Cover Pages: XML Industry News: 2002 Q3

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

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[September 30, 2002] "Web Services Technologies Reach New Heights. Multiplatform Computing Benefits From Standard, Interoperable, Portable Java Web Services. New Programs and Services for Developers Available from Sun." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. [recently] previewed the latest version of Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) at JavaOne Japan Developer Conference. J2EE v 1.4 boosts multiplatform computing with the integration of web services support making Java the only architecture capable of giving developers the ability to deploy production ready web services across heterogeneous environments. J2EE v 1.4 provides support for key web services functionality such as UDDI and ebXML registries and repositories, SOAP, XML processing and schemas and the Web Services Description Language (WSDL)... With deep support for web services standards along with a more seamless integration of its functionalities, J2EE v 1.4 will provide better data center cost efficiencies for system administrators, quicker development and faster delivery to market for developers as well as expanded business opportunities for companies. These compelling benefits make it increasingly important for the leading tools providers to have products available to support development to the latest version of the platform. Sun expects to have a release of their Sun ONE Studio product which will support the J2EE v1.4 platform by May 2003. Highlights of the features include rich web services support integrated with Servlets and EJBs, an enhanced version of the connector architecture, standard J2EE management and deployment functionalities. For the full spectrum of the new features, functionality and updates please visit the J2EE v 1.4 specification page. Currently the J2EE v 1.4 is in proposed final draft under the Java Community Process (JCP) with a target first customer shipment date of Q1 2003. The beta version is expected to be available in November 2002. In conjunction with the release of the J2EE v 1.4 Sun will provide guidelines, tools and services to help developers implement the architecture in conformance with specified functionality, test for application server compatibility and for application portability..."
[September 30, 2002] "XSL Formatter V2.3 Release Information." - "Antenna House, Inc is pleased to inform you that it has upgraded its XSL-FO processor [XSL Formatter] to V2.3. V2.3 provides you with the significant enhancement of layout function capability, multilingual formatting function capability. XSL Formatter V2.3 becomes the most advanced XSL tool for multilingual formatting in the world. Version 2.3: (1) Implements the float in XSL Spec and enhances the layout function. This function provides capabilities of produce the layout of putting images, illustrations and text side-by-side or putting text around the image. (2) Enhances the function of multilingual format. XSL Formatter implements the function of bidirectionality by Unicode BIDI, the text running from left to right as English, Japanese and the text running from right to left as Arabic, Hebrew can be mixed in a single block with mixed directionality. In addition, Arabic justification becomes capable by inserting the glyph 'Kashida'. (3) Provides new support for Arabic and Hebrew: By using XSL Formatter V2.3 and PDF Option, it's possible to do layout the multilingual publications with the flexible mixture of Latin, Cyrillic, Greek alphabet, CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), HAT (Hebrew, Arabic, Thai) and output to PDF. (4) Offers enhanced PDF output options: In case of creating PDF using Adobe Acrobat Distiller from XSL Formatter formatted result, a high quality PDF will be created. From V2.3, links and bookmarks are automatically created in PDF using Distiller. In addition, both EPS with preview image and EPS without preview image can be embedded in PDF via Distiller. (5) Provides graphics support enhancements: By using Plug-in (MathPlayerV1.0) downloadable, the formula written by MathML can be embedded. XSL Formatter supports almost every image formats for Windows..." See the 'Stylesheet Tutorial, Sample Files of Formatting Objects and Sample Stylesheets.' General references: "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[September 30, 2002] "Data Interchange Standards Association Develops New Software Tool to Ease XML Schema Documentation." - "The Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA) released a report on the Componetizer, a new software tool built by DISA that automatically identifies and documents data items in the electronic rules for XML documents, called XML Schemas. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a high-powered standard format, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C, for exchanging business messages and other structured data over the Internet. The Componetizer dramatically reduces the time and effort needed to document XML Schemas, an often-laborious process in the development of standard business messages written in XML. While XML Schemas can be powerful, they are written in XML syntax, which is machine-readable but sometimes difficult to understand by humans. The Componetizer scans XML Schemas, identifies the individual data items in those schemas, and then arrays the Schema components in easy-to-read tables viewable with any Web browser... The Componetizer works with XML Schemas meeting the requirements of the W3C's XML Schema 1.0 Recommendation of May 2, 2001. DISA has used the Componetizer to generate documentation for some of its current industry affiliates, and plans to expand the outputs to other visual display and database formats..." See "Componetizer: A Tool for Extracting and Documenting XML Schema Components," by Marcel Jemio and Alan Kotok. For schema description and references, see "XML Schemas."
[September 30, 2002] "eXcelon Announces Stylus Studio 4.5. Latest Release of Industry's Most Comprehensive XML/XSLT Development Tools Enable Teams to Rapidly Build and Debug Applications Bridging J2EE and .NET Environments." - "eXcelon Corporation today announced the latest release of its Stylus Studio XSLT Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Stylus Studio 4.5 enables development teams to deliver higher quality applications based on XML and XSLT faster by enabling developers to generate XSLT stylesheets automatically from HTML pages, providing advanced debugging support including XSLT debugging for SAXON and .NET processors. Stylus Studio 4.5 also includes an XQuery editor, XQuery debugger and XQuery processor to allow developers to easily build and debug applications with intelligent XML search capabilities. Stylus Studio 4.5 is the industry's only XML/XSL IDE to include integrated debugging with traceability for both J2EE and .NET environments... Stylus 4.5 allows developers to debug XSLT transformations using the native .NET and SAXON processors. Developers in these environments can now access the full debugging and back mapping capabilities of Stylus Studio while ensuring predictable behavior of XSLT across development and deployment environments. With the addition of native .NET support Stylus Studio 4.5 allows developers to write, edit and debug XML and XSLT across both J2EE and .NET environments, which is critical to successfully delivering web services applications... Stylus Studio 4.5 includes an XQuery editor, debugger and processor to give developers a head start in learning XQuery, the latest W3C standard for XML search and retrieval. XQuery is an intelligent facility for rapidly retrieving information contained in XML business documents to support end user auditing of business processes. Stylus Studio reduces the XQuery learning curve with step-by-step debugging and display of variable values. Developers can leverage Stylus Studio's full debugging capabilities to build XQuery searches with speed and accuracy... Stylus Studio 4.5 automates the development of XSLT stylesheets by generating XSLT automatically from static HTML pages. Users can create XSL stylesheets without writing any code by dragging and dropping XML elements directly onto an HTML page. [The] Automatic Schema Documentation Generation Editor Reduces Overhead Associated with Documenting Complex XML Schema: This new feature works like "javadoc" to produce full documentation for XML schema documents, making complex XML schema documents more comprehensible to all members of the development team..." See also the datasheet.
[September 30, 2002] "eXcelon Announces Latest Release of eXtensible Information Server (XIS). New Version of Native XML Database Enables Application Interoperability across .NET and J2EE Environments, Adds XQuery and Verity Text Searching Support." - "eXcelon Corporation today announced the availability of eXtensible Information Server (XIS) 3.12. XIS is a native XML database that provides extensible, reliable and recoverable management of in flight XML business documents that enable long-running business transactions connecting multiple systems and people. XIS 3.12 facilitates XML-based interoperability across .NET and J2EE environments while delivering faster, standards-based access to data in XML business documents with full XQuery support and Verity full-text search. XIS is the industry's only XML database that allows XML business documents to be dynamically extended while providing granular access to elements of information contained in the documents. This functionality lets customers create, audit and continuously change transaction gateway and web service applications in response to changing business conditions... With this release, XIS now manages XML business documents in the .NET environment, to complement existing support for J2EE environments. XIS promotes heterogeneous interoperability between the industry's two leading software platforms; companies can now use XML business documents as the foundation of composite business applications that integrate systems based on both J2EE and .NET architectures... XIS 3.12 provides improved access to critical data and business process metadata contained in XML business documents by embracing all of the XQuery use cases as specified by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in April 2002 and adding support for full text searching using the Verity search engine. XQuery is a standards-based XML query language that provides developers with an intelligent facility for rapidly accessing, querying and auditing XML documents managed in an XML data store.. The Verity add-on allows users to quickly access the abundance of valuable corporate data residing in XML documents by providing full-text indexing and high performance querying of XML documents stored in XIS using the industry's leading full-text search engine...eXcelon Corporation is a leading provider of data management software designed to accelerate the performance of distributed applications built using XML and Java and deployed on market leading software platforms. eXcelon's core products, XIS, Javlin and ObjectStore, deliver enhanced levels of speed, flexibility, scalability and run-time availability to Web Services and distributed applications, which can result in substantial cost savings and significant competitive advantage for large and mid-sized enterprises. For corporate developers and software engineers who need to manage XML in a distributed environment, eXcelon Corporation's eXtensible Information Server (XIS) is a native XML database management system that provides development organizations with the speed and throughput necessary to manage the extreme flexibility of XML..." See: "XML and Databases."
