is an XML framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information, is designed to enable secure single sign-on across portals within organizations as well as across portals, Web sites and applications between and across companies, and is intended to ease the end user experience. RSA Security plans to implement the SAML specification extensively across its product lines, supporting its corporate commitment to deliver standards-based, highly interoperable products. An active participant in the development of the SAML specification and strong supporter of standardization efforts, RSA Security hopes to encourage and help facilitate rapid deployment of these technologies that will become key foundations in Web access management, identity management and Web services. Royalty-free use of the patented technology and intellectual property is a key step to fostering interoperability, facilitating industry growth and limiting proprietary implementations... Demonstrating commitment to delivering SAML-conformant products, RSA Security will participate in SAML Interoperability 2002, a SAML 1.0 interoperability showcase at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference in San Francisco, July 2002. RSA Security will showcase its RSA ClearTrust Web access management solution, demonstrating how its SAML support allows interoperation with other tools that support SAML. 'RSA Security is committed to standardization efforts and implementations that help our customers achieve rapid integration of new technologies to become more productive and efficient,' said John Worrall, vice president of marketing at RSA Security. 'By granting royalty-free use of our patents, RSA Security hopes to help standards and specification work by bodies such as OASIS to move forward quickly, benefiting from RSA Security's vision and investment in prior technology. We hope this will help speed adoption of the SAML specification and interoperability across the industry and encourage others with patents in this area to follow suit for the benefit of the industry at large'..." See "Committee Specification Level Documents for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."

  • [April 30, 2002] "Object Management Group Meets in Yokohama, Japan. Advances Modeling and Biotechnology Standards. Members Also Charter Real-Time and Embedded Systems Task Force." - "Members of the Object Management Group (OMG) met in Yokohama, Japan, from April 22 through April 26, 2002 at a meeting sponsored by the Distributed Objects Promotion Group (DOPG), an organization of fifteen Japanese vendors of distributed computing technology. Application modeling standards, used in every computing discipline, form the foundation of OMG's specification suite. At this meeting OMG members initiated adoption of a modeling infrastructure standard that will define metamodels for Queries, Views, and Transformations in the revised 2.0 version of the Meta-Object Facility (MOF). Also at this meeting, the group formally adopted a new specification standardizing a representation for Gene Expression in distributed biotechnology applications. Defined in OMG's new Model Driven Architecture (MDA), the Gene Expression specification is specified as a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model, which defines an XML DTD (Document Type Definition) along with conforming data structures in the programming languages Java and C++. ... With well-established standards covering software from design, through development, to deployment and maintenance, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration. Based on the established Object Management Architecture (OMA) and emerging Model Driven Architecture (MDA), OMG's standards cover application design and implementation. OMG's Modeling standards include the UML (Unified Modeling Language) and CWM (Common Warehouse Metamodel). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform. OMG also issues the CORBAservices and a rapidly-growing set of industry-specific standards in vertical markets including healthcare, telecommunications, biotechnology, transportation and a dozen other areas. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with an office in Tokyo, Japan as well as international marketing offices in the UK and Germany, along with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC." See: "OMG Model Driven Architecture (MDA)."

  • [April 26, 2002] "ebXMLsoft Announces ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 -- A Full Implementation of the OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model Specification v2.0." - ebXMLsoft, Inc. is pleased to announce ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0, a full implementation of the OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model Specification v2.0. Completely implemented in Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 is an ebXML Registry software foundation suitable for building secure, robust, and reliable ebXML Registries. The OASIS/ebXML Registry/Repository v2.0 specification with other ebXML specifications, supports global business information exchange that enables companies of any size to communicate and conduct business globally. These emerging ebXML standards will reshape the way enterprises are doing business in the coming years and ebXMLsoft is committed to maximize its contribution in an overall ebXML implementation. Please visit ebXML.org specification page for more information about ebXML specifications. ebXMLsoft is also currently developing other components of the OASIS/ebXML Registry/Repository v2.0 specification and their availability will be announced in our future releases. About ebXMLsoft ebXMLsoft, Inc., headquarted in Toronto, Canada, is a leading ebXML company that offers ebXML software and consulting services. ebXMLsoft software combined with its services helps organizations to improve their business operations through ebXML, resulting in reduced cost and increased global presence." [From the Solutions page:] "ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 is a full implementation of the OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model Specification v2.0. Both Unix/Linux and Windows platforms are supported. ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 is an important infrastructure component of the ebXMLsoft Registry that is currently being developed. Written in Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 is designed to be secure, reliable, and scalable, thus making it a solid foundation for robust ebXML Registries that will support global business information exchange. ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 works with any database management system that is supported by the J2EE Application Servers. ebXMLsoft RIM 2.0 also includes a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) generator that conforms to the format of a URN that specifies the OSF Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) 128 bit UUID. This UUID format is required by the OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model Specification v2.0..." See: (1) the related news item "University of Hong Kong E-Commerce Center Opens Test Site for OASIS ebXML V2 Registry Implementation"; (2) ebXML Products and Implementations; (3) general references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)." [source]

  • [April 25, 2002] "Autodesk Co-sponsoring Workshop at ACSM/FIG 2002 on LandXML in Federal Highway Administration's IHDSM and AASHTOware Projects. Workshop Focuses on LandXML's Role in Improving Road and Highway Design and Safety; Includes Demonstrations, Training, and Open Discussions on the LandXML Schema." - Autodesk, Inc., a "leading design software and digital content company, is co-sponsoring a one-day workshop with LandXML.org at the ACSM/FIG Conference [April 25, 2002, Washington, D.C.] to examine how road and highway safety can be improved and the role of LandXML in that process. LandXML is a specialized XML data exchange standard for the land development, civil engineering, and transportation design industry. Hosted by the Federal Highway Administration, the workshop will examine LandXML's use in the Interactive Highway Design Safety Model (IHDSM) and its benefits to roadway projects managed by the American Association of Street and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The workshop will also include training and software demonstrations and will examine the LandXML software development kit... Sharing surveying and engineering design data across a transportation project with colleagues, clients, and partners is essential to civil engineering. Until recently, however, proprietary vendor formats essentially meant that everybody on a project had to use the same software or recreate information in a compatible format. This reduced customer choices, excluded participation in projects, and limited the potential uses and value of the data. In 1999, Autodesk and the Engineering and Survey Exchange (EAS-E) initiative members started LandXML as an industry-driven data exchange standard specific to the needs of civil engineers and surveyors. The LandXML schema was initially derived from the EAS-E format. Further development is being driven by LandXML.org, a global, open working group of over 130 civil engineering professionals in 80 private and public organizations in Brazil, Egypt, France, India, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, and Vietnam..." See: "LandXML."

  • [April 25, 2002] "Baltimore Introduces the First Commercially Available Implementation of SAML-based Services for Online Partnerships with SelectAccess 5.0. SelectAccess 5.0 Eases Administration, Extends Usability, and Leverages Existing IT Investment" - "Bringing to market the first commercially available solution to leverage the Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML) standard, Baltimore Technologies today announced the latest release of its next-generation access and authorization management solution, SelectAccess 5.0. In addition to its SAML-based 'affiliate services' capability, SelectAccess 5.0 eases security administration with its innovative 'management free' techniques, and leverages existing IT investment with concurrent, multiple directory support. SelectAccess 5.0 builds upon its industry recognized superior ease of use and management features such as the intuitive graphical user interface, automated user and resource discovery and flexible delegated administration... SelectAccess 5.0 is the first commercially available access control and authorization product to be built with SAML, an XML standard for exchanging security credentials between online business partners, regardless of the authorization product used by either partner. Users can now sign-on to one site with the transparent transfer of security credentials and information across affiliated sites. By providing online business partners with the ability to easily and securely share authentication and authorization information across corporate boundaries, SAML enables online business partners to strengthen their business relationships among each other and maintain a faster, seamless, and hassle-free experience for the user... 'SAML is the emerging industry standard for federating diverse access management and security environments,' says James Kobielus, a senior analyst at Burton Group. 'Baltimore is one of many vendors in the Web access management market to have embraced SAML, which leverages Web services standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and XML Digital Signatures (XML-DSig). SAML 1.0 is nearing ratification by the Organization for Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), so it's clear that Baltimore has implemented a stable, broadly supported initial version of the standard.' With its unique 'management free' feature, SelectAccess 5.0 provides unparalleled speed of deployment and ease of runtime maintenance, resulting in significant operational efficiencies. Centralized component management through the LDAP directory enables administrators to effortlessly add SelectAccess components for real-time scalability. New components are registered to the directory and their configurations are automatically downloaded. Configurations updates are greatly simplified since updates are made once, thereby reducing the manual effort and margin for error..." See: (1) Version 1.0 CS specifications, announced in "Committee Specification Level Documents for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)"; (2) general SAML references in "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."