[September 30, 2002] "ActiveState Unveils Industry's First Professional Workspace For Open Source Languages. Komodo 2.0 With Web Services Support and GUI Builder." - "ActiveState Corp., leader in applied open source, today announced a new IDE that provides a powerful workspace for cross-plat form, open source language programming. Komodo 2.0 affords greater power, flexibility and automation, including the ActiveState GUI Builder, Visual Package Manager, Source Code Control, Project Manager, Macros, Web services generation, and more. The only unified open source programming language IDE, Komodo enables editing, debugging, and testing in a single workspace. Komodo is optimized for Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl, XML, XSLT, and supports numerous other languages, including Ruby and JavaScript. It is one of the most sophisticated applications built on the Mozilla framework and runs on the Linux and Windows platforms. 'As an XML developer, I do a lot of text processing of XML and SGML files through various Perl scripts and use Komodo for all kin ds of tasks when developing with Perl and XSLT,' said Ari Nordström, AerotechTelub Information & Media AB, a Saab Group Company. 'The new editing and toolbox features have really been a big timesaver. Unlike some editors that make a mess when you least need it , Komodo handles Unicode well, which is especially important when working with XML documents.' Komodo 2.0 introduces new key benefits: (1) Enable team development and security: Source Code Control integration and Project Manager ensure a secure, yet flexible devel opment environment; (2) Enhance applications with GUI dialogs: simple Tk-based dialog builder with seamless roundtrip integration for Perl, Python, and Tcl; (3) Produce higher quality code faster: enhanced editor is fully customizable with code commenting, block selection, and Code Snippets for storing and reusing code; (4) Implement Web services easily: manage and use Web services with automatic generation of Web services proxies..."
[September 30, 2002] "Choreograph Web Services with BindStudio." - "Bind Systems Ltd, the Business Process Driven Web services company, has announced the general availability of the BindStudio v1.4 release. BindStudio is a business process modeling environment for the development of Web services choreographies. Advances in Web services technologies enable better integration of disparate applications. But as more applications are integrated, management of the overall business processes involved needs to take place. BindStudio provides the key link between Web services integration and business process management. In the current uncertain economic conditions 'getting more from less' is a goal that all businesses are striving for. Business process management helps companies to improve operating efficiencies through process re-engineering and thus provides for key competitive advantages... The Collaborative Process Models created within the BindStudio environment can be easily exported as WSDL or ebXML descriptions to be deployed and executed on leading industry Web Services platforms... The new features added to this release of BindStudio include: (1) Importing of WSDL descriptions and the incorporation of those Web services into choreographed business process models. With this feature existing integration developments can be reverse engineered into business process descriptions. (2) Modeling of multi-party Collaborations. Complex business processes can be developed by bringing together many different sub-processes within multi-party collaborations. (3) HTML Model Report generation. The generated reports provide a useful communication medium for your business processes. The report generation can be fully customized for your particular requirements..."
[September 30, 2002] "Info-One And Blue Frog Partner To Streamline Annuity Product Management. Partnership to Bring New Efficiencies for Annuity Product Providers and Distributors Using VARDS Trading Order Entry Platform." - "Info-One, a leading provider of insurance and annuity sales information products and services, and Blue Frog Solutions, an innovative technology solutions provider for business, today announced a partnership to help insurance carriers streamline annuity product management. Through this agreement, Info-One will incorporate Blue Frog's ADMServer XML data exchange technology to greatly enhance insurance carrier's ability to integrate their annuity product information into Info-One's VARDS. Trading annuity order entry platform. VARDS Trading, the first comprehensive, Web-based annuity order-entry platform, is designed to enable insurance carriers and broker-dealers to increase annuity sales by dramatically streamlining the order entry process. Blue Frog's ADMServer System, which includes the Product Profile for Annuity (PPfA) Administration Module, enables insurance carriers to easily and efficiently load critical annuity product information, including riders and investment options, into VARDS Trading. In addition, the ADMServer System provides a browser-based tool enabling carriers to easily manage critical annuity product components from a central location, ensuring that sales representatives and underwriters have the correct information at their fingertips to help facilitate annuity sales... Developed by ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development), with key participation by NAVA (National Association for Variable Annuities), PPfA reduces errors in the annuity sales process by defining a basic set of annuity product attributes and business rules. The standard may also include product-related information in support of the marketing and product selection processes..." See "ACORD - XML for the Insurance Industry."
[September 25, 2002] "New Standards for Legal Information Exchange Underway at OASIS LegalXML. Consortium Forms Technical Committees to Address Standards for Integrated Justice, eNotarization, eContracts, Electronic Court Filing, Legislative Documents, and Transcripts." - "Legal and technical communities unite as OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, forms six new LegalXML committees to create standards for the electronic exchange of legal data. Backed by government agencies, lawyers, and vendors, the new working groups include: (1) OASIS LegalXML Integrated Justice Technical Committee, which will design XML specifications for exchanging data among justice system branches and agencies; (2) OASIS LegalXML eNotarization Technical Committee, which will develop an agreed set of technical requirements to govern self-proving electronic legal information; (3) OASIS LegalXML eContracts Technical Committee, which will advance XML standards to enable the efficient creation, maintenance, management, exchange and publication of contract documents and terms; (4) OASIS LegalXML Electronic Court Filing Technical Committee, which will develop specifications for the use of XML to create legal documents and to transmit legal documents between attorneys, litigants, courts, and other users of legal documents; and (5) OASIS LegalXML Legislative Documents, Citations, and Messaging Technical Committee, which will further develop open XML standards for the markup of legislative documents to allow the public to more easily participate in the democratic process by creating open, accessible legislative documents. (6) OASIS LegalXML Transcripts Technical Committee, which will design an XML-compliant syntax for representing legal transcript documents..."
[September 24, 2002] "Liberty Alliance Project Announces New Management Board President and New Members. Michael Barrett, American Express to Help Guide Progress of Growing Consortium - Now More than 120 Companies Strong." - "The Liberty Alliance Project, a business and technology consortium formed to develop open specifications for federated network identity, today announced that Michael Barrett, vice president for Internet strategy at American Express, has been elected the new president of the Liberty Alliance Management Board. Barrett previously served as vice president on the Liberty Management Board... Barrett will serve as president until the end of his term in December 2003. Other representatives on the Management Board leadership team include Ian Johnson, senior director of strategic technologies at Vodafone, who has taken over the role of Liberty Alliance vice president; Jim Hughes, director of software standards in Hewlett-Packard's Software Global Business Unit, Enterprise Systems Group and treasurer of the Liberty Alliance; and Bill Smith, director of Liberty Alliance technology for Sun Microsystems Inc. and secretary of the Liberty Alliance. The Liberty Alliance also announced today that membership and interest in the Alliance continues to grow, with 26 new companies joining the Alliance. The Liberty Alliance now consists of more than 120 for-profit, not-for-profit and government organizations... The Liberty Alliance Project is an alliance of more than 120 technology and consumer organizations formed to develop and deploy open, federated network identification specifications that support all current and emerging network devices in the digital economy. Federated identity will help drive the next generation of the Internet, offering businesses and consumers convenience and choice. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations..." See: (1) LA complete list of members; (2) "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."
[September 23, 2002] "Netegrity Ships SiteMinder 5.5 with SAML, Passport, and Kerberos Support. Enables Enterprises to Extend their Security Infrastructure with Federated Identity Services." - Netegrity, Inc., leading provider of application infrastructure for access, identity and portal management, today announced that Netegrity SiteMinder 5.5 is now shipping. SiteMinder 5.5 enables federated identity and security with support for SAML, Microsoft .Net Passport, and Kerberos. Federated security enables companies to standardize the sharing of identity information across applications within the enterprise as well as to partner companies outside of the enterprise. Federated security is key to enabling businesses to more easily and cost effectively leverage their partnerships in order to provide customers with seamless and personalized access across a network of connected services... Netegrity's federated security model enables companies to leverage a single unified authentication, single sign-on, authorization, and auditing model to provide shared security services, regardless of whether the application is hosted locally within the organization or remotely by a partner. This enables users to log in just once, using a broad range of authentication services. Netegrity is providing support for SAML, Passport and Kerberos in SiteMinder 5.5 to provide customers with a standards based approach to allowing authentication and identity information to be shared among multiple organizations and servers. SiteMinder 5.5 provides support for: (1) SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language): SiteMinder 5.5 enables a SiteMinder identity to be mapped to a SAML based identity. SiteMinder creates a SAML assertion for a user and makes it available to a partner site. Now, companies can securely exchange information about authenticated users without having to change their existing security infrastructures, reducing costs, creating more efficiencies, and providing a better user experience. (2) Microsoft .Net Passport: SiteMinder integration with Microsoft .NET Passport enables users to log-in just one time using their .NET Passport user name and password, and access all .NET Passport enabled Web sites as well as enterprise applications protected by SiteMinder and configured to trust Passport authentication. In addition, for more sensitive applications, companies can implement a policy that challenges users for additional credentials beyond their Passport identities. (3) Kerberos: With support for Kerberos, users are able to log into their Microsoft desktop using Windows credentials and are then provided with single sign-on to the SiteMinder protected environment, without having to sign on again. Now, an employee can log onto their desktop in the morning and gain access to the company's SiteMinder protected portal, without having to log on multiple times..." See: "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."