  • [April 22, 2002] "ACORD Brings Insurance Industry to OASIS UBL Liaisons." - "ACORD, the insurance industry standards organization, has become the latest industry group to appoint a representative to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee. ACORD joins liaisons from a broad group of industry standards organizations in the subcommittee that provides guidance to UBL, the initiative to define standard XML business forms for electronic commerce. 'ACORD has been a long time advocate of working with other organizations to achieve interoperability across industries,' said Gregory Maciag, CEO of ACORD. 'Insurance is not only a vertical market, but also an integral part of international supply chain management. The UBL effort brings together major players in the standards arena to develop ebXML compliant solutions. This is very important to our industry.' Other organizations with liaisons to UBL include: ARTS, representing retail sales; ASC X12, representing EDI standards; EIDX, representing the electronics industry; RosettaNet, the information technology consortium; and XBRL, the accounting industry standards organization. UBL liaisons provide input to UBL and coordinate the review of standard XML business schemas as they become publicly available. 'Input from these pivotal industry groups ensures that UBL reflects the needs of the marketplace,' said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee and organizer of the working group that created XML. 'Our goal of defining a common XML library for basic business documents like purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices crosses all industries. Contributing to the development of UBL gives industry groups the opportunity to shape the outcome of our work together'.... The OASIS UBL (Universal Business Language) Technical Committee is an open, publicly accountable, nonprofit initiative to define a common XML library for basic business documents like purchase orders, invoices, and shipping notices. UBL provides a standard set of XML building blocks together with a framework that will enable trading partners to unambiguously identify and exchange basic e-commerce documents in specific business contexts. The OASIS UBL effort builds on the Electronic Business XML (ebXML infrastructure developed by OASIS and the United Nations. The ebXML specifications provide for XML registry services, reliable XML messaging, standardized trading partner agreements, a standard data dictionary, and a business context methodology. However, UBL documents are usable in a wide variety of other ecommerce frameworks as well. UBL unites and harmonizes a number of currently existing XML and EDI business libraries into a set of internationally recognized de jure standards. Designed to solve major interoperability problems for both vendors and users, UBL will speed the entry of small and medium-size businesses into the electronic marketplace. UBL is freely available to everyone without legal encumbrance or licensing fees..." See: (1) "Universal Business Language (UBL)"; (2) "ACORD - XML for the Insurance Industry."

  • [April 18, 2002] "WS-I Announces Formation of Key Working Groups; Membership Grows to More Than 100. 100+ Member Community Meets for Initial Working Group Planning Sessions. AT&T, Proctor & Gamble, Sabre and Others Join Industry Effort." - "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I') (http://www.ws-i.org) announced the formation of key working groups at the organization's first community meeting held this week in San Francisco. WS-I is an open industry organization committed to promoting consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services across platforms, applications and programming languages. More than 100 companies have joined WS-I since its official launch in February 2002... Working Group Charters Defined: WS-I has defined the charters for three initial working groups. (1) The Basic Web Services Profile Working Group will identify a core set of specifications (including XML Schema, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI) that provide the foundation for Web services, and will establish conventions and recommendations for coordinating their use. (2) The Sample Applications Working Group will provide sample applications of basic Web services to accelerate deployments. These sample applications illustrate best practices for implementation and will be developed in multiple programming languages using multiple development tools. Sample applications serve as working examples for companies planning to implement Web services. (3) The Test Materials and Tools Development Working Group will develop a suite of self-administered tests to verify conformance with the Basic Web Services Profile. These tools and materials can be used to ensure that Web services interoperate across platforms, applications and programming languages. WS-I is targeting a Fall release for the first set of working group deliverables... Membership in WS-I is open to all organizations committed to promoting interoperability among Web services based on industry-accepted definitions and open standards support..." See: "Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."

  • [April 12, 2002] "SyncML Announces 12 New Compliant Products. 44 Clients and 25 Servers Now Certified SyncML Compliant." - "The SyncML Initiative Ltd. announced [April 8, 2002] that eight (8) new clients and four (4) new servers were certified as SyncML compliant at SyncFest #6 held last week in Boston, MA, USA. Clients tested by Ericsson, fusionOne Client, Magically , Nexthaus, Nokia, and Ukibi and servers tested by Extended Systems, Serial, Synchrologic, and Weblicon were certified as SyncML compliant products. A list of all SyncML compliant products is available at http://www.syncml.org/interoperability.html. Participation in the SyncML interoperability testing process enables device manufacturers, application developers, Internet companies and wireless operators to accelerate the introduction of SyncML compliant products and services to market. SyncML member organizations including fusionOne, NeoSteps, Nokia, Openwave, Starfish, and Steltor also participated in SyncFest #6 in Boston, bringing their SyncML compliant technologies. Their participation greatly enhances the SyncFest process by providing compliant client and server technologies which new participants may test against. 'With over sixty-five SyncML compliant products currently available, our member organizations are seeing real traction in the marketplace with SyncML,' said Doug Heintzman, chairman of the SyncML Initiative. 'According to recent research from Cahners In-Stat, enterprise adoption of wireless data will grow exponentially over the next five years, with business users of wireless data skyrocketing to 39 million in 2006, from 6.6 million last year. We feel strongly that SyncML will be a key driver of that growth.' Ericsson T68 and T65 handsets, Starfish TrueSync Device Stack and TrueSync Wireless, and Nokia 9290 and 9210 Communicators are just a few examples of SyncML products that enjoy market success. See the SyncML Interoperabilty report for a complete list of SyncML compliant products... SyncFest #7 will take place June 4-6, 2002 in Hong Kong... SyncML is the open industry specification for mobile data sync and device management. Sponsored by Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. Ltd., Motorola, Nokia, Openwave, Starfish Software and Symbian, SyncML is supported by mobile and wireless leaders across various industry sectors worldwide." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [April 11, 2002] "Microsoft Unveils Vision for Future of Computing And World of Next-Generation XML Web Services. Nationwide Building Society Finds Business Value With .NET And Outlines Commitment to the Future of XML Web Services ." - "Today at Microsoft Tech-Ed 2002, Microsoft Corp. provided developers with a vision for the future of computing based on XML Web services. In his keynote address, Microsoft Senior Vice President of .NET Enterprise Servers Paul Flessner outlined three pillars of computing -- application models, data and Trustworthy Computing -- that will bring innovations and new technology and provide the foundation for the next generation of XML Web services platforms. David Green, a software architect at Nationwide Building Society, accompanied Flessner onstage to outline the business value his company has derived to date by building with Microsoft .NET and to discuss the company's plans for continuing its leading-edge work in XML Web services by rearchitecting legacy systems to achieve greater business efficiencies and deliver increased value to customers... Microsoft has made significant advancements toward the goal of unifying data by allowing for the storage and/or representation of both structured and unstructured data in XML format. Furthermore, Microsoft has begun to unify the programming model across the variety of data storage mechanisms by delivering support for XML Web services-based access, for example, with SQL Server 2000 and Exchange 2000 Server. In the future, Microsoft will extend storage mechanisms through the use of rich, XML-based schema, which will make it easier for end users to find any type of data stored in any location. Microsoft also will continue to unify the programming model across all possible data stores through the use of XML Web services... Microsoft today jointly announced with IBM and VeriSign the publication of a new XML Web services security specification, WS-Security. WS-Security is the foundation for a comprehensive, flexible security model for Web services. In addition, Microsoft and IBM jointly published a broader road map, including an additional set of proposed XML Web services capabilities, designed to tackle the growing need for the consistent support of more secure XML Web services. The proposed road map outlines additional XML Web services security specifications that Microsoft and IBM plan to develop along with key customers, industry partners and standards organizations."

  • [April 10, 2002] "Siebel Systems Launches Universal Application Network: Industry's First Standards-Based, Vendor-Independent Application Integration Solution. Industry Leaders Commit Technology and Expertise to Deliver Complete, Customer-Centric Solution that Speeds Deployment and Delivers Lower Total Cost of Ownership." - "Siebel Systems, Inc., the world's leading provider of eBusiness applications, today announces the industry's first standards-based vendor-independent application integration solution with the launch of Universal Application Network. Universal Application Network dramatically reduces the need for custom integration, minimizing complexity, speeding deployment and delivering a low total cost of ownership (TCO). Leading system integrators such as Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Accenture, IBM Global Services and KPMG Consulting, and integration server vendors including IBM, SeeBeyond, TIBCO Software, Vitria, and webMethods, have all committed technology and expertise to deliver the Universal Application Network... Universal Application Network is based on emerging Web Services and XML standards. The business process specifications are supported by the leading integration technology vendors -- IBM, SeeBeyond, TIBCO Software, Vitria, and webMethods, and offer organizations reduced deployment time and risk, dramatically lower cost of development and support, and a choice of their preferred integration server..." See news item: "Siebel Systems Announces XML-Based Universal Application Network."