[September 19, 2002] "Systinet Extends Web Services Support for Borland JBuilder and Eclipse. Systinet Wasp Developer Provides Point-and-click Web Services Creation for Java Developers. Is Among the First to Support the Latest Soap 1.2 Specification." - "Systinet, a leading independent provider of Web services infrastructure software, today announced the general availability of WASP (Web Applications and Services Platform) Developer for Borland JBuilder, 4.0 and WASP Developer for Eclipse, 4.0. WASP Developer 4.0 seamlessly extends these popular Java IDEs to enable the fast, easy creation, debugging and deployment of sophisticated SOAP Web services, and fully supports the latest SOAP 1.2 specification. The 4.0 release extends support to include the latest 7.0 release of Borland JBuilder and 2.0.1 release of Eclipse. Systinet is further encouraging adoption among developers by making WASP Developer 4.0 free for commercial use... WASP Developer is part of Systinet's WASP suite of products, which provides everything businesses need to build, deploy, secure and manage Web services. In addition to WASP Developer, the suite includes WASP Server for Java, WASP Server for C++, and WASP UDDI. WASP Server for Java was the recipient of an Analyst's Choice Award from eWEEK and was described as "the best and most sophisticated Web services offering for Java, and the one we recommend to Java developers" in the June 24 edition. WASP Developer provides a simple point-and-click code generation experience that can turn any existing Java application into a Web service. WASP Developer can automatically generate client-side code for an existing Web service, regardless of where it is running, the programming language in which it was developed, or the SOAP stack it uses. Developers can easily browse UDDI registries, select a Web service, import its WSDL file and generate client code. WASP Developer also includes SOAP Spy, an interactive message-tracking console that traces SOAP messages and allows arbitrary modification of any SOAP request. WASP Developer also supports instant deployment of Web services from within the IDE, and includes a runtime monitor that allows the developer to start and stop Web Services for testing purposes. Close integration with the UDDI registry ensures the synchronization of developed components within large development teams... Corporation Systinet provides Web services infrastructure software. Systinet's products make it easy for enterprises to build, deploy, secure and manage Web services. The Systinet WASP suite of products is based on industry-standards such as XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. WASP products are available for Java and C++, interoperate seamlessly with other Web services implementations such as Microsoft .NET, and are portable across a wide variety of platforms and servers..."
[September 19, 2002] "Sun Announces the Sun Interoperability Prototype - Industry's First Identity Prototype for Developers. Offers 'Hands On' Experience to Accelerate Network Identity Application Development and Interoperability. Based on the Liberty Alliance v1.0 Specification." From SunNetwork 2002 Conference and Pavilion. "Continuing to deliver on its leadership in the network identity space and the momentum of Sun ONE, Sun Microsystems Inc., a founding member of the Liberty Alliance, today announced the availability of the Sun Interoperability Prototype based on the Liberty Alliance Specification (IPL). This prototype offering is designed for developers -- both enterprise customers and ISVs -- that want to build or test Liberty-enabled applications to manage and maintain their own identity management systems. Sun IPL is the first open community, Java technology-based implementation of the Liberty Alliance Version 1.0 specification. This prototype and the Liberty specification are based on open standards such as SAML 1.0, XML and SOAP. Sun IPL is available immediately for download. Today's announcement supports Sun's July unveiling of the first shipping, end-to-end network identity solution that addresses customers' needs for heightened security, privacy and federated identity management and that new products, services and support available are fully compliant with the Liberty Alliance version 1.0 specification. The availability of Sun IPL will help customers migrate to Liberty-compliant Sun ONE products such as the Sun ONE Identity Server 6.0. Interoperability and open, non-proprietary standards enable businesses and consumers to better manage their data and offer network identity-enabled services on their own business terms. Because a federated model removes the constraints of a single, centralized architecture, cross-platform information can be stored, managed and distributed easily... The Sun ONE Identity Server 6.0 provides a comprehensive identity management system that includes policy driven access management, identity administration, and directory services. the Sun ONE Identity Server 6 leverages industry standards such as SAML 1.0 (Security Assertions Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) as well as providing out-of-the-box support for the new Liberty Alliance Version 1.0 Specification. Other products in the Sun ONE portfolio will be Liberty-enabled over time, beginning with the award- winning Sun ONE Portal Server..." See: (1) Interoperability Prototype for Liberty; (2) "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."
[September 19, 2002] "Microsoft and AT&T Wireless to Demonstrate New Location-Based Services Product at DEMOmobile 2002. New Microsoft Enterprise Location Server Highlights Powerful Fusion of .NET Compact Framework, XML Web Services and the AT&T Wireless Next-Generation Wireless Network." - "Microsoft Corp. and AT&T Wireless demonstrated new location-based software, provisionally named Microsoft Enterprise Location Server, that brings together XML Web services, core Microsoft .NET technology and AT&T Wireless' Network to enable rich location-based services. The Microsoft Enterprise Location Server was developed as a part of the strategic alliance formed by the two companies in July. The two companies will demonstrate an application of the software at DEMOmobile 2002 being held at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines in La Jolla, September 19-20, 2002. The application is built on the .NET Compact Framework on a Windows Powered Pocket PC-based phone and uses XML Web services to integrate with the Microsoft Enterprise Location Server and AT&T Wireless' unique location capabilities to bring together MapPoint .NET information and real-time location data from AT&T Wireless. It combines the ability to locate colleagues with other functionality, such as the ability to obtain maps and driving directions, conduct proximity searches, and find destinations or points of interest, such as store or customer locations near one's own or a colleague's position, boosting mobile worker connectivity and efficiency and enabling a range of powerful new scenarios in areas such as field sales and service. 'The Microsoft Enterprise Location Server is a significant example of the powerful possibilities that emerge when great software and great carriers come together,' said Tom Button, vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft. 'Mobile workers, their companies and application developers are quickly discovering that XML Web services, smart devices, high-speed wireless networks and Microsoft .NET technologies such as the .NET Compact Framework and MapPoint .NET are powerful building blocks on which to deliver valuable mobile solutions and increased return on investment.' The .NET Compact Framework is Microsoft's developer platform for building smart mobile applications that consume XML Web services. The .NET Compact Framework is tightly integrated with Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft's flagship programming tool, meaning that developers have a consistent platform and interface for developing applications that range from the largest servers to the smallest devices. MapPoint .NET is the Microsoft platform for mobile location-based services that enables developers to integrate location intelligence and mapping capabilities into consumer and enterprise mobile applications..."
[September 18, 2002] "The WfMC Heralds BPEL4WS Standards for Business Process Management Industry." - "The Workflow ManagementCoalition (WfMC) is pleased to note the activity of major vendors such as IBM and Microsoft in the development of process definition languages and tools that are critical to workflow and other system technologies. Both IBM and Microsoft are funding members of the WfMC and were early contributors to the workflow standards including those involving process definition. The recently announced Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) is a platform for executing business processes so that they can be more easily reused and integrated with other processes. The specification enables simple execution of such processes in a web services environment. The first review of BPEL4WS suggests that the proposal is compatible with IBM and Microsoft products and therefore the proposed standard may receive de-facto support through adoption of these vendors' products. It is also apparent that almost all the features of BPEL4WS are already represented in the WfMC XPDL specification. However, there are numerous additional capabilities in the WfMC standards, such as Wf-XML, which is the process execution standard, that were not found in the specification announced by Microsoft and IBM... The WfMC has identified five functional interfaces to a workflow service as part of its standardization program. The XPDL (XML Process Definition Language) specification forms part of the documentation relating to 'Interface one' -- supporting Process Definition Import and Export. This interface includes a common meta-model for describing the process definition (this specification) and also an XML schema for the interchange of process definitions. The WfMC is committed to support the users of workflow technology for all purposes. Workflow has evolved to move work between organizations including those in separate enterprises, beyond its initial role of managing the distribution of work between people. The Coalition focuses on both the function and content of those communications as well as the tools and languages (such as XML). Work will continue on the Coalition standards as well as liaison with organizations working in related technology areas such as BPMI (collaboration announced in June 2002). The WfMC will continue to be sensitive to the wider needs of the industry and if the new BPEL4WS facilities become a significant industry direction, the Coalition will extend its focus to include that approach..." See: (1) "Workflow Management Coalition Publishes XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) Beta"; (2) "XML-Based Workflow and Process Management Standards: XPDL, Wf-XML"; (3) "Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS)."
[September 18, 2002] "IBM Unveils Industry's First Software for Secure Web Services. Websphere and Tivoli Software Enable Businesses to Securely Extend Web Services Applications to Business Partners, Customers, Suppliers." - "IBM today announced the industry's first software that will help organizations more rapidly build secure business relationships with other organizations using Web Services applications. The new software... will support key industry standards for Web Services security, such as the WS-Security specification, which IBM co-authored. As a result, businesses will now be able to develop Web Services applications that are secured beyond the firewall -- meaning they can facilitate secure transactions with partners in their supply chain, regardless of the Web services or security technologies used by other partners. Specifically, IBM WebSphere Application Server Version 5 will support WS-Security in the fourth quarter and in IBM Tivoli Access Manager, early next year. This specification defines a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions, that can be used to provide integrity and confidentiality in Web services applications. IBM is developing the first comprehensive open-standards based Web services infrastructure that extends enterprise-class security capabilities to Web services deployments running on a variety of platforms. New features across the WebSphere and Tivoli software portfolio can help IBM customers automate the process of extending customer and partner-facing Web services applications to more organizations and users, helping reduce the reliance on proprietary technologies and costly manual integration. IBM also plans to support new federated identity management capabilities in its WebSphere and Tivoli software to provide a way for Web services and enterprise applications to share identity information across multiple networks, helping businesses extend market reach by securely integrating with suppliers, partners and customers. IBM Tivoli Access Manager will feature new federated identity management interfaces that enable customers to plug in support for identity standards. This next release, scheduled for November, will initially feature out-of-the box support for the XML Key Management Specification (XKMS). IBM plans to extend this capability to include support for various identity standards such as the Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML), Kerberos, XML Digital Signatures, and other security tokens formats as they mature in standards organizations. Additionally, IBM will support secure token management, trust brokering, integrated identity mapping and credential mapping services..." See: (1) "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)"; (2) "XML Key Management Specification (XKMS)."
[September 17, 2002] "Birdstep Technology Announces True Native XML Embeddable Database for Mobile Applications. Company Also Releases New Version of RDM Mobile Database." - "Birdstep Technology Inc. today introduced its first true native XML database, RDM XML, which supports both Java and C++ programming languages. The company also released version 2.0 of its RDM Mobile embeddable database, which includes native C++ and Java interfaces and is ideal for applications with high performance requirements or extremely limited storage capabilities. Both products offer full-bodied database functionality in a small footprint using an architecture based on the object-oriented internal structure and COM-based programming interfaces. The architecture is optimized to handle hierarchical data, which meets the requirements of XML data representation... RDM XML provides interfaces, such as SAX, DOM and XPATH, for storage and retrieval of data. It also implements the emerging DOM/XPATH integration standard supported by the WWW Consortium (W3C). New features of RDM Mobile include the regular expressions tool for evaluating arbitrary expressions and matching string attribute data, and casual attributes for unstructured XML documents. The optional transaction handling module keeps the database consistent by using a transaction log and allows a transaction to be aborted through a user call. RDM Mobile 2.0 database engine is approximately 175 kB on the Win32 platform. The size can be reduced to 150 kB by removing the transaction handling feature. The complete XML package includes full DOM, XPATH and SAX export functionality and adds 215kB to the RDM Mobile engine. The optional XML parser and SAX file import DLL comprise an additional 150kB. Both databases are deployed with the developer's application, giving the developer control and predictability over the application's data management. Customers include Navara Ltd. and Software AG. RDM XML and RDM Mobile are also embedded in Birdstep's own wireless products, IP Zone server and Mobile IP client software..."
[September 17, 2002] "CambridgeDocs Addresses Need for XML Content Integration with New Backbone Strategy and Future Products. Multi-billion dollar markets including Content Management, Document Management, Enterprise Information Portals, and Web Services intersect content integration using XML technology." - "As an initial step to its entry into the fast-growing market for XML content integration software, CambridgeDocs today disclosed details on the company's long-term product and architectural strategy, the XML Content Backbone. The company will focus on unstructured content such as that contained in Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, plain text and HTML documents, accounting for a significant percentage of the legacy content found in large organizations... CambridgeDocs will be developing products towards a long-term strategy that it calls the XML Content Backbone. Conceptually speaking, the XML Content Backbone is a software product platform that will serve to integrate the unstructured content from disparate systems across the enterprise and from the extended enterprise. The XML Content Backbone will be able to migrate, integrate, route, and assemble content from document management systems, content management systems, groupware systems, desktop applications, and publishing systems using any industry XML standard such as DocBook, RIXML, HR-XML, NewsML, LegalXML or any custom application XML schema. The XML Content Backbone will achieve this integration by first converting all types of unstructured content to 'meaningful' XML to get on the backbone. These 'packets of content' can then be routed and delivered to repositories for migration, for syndication, for publication, and for Web Services... The CambridgeDocs mission is to develop a coherent XML Content Backbone for bringing order to the 'content chaos' that exists in most organizations. CambridgeDocs products allow for interoperability of content that was created in different formats by utilizing newly emerging XML standards. Founded in January 2002 as XYZ Technologies Inc., the company is lead by a team of experienced entrepreneurs with extensive backgrounds in managing documents and unstructured corporate data in government, financial services, healthcare, pharmaceutical, aerospace and defense and education/e-learning..."
[September 17, 2002] "French Staffing Leaders Endorse HR-XML's Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards." - "France's leading staffing firms today signaled their support for Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES), a set of open data exchange standards developed by the HR-XML Consortium, an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to creating standards for human resources management. Executives from Adecco, Adia, Groupe Expectra, Kelly, Manpower, and VediorBis released a letter endorsing SIDES and announcing the intent of their companies to work within the HR-XML Consortium to develop extensions reflecting business practices and legal requirements within the French staffing industry. SIDES is a comprehensive suite of data exchange standards that offers streamlined communications between staffing customers and suppliers as well as improved accuracy and timeliness of invoicing. In the endorsement letter, the French staffing leaders also called upon their information technology suppliers and partners to similarly support SIDES within their software and service offerings... The SIDES specification defines a common vocabulary for staffing data exchanges and provides a rich and customizable set of options to fit a wide variety of needs." Announcement also in in French. See "Staffing Industry Data Exchange Standards (SIDES)"
[September 16, 2002] "Republica Releases X-Fetch Performer 2.1, Accelerating XML Application Development." - "Republica is proud to announce the release of its improved real-time XML processor X-Fetch Performer 2.1, making X-Fetch Performer one of the most advanced XML processing technologies currently available while further reducing the required implementation and maintenance effort to a minimum. X-Fetch Performer is a leading edge, run-time configurable solution for parsing and validating data from XML sources and forwarding this data to software components that can remain completely independent of the XML standard. X-Fetch Performer is especially focused at XML application developers, designed to overcome the high maintenance demands as well as the performance problems associated with currently wide-spread SAX and DOM parsers: the lack of speed of these solutions and the inability of these solutions to process large XML files or continuous XML streams -- both in XML parsing and XML Transformations. The data streaming capabilities of X-Fetch Performer provide local random access to XML data: critical information contained in an XML document can be directly applied without having to load the entire document. Furthermore, a low and constant memory usage is guaranteed, resulting in the ability to process huge XML files, even continuous XML streams in real-time. With XPath-based configuration and configurable streaming as well as allowing software logic to be independent of the XML standard via data binding, the maintenance and implementation effort is now reduced to a minimum. X-Fetch Performer allows solutions to be modular and ready to react to changes in their environment. This leads to drastic cost reductions for applications that need to leverage - filter, order and route - XML content in a time-critical manner. All this combined with compatibility with SAX and DOM solutions makes X-Fetch Performer an ideal tool for the enhanced reuse of existing and tested software components and offers clear benefits to support rapid, low-maintenance/fast-implementation XML application development..."
[September 16, 2002] "Modulant Forms Industry Solutions Center to Solve Data Standards Entanglement Problem. Leverages Advanced Model-Based Mapping Technology to Bridge Chasm Among Popular Standard Data Vocabularies." - "Modulant, a leading provider of semantics-based interoperability solutions, today announced the formation of an Industry Solutions Center - a strategic group dedicated to establishing interoperability among leading standard data vocabularies. Modulant has created the Industry Solutions Center to address a long-standing challenge in the IT community: how to reconcile the use of disparate, competitive data standards for business exchanges. The group's charter is to create cross-platform mappings that bridge diverse data vocabularies among a wide range of standards. Initially, Modulant will leverage its deep expertise in the area of collaborative commerce and product lifecycle data management to unite standard formats such as ebXML, STEP, OAG, EDIFACT, X12, and RosettaNet into a common framework for data-level interoperability. Product data standards, in particular, have evolved into a bewildering assortment of non-interoperable formats and data definitions due to the high degree of fragmentation, constantly evolving baseline, lack of widespread agreement on a common vocabulary, and ensuing proliferation of 'standard' hybrids to accommodate local vocabulary variations... Modulant is the leading provider of semantics-based interoperability solutions that improve the speed, success rate, and ROI of integration efforts along the product value chain. Fundamentally different from traditional integration approaches, Modulant's semantic mapping, modeling, and mediation capabilities enable product lifecycle management (PLM) applications to exchange information with other applications across the extended enterprise - without requiring agreement on standard data vocabularies or custom coding of data transformations. Modulant's unique semantic mediation approach creates a loosely-coupled, scalable, and highly-adaptable interoperability framework that enables companies to significantly improve efficiency, agility, and collaboration capabilities throughout the product lifecycle -- from development through sourcing, production, and distribution..." ['The Modulant Contextia Interoperability Workbench uses a model-driven approach to capture and formalize the meaning, relationships, and contexts of domain information. Models and mapping specifications for all source and target systems are described in XML and stored in a repository for execution. The Modulant Contextia Interoperability Server uses the mapping specifications to perform run-time data transformations while preserving the underlying semantics. Graphical tools enable users to easily administer and maintain mapping specifications and run-time executions.']
[September 16, 2002] "Context Media Pledges Support for PRISM. Context Media Reaffirms Commitment to Key Industry Open Standards Initiatives." - "Context Media, Inc. today announced further commitment to the adoption of open standards for managing enterprise content through its support for PRISM (Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata). The goal of open standards initiatives like PRISM is to provide customers with the freedom of choice to take advantage of multi-vendor, interoperable enterprise content management solutions. PRISM is a key industry initiative hosted by IDEAlliance and sponsored by a group of companies who have an interest in creating and using a common metadata standard as a basic part of the content infrastructure. PRISM metadata helps automate the flow of content by providing information about the content being exchanged, including rights information, content indexes, creation and publication dates, and how specific pieces of content relate to other content. The PRISM vocabulary makes it possible for publishers to efficiently repurpose content; improve search precision for querying and data mining; automate globalization; improve process control and automation; and facilitate the management of rights and permissions. Context Media's Interchange Suite has given enterprises the opportunity to take advantage of the full value of their content without disrupting their current workflow or replacing their current content/asset management infrastructure. Through the Interchange's foundation in open standards and XML based technologies, its extensible schema can incorporate the PRISM vocabulary in order to provide publishers with the specific tools they need to execute their crucial daily business activities. Through the Suite's tools, enterprises can quickly locate assets based on PRISM criteria, such as an item's presentation type, subject, creation date, or whether or not the organization has the necessary rights to reuse the content. Once the desired assets are identified, they can be made available to the appropriate individuals or departments to be efficiently and confidently repurposed or redistributed..." See: "Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM)."