  • [April 10, 2002] "Microsoft .NET Fuels Industry Adoption of XML Web Services. Thriving .NET Ecosystem on Display at Tech-Ed 2002. New Products, Customers and Partners Demonstrate Business Value of XML Web Services on the .NET Platform." - "Today at Microsoft Tech7Ed, Microsoft Corp. made a series of announcements underscoring its commitment to XML Web services and highlighting strong momentum within the Microsoft .NET industry ecosystem. During his keynote speech, Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the Developer Platform and Evangelism Group at Microsoft, announced that Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework crossed the 1 million units shipped mark since their launch in February. Rudder also unveiled a broad array of customers and industry partners supporting the .NET Platform, Microsoft's first commercially available XML Web service, and support for XML Web services in several key Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server products. Today's announcements emphasize the pervasiveness of XML Web services throughout the .NET Platform, the vital role they are playing in the larger industry, and how Microsoft is helping its customers embrace this architecture. 'We devoted four years and allocated millions of hours of product development to present developers with the premier tools and platform in Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework,' Rudder said. 'Today we're rolling out the next phase of the phenomenon -- core standards support and rich toolkits for every product in the .NET Enterprise Server line -- allowing customers to maximize their technology investments and transform their businesses through XML Web services.'... Microsoft also announced the commercial availability of the Microsoft MapPoint .NET programmable XML Web service, which enables developers to include location components in applications and services quickly and easily. The MapPoint .NET XML Web service represents a milestone for the .NET Platform and XML Web services in general, because it is Microsoft's first commercially available XML Web service built exclusively on .NET technology. Core XML Web Services Support Throughout .NET Platform: Building on yesterday's Commerce Server 2002 launch, Microsoft unveiled the latest product deliverables that extend XML Web services support throughout the line of .NET Enterprise Servers. These include: (1) Availability of the Exchange 2000 Server XML Web Services Toolkit for Microsoft .NET. This includes tools and resources to bring contextual collaboration to .NET-based applications using Exchange 2000 and XML Web services. (2) Availability of SQL Server 2000 Notification Services beta. Notification Services is the premier platform for developing and deploying rich and highly scalable notification applications. Building on the key capabilities of the .NET Framework and the scalability of SQL Server Notification Services provides an easy-to-use programming model and a highly scalable server engine for generating and formatting notifications based on personal subscriptions. (3) Availability of Microsoft SQL Server Windows CE Edition (SSCE) 2.0 beta. SQL Server CE is the compact database for rapidly developing applications that extend enterprise data management capabilities to devices. Version 2.0 integrates with the .NET Compact Framework through the Visual Studio .NET Smart Device Extensions..." See also the news item: "Microsoft Announces MapPoint .NET XML Web Service With SOAP API."

  • [April 08, 2002] "Adobe Announces New Version of FrameMaker. FrameMaker 7.0 Makes XML Approachable to Corporate Users. New Server Version Also Introduced." - "Adobe Systems Incorporated, leader in network publishing, today announced a new version of FrameMaker, its powerful enterprise authoring and publishing solution. By making Extensible Markup Language (XML) easier to use, FrameMaker version 7.0 software allows corporations to take advantage of XML's ability to search, share and repurpose content across the enterprise. The new XML capabilities provide a comprehensive network publishing platform, allowing content creators to distribute information to multiple channels, including print, the Web and PDAs. Also announced today is the new Adobe FrameMaker Server, which gives companies the ability to produce personalized, data-driven content for output to print or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). In the past, FrameMaker offered powerful word-processing functionality for long documents, and FrameMaker +SGML included a full set of tools for structured authoring of valid SGML applications. Corporate users can now benefit from the simplicity of FrameMaker and the power of FrameMaker+SGML combined into one product. Users can choose to work in the structured environment to address single-source information publishing needs and create valid XML files, or choose a simpler interface to create well-formed XML files for general word-processing usage..." See details and references in the news item: "Adobe Announces Enhanced XML Authoring Support in FrameMaker Version 7.0."