[September 16, 2002] "Altova Inc. Releases New Product Line of XML Tools to Accelerate XML Adoption in the Enterprise. Powerful New Product Line of XML Editing Tools to Satisfy Unique Needs of Developers, Web Designers and Business Users." - "Altova, Inc., producer of XMLSPY, the world's leading XML development tool with over 600,000 registered users and 90% of the market share, announced today the release of a new product line consisting of easy-to-use software tools to facilitate and advance the adoption of XML technologies. Presently, XML technologies are recognized as an important aspect of systems integration, electronic commerce, and Web Services applications. In order to maximize software developer productivity, corporate information reuse, and the adoption of XML for use in conjunction with web applications; Altova is pleased to announce the availability of three new XML tools -- XMLSPY 5, AUTHENTIC 5, and STYLEVISION 5. XMLSPY 5 is the industry standard XML Development Environment for designing, editing, and debugging enterprise-class applications that involve XML, XML Schema, XSL/XSLT, SOAP, WSDL and Web service technologies. XMLSPY 5 is a necessary productivity tool for J2EE, Microsoft .NET, and database developers. AUTHENTIC 5 is a standards-based, browser-enabled document editor that allows business users to seamlessly capture thoughts and ideas directly in XML format. This can then be saved for later retrieval or transformation to any content management system, database, or XML repository for subsequent retrieval and transformation, unlocking corporate knowledge. AUTHENTIC 5 is ideally suited as an editing component for use in building document frameworks; which are standard-based, XML Schema-driven document and content management systems that empower business users to create, manage, search, and publish content for multiple audiences or devices across an enterprise. AUTHENTIC 5 fully supports all popular server repositories, including Oracle9iR2, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Software AG's Tamino Server, and other leading content management or XML databases. STYLEVISION 5 is a radical new XML tool for web developers that provides powerful conversion utilities for painless migration of traditional HTML websites to advanced XML-based sites in full compliance with new Internet standards: XML, XSLT & XML Schema. Stylevision is the only Web developer tool to support HTML Importing, the process by which any traditional HTML page is distilled and separated into three files: an XSLT stylesheet for presentation, an XML Schema (or DTD) that defines the page's content model, and the XML document that contains the page's content itself. Through a visual drag-and-drop interface, a user can separate a page's presentation from content by highlighting content from an existing HTML file, dragging it across the screen, and then assigning it to a content model. Conversion of HTML based websites to XML will facilitate the internationalization, searching, and indexing of billions of documents on the web...." See additional references in the news item.
[September 14, 2002] "CDC Solutions Launches Complete eCTD Solution to Manage The Entire Regulatory Submission Lifecycle. Sophisticated eCTD Solution Unveiled at Momentum 2002 in Orlando, FL." - "CDC Solutions Ltd., leading global provider of document-based solutions to the life sciences industries, today launches a complete solution to accommodate life sciences organizations in meeting the challenge of managing and publishing regulatory submissions according to the emerging specifications of the electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD). Unveiled for clients, partners, and potential customers at Momentum 2002, CDC's sophisticated eCTD solution solves the mission-critical steps in managing the entire submission life cycle while providing the ability to quickly adapt to change as the eCTD format evolves in the future. Included in the EZsubs Submission Manager, the eCTD solution is designed with an advanced architecture and unmatched flexibility that leverages the proven technology of EZsubs to help ensure organizations meet the regional and International Conference on Harmonization's (ICH) eCTD specifications. The eCTD is part of the ICH initiative to provide a common format for industry to agency transfer of regulatory information that is acceptable across the ICH regions of the United States, Japan, and the European Union. This initiative is part of the primary ICH goal to facilitate a more economical use of human, animal, and material resources, and the elimination of unnecessary delay in the global development and availability of new medicines... The eCTD introduces the use of an 'XML backbone' as a new way of approaching electronic submissions which benefits both sponsor organizations and agencies by providing the mechanism to record all interactions and highlighting changes between submissions. CDC's eCTD solution provides not only an easy to use XML generator, but all the functionality necessary to map the life-cycle of the product to the related documentation through the organizations' content management system. The eCTD solution works with CDC Solutions' Xref manager to provide advanced cross referencing at the author level allowing users to insert, manage, and maintain cross references as documentation changes with continued product development...." See: "Electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD) for Pharmaceuticals."
[September 13, 2002] "CECID Donates MSH Code to ebXML Development Community." - "Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS), The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is pleased to announce its code base donation of a Message Service Handler (MSH) implementation, coined Hermes, to the ebXML development community. This open-source project is hosted at www.freebxml.org and released under the Academic Free License that permits royalty free use of the source and binaries. Developers are encouraged to download Hermes for further development. Hermes is a Message Service Handler (MSH) implementation that is in compliance with the OASIS ebXML Message Service (ebMS V2) Standard. In addition, it is the first open source MSH to use RDBMS persistent storage to implement advanced ebMS features like reliable messaging. ebMS is a key component in the ebXML technical architecture. It utilizes SOAP, Internet transport protocols (e.g., HTTP and SMTP), and other security standards (e.g., XML Signature) to provide a standardized, reliable, and secure infrastructure for enterprises to exchange messages. Hermes supports secure messaging functions through widely-adopted Internet security technologies, such as XML Signature, SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). It has also implemented reliable delivery features defined in ebMS Standard to ensure the exchanged message is received and intact. The feature list of Hermes includes message packaging, reliable messaging, message ordering, error handling, security, synchronous reply, message status service, and RDBMS persistent storage. Hermes also supports transport protocols, such as HTTP and SMTP, to suit different needs of large and small enterprises, and different business requirements. Currently, it is being prepared for the Drummond Goup's Interoperability Conformance Test. Hermes has been implemented by developers at CECID under the auspices of Project Phoenix. Project Phoenix is primarily sponsored by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government. Hermes is donated to the ebXML development community and released under the Academic Free License..." See details in the news item "freebXML Initiative Supports Open Source ebXML Implementations: Message Service Handler (MSH) and Registry/Repository."
[September 14, 2002] "Chutney Technologies Eliminates Web Services Bottlenecks with New Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP." - "Chutney Technologies, Inc., pioneer and leader of the Application Optimization market, today [2002-09-09] announced the availability of Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), a software product that accelerates the deployment and minimizes the capital and operational costs of Web services projects. The product can eliminate 100% of the overhead in a Web services transaction, ensuring that Web services-enabled applications deliver a superior quality-of-service to users while not overburdening server and network resources. With the addition of Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP to its existing product family, Chutney is now the first company to offer software solutions for optimizing every layer of an enterprise application architecture. 'Web services promise to revolutionize the way that software components are developed, integrated and accessed,' said Michael Hoch, Senior Analyst, Internet Infrastructure at Aberdeen Group. 'However, early deployments of Web services are causing user frustration and infrastructure strain due to the constraints of the very standards upon which they are built, such as XML and SOAP. To avoid these problems, enterprises should include application optimization solutions as the Web services are deployed. Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP is the first solution I've seen that addresses these challenges, and will help make Web services a viable model for today's enterprise applications.' Though vital to the Web services model, the SOAP protocol is a prime source of overhead. Every Web services transaction involves wrapping the request and response into a SOAP message, extracting the request and response from a SOAP message, and exchanging SOAP messages over a network. Additionally, there are processing and I/O operations that must be performed by the Web service itself to generate a response, injecting further delays into the process. Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP provides the absolute fastest means for completing a Web services transaction, by eliminating the need to perform the usual sequence of steps. The product is fully and seamlessly interoperable with the leading SOAP implementations, including Microsoft SOAP toolkit and Apache SOAP, so it can be implemented very quickly with no code modification. Underlying Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP is patent-pending technology that delivers the already-known output of a Web service call to the requesting application directly from a locally-resident storage engine. The normally-required SOAP messaging operations, Web service processing and I/O tasks, and network transmissions are thus bypassed for each call invocation. As a result of this 'smart shortcut', Chutney Apptimizer for SOAP reduces user response times, increases active user loads, and offloads server, network, and database resources..." See "Speeding Up SOAP," by James R. Borck.
[September 10, 2002] "PRISM Gains Traction and Announces Companion Specifications. Working Group Members Hearst, LexisNexis, Time Inc. and Others Develop Standardized Markup to Automate Common Publishing and Content Processes." - Members of PRISM (Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata), an IDEAlliance Working Group, today announced they have expanded the group's scope by creating standardized XML DTDs (document type definitions) based on the PRISM standard. The new DTDs will address common content applications faced by publishers and aggregators, and are designed to help lower costs by providing a single format for all organizations to maintain. In addition, having a standardized XML format lowers the entry point for smaller organizations that can now send their content to aggregators who plan to implement the DTDs to receive content from larger publishers. Lastly, providing the articles in XML offers more capability, since organizations will now be able to markup their content in new ways. 'This is excellent news for PRISM and demonstrates the tremendous value provided by having a consistent language for publishers and other content providers,' said Amre Youssef, Director of Publishing Technologies at Hearst Magazines. 'This also broadens the applicability of PRISM metadata to the industry as a whole.' The DTDs are being developed to enable members of the Working Group, as well as other companies wishing to adopt PRISM, to more easily implement the specifications. The PRISM Group's goal is to address critical, yet common business workflow problems for content companies by providing XML DTDs that combine PRISM metadata with specific types of content markup. As part of today's announcement, the PRISM Group will be making available this month an XML DTD for describing magazine article content to enable automated delivery to aggregators and other companies. The DTD extends PRISM metadata with markup to describe article content such as paragraph headings, photographs and sub-headings. 'By enabling the delivery of detailed information in a consistent format, the new DTD allows publishers and other content-related companies to better communicate with a broader range of partners who are just now standardizing on XML,' said Ron Daniel Jr., Principal of Taxonomy Strategies and editor of the PRISM specification. 'Having a standardized format describing magazine article content will cut the costs associated with aggregating content, while the use of PRISM and XML provides greater capabilities for publishers.' 'Companies like ours manage content from a large number of sources,' said Chet Ensign, Sr. Director of Architecture & Development Services at LexisNexis. 'Today, we receive metadata in as many different formats as content. We believe the PRISM standard, by providing a standard metadata vocabulary, can help us streamline our processes significantly.' Since its establishment in 1999, the PRISM Working Group has grown and diversified. Publishers such as Hachette, McGraw-Hill and Time Inc. are now joined by newer members such as Hearst Magazines, Gruner + Jahr, Lippincott, Reed Business Information US, and LexisNexis. Marketing professionals, application providers, linguists, publishers, content aggregators, standards architects and developers have joined to take advantage of the standard's ability to help them automate and manage their content workflow process, while jointly developing specifications that work for all content..." See: "Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM)."
[September 10, 2002] "Documentum Delivers Major New Release of Market Leading Enterpise Content Management Platform: Documentum 5. Extends ECM with Next-Generation Capabilities Including Reports Management, Records Management, Collaboration, Trusted Content Services and Rapid Deployment." - "Documentum, a leading provider of enterprise content management (ECM), today announced Documentum 5, the latest version of its award-winning ECM platform. The platform was unveiled at Momentum, Documentum's Worldwide User Conference, to more than 1500 customers and partners. Based on extensive input from Documentum customers and partners, the platform offers: (1) Enhanced usability and deployability to enable widespread adoption of content management; (2) Expanded enterprise collaboration that can be extended to any business process; (3) Fixed content management, to manage images, reports and records; (4) Advanced trust, security and compliance services to provide unmatched protection of content assets; (5) An open, standards-based development environment for easy application development. Documentum 5 is the only ECM solution that offers unified content services for enterprise document management (EDM), web content management (WCM), digital asset management (DAM) and now fixed content management (FCM) -- records, reports and scanned images -- in a single, integrated platform. Unlike other content management solutions that support limited content types, Documentum 5 delivers fully integrated content management services and an integrated repository for all types of content, across the entire extended enterprise... Documentum 5 adds fixed content management capabilities to the Documentum platform, including new services for enterprise reports management, records management and production-level scanning and imaging. Reports management, commonly referred to as Output Management, captures and stores reports from enterprise applications in the Documentum repository in PDF or XML and distributes them through Documentum's web publishing capabilities, giving users access to reports via web sites or portals. With new records management capabilities, organizations can apply automated retention and destruction policies to any type of content beyond its active life..." See details in the product datasheet.
[September 10, 2002] "OASIS Members to Develop Web Services Management Protocol." - "Members of the OASIS standards consortium have formed a technical committee to facilitate distributed systems management over the Internet. The work of the new OASIS Management Protocol Technical Committee will enable businesses to manage their own Web services and oversee their interaction with services offered by other companies. The OASIS Management Protocol will be designed to manage desktops, services, and networks across an enterprise or Internet environment. 'The widespread need for the integration of systems and network management tools is causing the industry to take a more holistic approach to the management of networks -- and Web services provide the ideal vehicle for making that happen,' explained Winston Bumpus of Novell, chair of the OASIS Management Protocol Technical Committee. 'Our work at OASIS will help level the playing field and allow companies to manage systems regardless of the platform they use.' OASIS is reviewing a number of Web services standards and operations for potential use in the Management Protocol, including XML, SOAP, Open Model Interface (OMI), and the Distributed Management Task Force's Common Information Model (CIM). The Management Protocol joins several Web services standards currently being developed within OASIS. Other specifications include UDDI for discovery, ebXML for electronic business commerce, WS-Security for secure Web services, WSIA for interactive Web applications, WSRP for remote portals, and others..." See "Management Protocol Specification."
[September 05, 2002] "Popkin Software to Offer Integrated Support for Release 1.0 of Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). New Standard Offers Transactional and Collaborative Business Process Modeling." - Popkin Software, a leading developer of enterprise modeling tools, today announced full, integrated support for the first public draft 1.0 of the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML 1.0) in its flagship enterprise modeling tool, System Architect. Created under the auspices of the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) within which Popkin is a leading author, the new BPML standard provides a formal model for modeling executable end-to-end business processes that address all aspects of enterprise business processes. The new BPML standard also offers support for XML Schema-based process definitions for streamlining communications among the heterogeneous systems and modeling tools used in Web services... Popkin's System Architect enterprise modeling suite will offer integrated support for the BPMI standard in a future release. This follows an announcement last August by Popkin, Casewise and Computer Sciences Corporation about a joint effort to produce and support a standard business process modeling notation (BPMN) under the umbrella of BPMI.org. The first draft release of BPML 1.0 includes early facets of the BPMN. The BPML 1.0 specification is available royalty free for download from BPMI.org's web site...." See also (1) "Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)"; (2) the August 2002 BPMI.org white paper "BPML | BPEL4WS: A Convergence Path toward a Standard BPM Stack."
[September 05, 2002] "ebXML Messaging Service Specification Approved As OASIS Standard." - "ebXML Messaging Service Specification version 2.0 has become the newest OASIS Standard, successfully completing a recent election by the consortium's membership at-large. The ebXML Messaging Service standard, which provides a secure method for exchanging electronic business transactions using the Internet, carries forward work initiated by OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)... To attain status as an OASIS Standard, ebXML Messaging Service v2 was first approved by its development team as an OASIS Committee Specification. After being implemented by a minimum of three organizations, it then underwent a 90-day open review, before the final balloting of OASIS members... ebXML Messaging is one of a suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. ebXML Messaging Service v2 joins two other ebXML specifications that were recently approved as OASIS Standards, ebXML Registry Service (RS) v2 and ebXML Registry Information Model (RIM) v2. The ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA) has completed the first-level of OASIS approval process as an OASIS Committee Specification. Development of ebXML specifications for Business Process and Core Component work continue with the UN/CEFACT process. ebXML Messaging Service v2 was developed by Commerce One, Cyclone Commerce, eXcelon, Fujitsu, GE Global Exchange, IBM, Intel, Mercator, SAP, SeeBeyond, Sonic Software, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, webMethods, and other OASIS Contributor and Individual members..." See: "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[September 04, 2002] "Cape Clear Software Releases Free WSDL Editor to Support Web Services Programming." - "Cape Clear Software, a leading provider of Web Services technology, today released a free graphical WSDL Editor for programmers interested in working with Web Services. The Cape Clear WSDL Editor delivers the first complete environment for rapid Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) development. It supports novice programmers, while also providing sophisticated features for more experienced Web Services developers. The WSDL Editor includes powerful wizards that eliminate the complexity of WSDL, as well as WSDL validation, which simplifies testing, and support for the rapid creation of Web Services from XML Schema. 'The WSDL Editor is to Web Services development what WYSIWYG HTML editors were to Web page development,' according to John Maughan, business manager for CapeStudio at Cape Clear Software. 'It offers an intuitive graphical environment for the design of Web Services and, in particular, assists developers who wish to create Web Services from existing XML interfaces such as SWIFT, ACORD, BAPI, and RosettaNet. Many developers are struggling with the complexities of WSDL; the WSDL Editor is designed to help them out.' [...] Cape Clear Software has one focus: creating Web Services technology that reduces the business costs of software development and integration. CapeConnect is a Web Services based platform for enterprise integration that is simple, fast, and cost-effective to deploy and maintain. CapeStudio is an integrated Web Services development environment, simplifying design, development, integration, and deployment of Web Services applications using XML, WSDL, and UDDI. Cape Clear's products link packaged business applications, such as ERP and CRM, and diverse technologies, such as Java, J2EE, CORBA, and Microsoft .NET, across intranets and the Internet. Founded in 1999, Cape Clear is a privately held firm with offices in Dublin, London, California, Colorado and Massachusetts." See: (1) the news item "Cape Clear Software Releases Free WSDL Editor Graphical Tool"; (2) "Web Services Description Language (WSDL)."
[September 03, 2002] "Reactivity Joins WS-I and OASIS to Help Define Security Standards. Thought Leader in Application Security Contributes to Standards Bodies." - "Reactivity, Inc., a provider of software products that secure XML-based integration, today announced it has joined the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). As a member of these international standards-setting organizations, Reactivity will help define XML-based security standards and develop tools to ensure standards compliance and interoperability among Web services and other applications. Reactivity is participating in the WS-I special interest working group on application security, developing testing tools to assess the interoperability and assist in the implementation of products based on WS-I recommendations. Reactivity is contributing its security expertise to the development of the WS-I's Basic Profile and its security recommendations and interoperability roadmap. Reactivity executives are also active participants in OASIS teams chartered to further the development of the WS-Security standard and the specifications for XML-Signature and XML-Encryption... The WS-I is an open standards body chartered to promote interoperability among Web services based on common, industry-accepted definitions and related XML standards support. It works across the industry and with other standards organizations to respond to customer needs by providing guidance, best practices and resources for developing Web services solutions. The work of OASIS complements that of the WS-I and other standards bodies with a charter to make standards easy to adopt in open system applications. As an industry consortium, OASIS does not create new standards, but drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards including XML, Web services and security... Reactivity provides software products that secure XML-based integration. The company's flagship product, the Reactivity Service Firewall, reduces the risks associated with integrating applications by systematically securing and monitoring messages between business partners, internal organizations and customers. By decoupling security from application development, Reactivity eliminates the need for time-consuming, expensive and inflexible custom coding of individual applications. The company is targeting Fortune 2000 enterprise customers in select vertical markets that leverage XML and Web services to integrate applications..."