  • [April 08, 2002] "Microsoft, Hyperion Welcome SAS as Co-Chair on XML for Analysis Council. Industry Leaders Further Bolster XML for Analysis to Accelerate Deployment Of Web Services in Business Intelligence." - "Today at the National Association of Broadcasters event, NAB2002, Hyperion Solutions Corp., Microsoft Corp. and SAS Institute Inc. announced today that SAS has joined Microsoft and Hyperion as a co-chair on the XML for Analysis (XML/A) Council. The XML/A Council was formed in April 2001 to develop and define specifications that enable the easy deployment of sophisticated, analytically rich business intelligence (BI) solutions. XML for Analysis is an open-standards-based messaging interface designed specifically for online analytical processing (OLAP) and data-mining functions. This interface will promote the standardization of the data access interaction between a client application and business intelligence systems and other applications over the Web and in distributing environments. These benefits enable businesses to develop and deploy Web-service-based business intelligence solutions more quickly and easily, as well as integrate diverse applications in today's information technology environments. SAS was previously a contributing member of the council, and its participation in a leadership role offers additional expertise in advanced analytics for the development of the XML for Analysis Specification. To date, the council has issued beta and version 1 releases of the specification. SAS' increased level of involvement in the XML for Analysis Council, along with the contributions of other data-mining vendors ANGOSS Software Corp. and SPSS Inc., illustrates the increased emphasis of data-mining in analytic Web services. Current contributing council members include Alphablox Corp., Applied OLAP Inc., Applix Inc., arcplan Information Services AG, Aspirity LLC, Brio Software Inc., Business Objects SA, Cognos Corp., Comshare Inc., Crystal Decisions, Dimensional Systems, Harmony Software Inc., Lawson Software, MicroStrategy Inc., ProClarity Corp., Simba Technologies Inc. and Temtec... XML for Analysis will enable application developers to incorporate business intelligence into their Web services or distributed computing applications by supporting standard-based protocols such as XML, SOAP and HTTP. The specification does the following: (1) Creates a much-needed standard interface to provide reliable access to business data over the Web to devices on any platform; (2) Allows transfer access between OLAP and data-mining services, which elevates the role of data-mining within the scope of the specification; (3) Enables applications developed in any programming language and running on any platform to access data from any place on the Web. The efforts of the XML/A Council will extend the widespread adoption of business intelligence solutions by enabling a broader access of timely business information to users everywhere..." See the XML for Analysis (XMLA) web site. Other references: (1) "XML for Analysis"; (2) Java OLAP Interface (JOLAP), JSR 69.

  • [April 04, 2002] "Unicode for Mathematics and Technical Publishing. Version 3.2 of the Unicode Standard Released." - "The Unicode Consortium announced today a new version of the Unicode Standard, Version 3.2, which includes the most extensive set of characters for mathematical and technical publishing yet defined. The Unicode Technical Committee and the Scientific and Technical Information eXchange (STIX) Project of the Scientific and Technical Publishers (STIPub) Consortium worked together over the past 5 years to identify over 1,600 new mathematical symbols and alphanumeric characters, more than doubling the number of characters with mathematical usage previously available... With the addition of four indigenous scripts of the Philippines, the Unicode Standard moves further towards full coverage of all living writing systems. Version 3.2 is fully synchronized with International Standard ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000, with its Amendment 1, and with ISO/IEC 10646-2:2001. The Unicode Standard is a major component in the globalization of e-business, as the marketplace continues to demand technologies that enhance seamless data interchange throughout companies' extended -- and often international -- network of suppliers, customers and partners. Unicode is the default text representation in XML, an important open standard being rapidly adopted throughout e-business technology." See also: (1) the news item "Unicode Consortium Publishes Unicode Standard Version 3.2."; (2) "XML and Unicode."