[September 03, 2002] "Insurance Services Office Launches Industry's First XML-Enabled Personal Injury Claims Management Solution." - "Insurance Services Office (ISO), a leading provider of insurance claims services and information about property and liability risk, has enhanced its Claims Outcome Advisor (COA) application to provide the industry's first XML-enabled personal injury claims management solution. COA now easily integrates directly with third=party systems, such as insurers' in-house claims administration databases, and with claims management workflow systems. This enables the automatic transfer of information to improve speed and accuracy of claims management, streamlining claims handling processes and facilitating best practice on every claim. Already in use in the U.S. insurance market, COA's integration capabilities use the universal, platform-independent XML (Extensible Markup Language) format to enable a two-way flow of data between third-party applications and COA's personal injury claims database. This ensures synchronization of data and elimination of error-prone and time-consuming rekeying of data. The XML format streamlines claims management processes by integrating COA directly with in-house claims administration systems in which insurers store core claims information, such as claimant's name, address and date of loss. COA can also integrate closely with other XML-compatible third-party databases, including those of the Compensation Recovery Unit as well as fraud databases... "The incorporation of XML-based integration and workflow tools into our Claims Outcome Advisor solution is a clear demonstration of ISO again taking the technology leadership in personal injury claims management," said David Smart, business development director of ISO. "These enhancements to COA will streamline claims management processes and facilitate best practice, enabling insurance companies to improve customer service and enhance visibility of their business processes..." ISO's Claims Outcome Advisor (COA) solution, supplied by its wholly owned subsidiary, ISO Claims Services, Inc., is the industry's first personal injury claims management solution that manages the multiple dimensions of insurance companies' personal injury claims portfolios. COA understands the severity and recovery implications of over 20,000 medical conditions, including injuries, treatments, complications and pre existing conditions, and 14,000 occupations..."
[August 30, 2002] "HL7, SWIFT, VCA, and e.centre Join OASIS UBL Liaisons." - "Data standards organizations representing health care, banking, prescription eyewear, and supply chain management have become the latest industry groups to appoint representatives to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee. HL7, SWIFT, VCA, and e.centre join 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... [1] Health Level Seven, Inc. is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited Standards Development Organization (SDO) dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. [2] SWIFT is the industry-owned cooperative supplying secure messaging services and interface software to 7,000 financial institutions in 197 countries. [3] Vision Council of America is the U.S. prescription eyewear trade association representing 2,000 supplier companies and 80 leading manufacturers. [4] e.centre is an independent, not-for-profit association providing guidance and support for its 16,000+ members on supply chain efficiency through the use of the EAN.UCC System for bar coding and business-to-business communications such as EDI (electronic data interchange)... Organizations that have already appointed liaisons to UBL include: ACORD, representing the insurance industry; ARTS, representing retail sales; ASC X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group, representing U.S. and international EDI standards; EIDX, representing the electronics industry; NACS, representing convenience stores; 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. Information about the UBL Liaison Subcommittee and its members can be found on the LSC web page. 'Input from industry data exchange organizations 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 our library of UBL schemas allows industry groups to pool their resources in the design of common business documents and to focus their special expertise on the development of XML schemas for the documents that are specific to their own domain'." See: "Universal Business Language (UBL)."
[August 29, 2002] "Open Mobile Alliance Announces First Milestones. OMA Unveils First Specifications For Public Review While Increasing Membership And Defining Organizational Structure." - "The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), committed to driving open standards and interoperable mobile services across the world, today announced the first milestones since its launch in June this year. Demonstrating the alliance's positive momentum, this progress includes the release of the first specifications for public review, increased membership and a new organizational structure. OMA just released the OMA Download Feature Set for public review. The OMA Download Feature Set, comprised of five specifications, will enable the distribution and download of content to mobile terminals, independent of vendor. The set provides an application-level Over-the-Air protocol that enhances download reliability, and protocols and rules to associate digital rights with any content. In developing the feature set, OMA worked closely with other key industry organizations including the Third Generation Partnership Program (3GPP), 3GPP2, CDMA Development Group (CDG), the GSM Association, and the Java Community Process (JCP) to ensure interoperability and accelerate the adoption of these technologies in the marketplace. OMA encourages all parties interested to submit their comments on the specifications until September 7, 2002. The specifications are available online. ... Since June 2002, 21 new companies have joined OMA. Moreover, OMA has 32 new Sponsor companies -- the highest grade of membership. To date, the membership of the Open Mobile Alliance covers the entire mobile services value chain, including the world's leading mobile operators, device and network suppliers, information technology and infrastructure companies and content providers... Additionally, OMA has established a new workgroup for Mobile Web Services. The group will create a specification suite that will aid developers in applying web service technology and standard development tools to discover, access and leverage the service enablers within the OMA framework. This will result in much richer application services for the mobile user. The specification suite will provide developers with bearer-agnostic mobile network service components such as location, content downloading, device management and presence..." See also: "Proposed Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Rights Expression Language Based Upon ODRL."
[August 28, 2002] "Software AG Adds SOAP Gateway to Reduce the Complexity of Managing Web Services. New EntireX XML Mediator Release Provides SOAP Gateway and XSLT Generation Tool to Support Web Services and Improve Document Integration." - "At the XML Web Services One Conference 2002, Software AG, Inc., a pioneer in XML solutions, announced today that its newly released EntireX XML Mediator version 7.1.1.3 includes a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) Gateway to reduce the complexity of managing Web Services. The XML Mediator SOAP Gateway eliminates the coding necessary to call a Web service and generate a response. It also provides increased efficiencies because all Web services can now be managed in one place via an intelligent GUI. As companies increase the number of Web services within their enterprise, EntireX XML Mediator provides a scalable, easy-to-manage environment. In addition to its SOAP Gateway, another significant XML Mediator 7.1.1.3v component is an XSLT generation tool. XML Mediator now comes packaged with a license for TIBCO's XML Transform, a comprehensive design solution for creating and debugging XSLT stylesheets. Through its industry-leading schema support and intuitive interface, XML Transform offers Mediator customers one of the most advanced XSLT development solutions available. EntireX XML Mediator is an XML document exchange tool that manages the flow and behavior of XML-based information. These new enhancements make it easy to quickly exchange and share data, securely with the in-built support of HTTPS, over the Web between disparate systems within organizations and between business partners by leveraging Web services. XML Mediator enables businesses to receive, transform, distribute (or route), and store critical e-business documents over the Internet using defined business rules and XML standards to facilitate their movement through and amongst enterprises... EntireX XML Mediator supports solutions for B2B exchange, application synchronization, distributed data interchange and business reporting. For example, as the key product component of Software AG's data exchange solutions, XML Mediator manages and controls the flow and behavior of XML-based information. It leverages XML to manage and automate document interfaces by discovering relevant information and using that information to trigger specific processing events such as aggregating documents, transforming documents to other XML formats or presentation styles such as CIDX, HL7, ACORD and HTML and then routes them to their appropriate destination..."
[August 28, 2002] "Liberty Alliance Increases Ranks With 30 New Members From Across the Globe." - "Liberty Alliance today announced that 30 additional organizations have joined in the consortium's effort to develop open and interoperable specifications for federated network identity. Liberty Alliance's growing member base now represents more than 95 for-profit, not-for-profit, and government organizations from around the globe. The new affiliate and associate members announced today span various industries, from telecom and media to healthcare and biometrics. These new members add depth of knowledge and experience to the collective goals and expertise of the Alliance. These new members are [see text of announcement]... The Liberty Alliance welcomes any commercial or non-commercial organization to join as members. There are three available membership levels within the Alliance -- sponsor, associate and affiliate. For more information on these membership levels, or to sign-up, please visit www.projectliberty.org/membership. The Liberty Alliance will be holding its first all-participant meeting on September 19, 2002, in Chicago. All member levels are invited to attend and participate in these meetings to discuss the Alliance's progress and provide input on the strategic direction of the Alliance and its specifications. The Liberty Alliance Project (www.projectliberty.org) is an alliance of more than 95 technology and consumer organizations formed to develop and deploy open, federated network identification specifications that support all current and emerging network devices in the digital economy. Federated identity will help drive the next generation of the Internet, offering businesses and consumers convenience and choice. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations. Founding members of the Alliance are: American Express, AOL Time Warner, Bell Canada, Citigroup, France Telecom, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard Company, MasterCard International, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Openwave Systems, RSA Security, Sony Corporation, Sun Microsystems, United Airlines and Vodafone..."
[August 27, 2002] "Palm and BEA Partner to Mobilize Web Services in the Enterprise. Industry Leaders to Enable Enterprises to Develop and Deploy Web Services and Extend Enterprise Data Access to Palm Handhelds." - "Palm Solutions Group, the pioneer in the field of mobile and wireless Internet solutions and a leading provider of handheld computers, and BEA Systems, Inc., the world's leading application infrastructure software company, today announced a long-term, strategic relationship to bring Web services to Palm branded handhelds. Palm will develop tools and a device-side software suite to simplify development and deployment of mobile Web services to extend enterprise applications on Palm handhelds. Palm and BEA will work together to integrate this solution with BEA WebLogic Server 7.0 and BEA WebLogic Workshop products as server-side controls. This Palm SG solution will be the first WebLogic Workshop control developed for a handheld device. A key element of this agreement is the use of Palm's new Reliable Transport technology as a core infrastructure component for this solution. Reliable Transport will provide a robust, secure, and usable platform for sending XML data back and forth between the server and Palm handhelds. The solution will be designed to easily allow Palm developers to use BEA WebLogic Workshop as the server-side programming framework, while WebLogic Workshop developers utilize Reliable Transport to send messages to and from Palm handhelds. This alliance will allow an expanded audience of enterprise developers to extend enterprise applications and data to Palm branded handhelds using Web services. Ultimately, new types of Palm handheld applications -- which can directly interface into complex, back-end business logic through the use of open-standards -- will be possible. Both Palm and BEA believe that by adopting and promoting open technology standards, they will help drive the adoption of full-scale mobile applications. This agreement supports Palm's strategy to deliver broad development support and simplify access to enterprise applications and data by integrating core mobile infrastructure into leading application server platforms such as BEA WebLogic. Palm's vision is to deliver products and solutions that offer a robust environment for developing and deploying mobile applications that provide easy access to enterprise data and applications. This is part of a series of technologies and partnership announcements designed to demonstrate that the Palm handheld is the most flexible device for building mobile enterprise applications for accessing mission-critical data via a cradle or over wireless networks..."