  • [April 03, 2002] "Contentguard Contributes XrML to OASIS Standards Consortium. ContentGuard, HP, Microsoft, Reuters and VeriSign Among the First To Join the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee." - ContentGuard "today announced it would contribute the eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML) to OASIS, the XML interoperability standards consortium, for long-term development and governance of the rights language. This contribution is in support of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee, which was formed to advance a common XML digital rights language standard for the DRM marketplace. ContentGuard also confirmed today that it will hand control of XrML to an international standards organization. The company is currently in discussions with several standards organizations about accepting this governance role. By allowing the governance and development of XrML to be managed by an independent body, ContentGuard is seeking to open up XrML's future development to broad industry participation. 'ContentGuard is delivering on its promise to turn XrML over to a global standards body,' said Michael Miron, ContentGuard CEO. 'After extensive research and numerous discussions with members of the standards community and industry leaders we are confident that OASIS, an international standards consortium focused on developing interoperable specifications built on public standards such as XML, is in the best position to oversee XrML's development and work with other standards organizations who share a common vision of a single extensible rights language standard.' Through the establishment of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee, content owners, DRM developers and all technology providers now have an open and well-recognized forum allowing them to participate in the development of a worldwide standard digital rights language. In addition, the committee is well positioned to extend XrML directly or in concert with other standards groups to address the specific needs of various industry sectors. The technical committee is also expected to form liaisons and establish work processes with other standards organizations, such as MPEG-21, that are committed to standardizing a digital rights language... XrML, the language for digital rights management, provides a universal method for specifying rights and conditions associated with the use and protection of digital content and services. Originally developed at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the specification facilitates the creation of an open architecture for rights management of digital content or services. It can be integrated with both existing and new DRM systems. XrML is a general-purpose rights language, agnostic to the type of resource, platform, media or business applications. The latest release, XrML 2.0, expands the capabilities of a Digital Rights Language to enable developers to establish the rights and conditions needed to access Web Services in addition to discrete digital content. It also contains additional capabilities in the areas of extensibility, security and life cycle management..." See related references in: (1) "OASIS Members Propose a Rights Language Technical Committee"; (2) Call for TC Participation; (3) "Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML)"; (4) "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

  • [April 02, 2002] "ebXML Day in Barcelona." "OASIS and UN/CEFACT are sponsoring ebXML Day, a one-day, dual-track conference on Thursday, 23 May 2002, in Barcelona, Spain, in conjunction with IDEAlliance's XML Europe 2002. The ebXML Day will be open to all XML Europe 2002 conference attendees, as well as anyone who would like to attend the ebXML event separately. By attending ebXML Day, you'll (1) Get up-to-the-minute status on each of the ebXML specifications; (2) Discover what ebXML means for Web services; (3) See how ebXML is being used in Europe and across the globe; (4) Find out which vendors support ebXML now; (5) Gain valuable insight from ebXML implementors as they share tips, guidelines, and lessons learned; (6) Learn how to get funding for your ebXML project. Presenters include representatives from the European Commission, EAN Spain, STAR, Pan Asian e-Commerce Alliance, UCC, and UN/CEFACT, as well as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Oracle, IONA, Cyclone Commerce, Sterling Commerce, XML Global, the Drummond Group, and others..." See also ebXML track at XML Europe 2002.

  • [April 02, 2002] "OASIS Members Form Technical Committee to Advance XML Rights Language. ContentGuard, HP, Microsoft, Reuters, Verisign, and Others Collaborate on Standard to Express Usage and Access Rights Across Industries." - "OASIS announced that its members have formed the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee to advance a common XML rights language standard for the digital rights management (DRM) marketplace. Their work will provide a universal method for specifying and managing rights associated with all kinds of resources including digital content and web services. The OASIS specification will support a wide variety of business models, expressing both simple and complex rights and promoting interoperability between systems regardless of platform, media type or format. 'There is a significant need across many industries for DRM standards to assist institutions in managing their digital assets such as content or web services', said Hari Reddy of ContentGuard, chair of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee. 'Our work in establishing a standard rights language will address the need for interoperability between the components and systems that manage the creation, distribution and consumption of digital assets within and across different industries.' ContentGuard intends to submit its Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML) to the 0ASIS Rights Language Technical Committee as a starting point for this work... 'The use of DRM technologies for the distribution of content and services holds great potential, and putting DRM-related standards in place is essential for the success of DRM,' said Joshua Duhl, an IDC Contributing Analyst... Members of the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee include ContentGuard, Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft, Reuters, VeriSign Inc., and other OASIS members... 'The OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee is an important step towards consistency in the area of rights expression -- a key to establishing interoperability for DRM systems and services,' said John Erickson, systems program manager for digital rights management, HP Labs. 'HP has been involved in a number of industry initiatives that are crucial to the evolution of DRM and is pleased to be a sponsoring member of this technical committee'..." See: (1) the proposal from 2002-03-25, OASIS Members Propose a Rights Language Technical Committee"; (2) "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."

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