[August 27, 2002] "Check Point Software First to Secure Web Services. XML/SOAP Security Made Possible With Breakthrough Application Intelligence Technology." - "Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., worldwide leader in securing the Internet, today announced it has enhanced its market-leading Internet security solution with Application Intelligence Technology to provide integrated security for Web services' two most commonly used protocols, XML and SOAP - making Check Point the first and only company to provide complete XML and SOAP security. Check Point's breakthrough solution ensures the validity and integrity of Web services communications, enabling organizations to securely share information directly between business applications without compromising the integrity of their networks... Security for XML and SOAP will be available at no additional cost in the latest version of Check Point VPN-1/FireWall-1 Next Generation, Feature Pack 3, in September 2002. Securing Web services extends Check Point's vision of making Internet communications available and secure everywhere and demonstrates Check Point's on-going commitment to developing innovative security solutions required to meet the needs of today's dynamic enterprise environments..."
[August 26, 2002] "Microsoft Enables Developers to Build Advanced, More Secure Web Services. Company Announces Technology Preview of Microsoft Web Services Development Kit." - "Taking the next step to enable advanced Web services capabilities, Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the technical preview for the Microsoft Web Services Development Kit (WSDK), which provides the tools developers need to build advanced Web services applications using the latest Web services specifications, such as WS-Security, WS-Routing and WS-Attachments. Available for free download on the MSDN developer program Web site, the Microsoft WSDK makes it easy for developers to write and implement advanced Web services specifications by enhancing Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework. For example, with the WSDK, a Visual Studio .NET developer can now simply add a few lines of code to an existing Web service application to add support for WS-Security-compliant digital signatures or encryption... The core features included in the technology preview of the Microsoft WSDK include these: (1) Security: Ability to help secure XML Web services across platforms and trust domains, including digital signing and encryption of SOAP messages that are compliant with the WS-Security specification. Jointly introduced by Microsoft, IBM Corp. and VeriSign Inc. in April 2002 and submitted to OASIS in June, WS-Security 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. (2) Routing: Ability to route an XML Web service through intermediaries using the WS-Routing specification, which describes how to place message addresses in the SOAP message header and enables SOAP messages to travel serially to multiple destinations along a message path. The route a SOAP message takes to an XML Web service can be transparently delegated among Web servers. (3) Attachments: Communication between XML Web services can contain attachments that are not serialized into XML. The WSDK provides the ability to add attachments to SOAP messages following the WS-Attachments specification, jointly submitted with IBM to the IETF in July 2002..."
[August 26, 2002] "Ipedo Introduces XML Views Integration Technology. Simplifies Content and Data Merging, Consolidates XML for Web and Web Services Applications." - "Ipedo, a leading provider of software products for managing and delivering dynamic content over the Internet, today introduced Ipedo XML Views, a new integration technology that unifies information management for portals, custom Web applications and Web services initiatives. Integrated into its award-winning Ipedo XML Database and Ipedo Integration Manager, XML Views expands the reach of corporate information resources while reducing the complexity. Ipedo XML Views are virtual, real-time snapshots of information from external XML and non-XML sources presented in a standard, common XML format to simplify integration tasks in applications. Once constructed, XML Views can be manipulated using XML query and transformation standards, and multiple XML Views can be combined to create information composites tailored for specific applications. Ipedo's XML Views technology provides virtual connections to remote information sources for quick, easy access, whether structured data from databases or unstructured Web content... XML Views features include: Composite Data and Content Integration; Simple Connect Architecture; Multi-Source Search and Update; Index and Cache Acceleration; Intelligent Query Optimization. The XML Views architecture works across existing relational databases, content management systems and Web Services, and can be tailored using an adapter development kit. The all-Java design includes support for JDBC, JMS, and SOAP, and can be deployed in conjunction with J2EE application servers such as BEA WebLogic or IBM WebSphere..."
[August 22, 2002] "OASIS Seats New Board of Directors and Forms Technical Advisory Board." - "OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, today announced the election of four members to its Board of Directors. Edward Cobb of BEA Systems, Colin Evans of Intel, Patrick Gannon of OASIS, and Laura Walker of the Federal Reserve System were selected by the OASIS membership to provide business leadership to advance OASIS as a major standards-setting body for Web services, e-business security and other applications. The consortium also announced the formation of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board, a group of appointed and elected industry experts who provide guidance on issues related to strategy, process, interoperability, and scope of OASIS technical work... Cobb, Evans, Gannon, and Walker join current OASIS Board members, Jim Hughes of Hewlett-Packard, Christopher Kurt of Microsoft, Simon Nicholson of Sun Microsystems, and Michael Weiner of IBM. Each director serves two-year terms. On behalf of the OASIS membership, Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, expressed thanks to Una Kearns of Documentum and Norbert H. Mikula of Intel for their service on the OASIS Board of Directors as their terms conclude... The new OASIS Technical Advisory Board was formed to identify opportunities and areas for standardization within OASIS that will be beneficial for the entire community. Members include Derek Coleman of HP, Angel Diaz of IBM, Chet Ensign of Lexis/Nexis, Eduardo Gutentag of Sun Microsystems, Jackson He of Intel, Sanjay Patil of IONA, Krishna Sankar of Cisco, and Heinz Ulrich Roggenkemper of SAP. Christopher Kurt of Microsoft and Karl Best of OASIS will also serve, representing the OASIS Board of Directors and staff, respectively. 'OASIS remains committed to its membership-driven Technical Committee process, and our group will act as its steward,' said Eduardo Gutentag of Sun Microsystems, who serves as chair of the OASIS Technical Advisory Board. 'We will advise the Board of Directors on the OASIS technical agenda and on interoperability and alignment issues, and encourage the formation of joint committees to address those issues. We will seek convergence and the elimination of barriers to interoperability, and help coordinate OASIS work with that of other standards-setting bodies'..." Cf. "OASIS Standards Group Updates Board, Names Tech Team."
[August 21, 2002] "Fujitsu Interstage Demonstrates Business Process Interoperability for the Automotive Retail Industry. Open Applications Group, Inc. (OAGI) Project Shows Fujitsu Interstage Providing Business Process Integration across Vendors Utilizing ebXML, OAGIS and Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) Specifications." - "Fujitsu Software Corporation today announced that Fujitsu has successfully shown Business Process interoperability utilizing B2B specifications that are being developed to meet the needs of the North American automotive industry. The demonstration executed a business process scenario developed by the STAR consortium based on the OAGI's Business Object Document (BOD) specification for interoperable Extensible Markup Language (XML) messages and the Electronic Business XML (ebXML) framework. The OAGI is the largest publisher of XML-based business messages in the world. The demonstration was conducted at the OAGI technical meeting in Detroit, August 13-15, 2002 attended by automobile companies, manufacturers from other industries, industry organizations and IT vendors. Fujitsu and Sybase, Inc exchanged messages, implementing STAR's Parts Order scenario using Open Application Group Interoperability Specification (OAGIS) BODs and ebXML specifications. This interoperability test proved that Fujitsu's Interstage CollaborationRing can communicate with other ebXML products, using STAR's BODs and business scenarios implemented using ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS), the ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA), and ebXML Message Service (ebMS)... The OAGI specification has been adopted by the Auto Industry Action Group (AIAG), STAR and Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) consortiums for next generation business language and data messaging architecture. These organizations have formed collaborative initiatives with OAGI to design XML-based messages conforming to and extending the OAGI BOD library for eBusiness and Application Integration and the ebXML framework for B2B. The organizations' B2B infrastructure is Internet-based and utilizes elements of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business' (UN/CEFACT) ebXML specification -- a B2B protocol being deployed worldwide. The results of these initiatives will enable auto industry companies to conduct business in real time by communicating data in common terms using standardized business processes. The interoperability demonstration was a project of the OAGI/NIST B2B Test Bed -- a joint initiative of the OAGI and NIST, which strives to advance the state of the art in B2B. The B2B Test Bed is available to users and vendors for testing and validating business level data exchanges among business partners utilizing open, standards based approaches..." See: (1) "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)"; (2) "Open Applications Group"; (3) "Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR)."
[August 20, 2002] "Sun Microsystems Delivers New CIM-Compliant San Management Software. Continues To Lead Industry On Storage Open Standards. Complete Storage Management Portfolio Enables Customers to Improve Service Levels and Reduce Total Cost of Ownership." - "Today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced Sun StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager (ESM) software for Storage Area Network (SAN) management. Designed to help lower customers' storage TCO, the new software provides a centralized management platform for viewing and managing storage environments. The 'single pane of glass' incorporates the core management services of SAN topology reporting, device configuration, and proactive health monitoring and diagnostics - helping Sun's customers increase uptime and improve service levels. With the introduction of ESM, Sun is delivering a comprehensive storage management software portfolios in the industry, encompassing SAN and systems management, data continuance, and file and volume management. As the industry's first system vendor to deliver a Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM)-compliant SAN management platform, Sun is demonstrating its leadership in delivering on the demand for simplified SAN management. Unlike proprietary Application Program Interface (API) exchanges conducted by some vendors, standards compliance will enable customers to quickly and easily leverage new storage technologies, products and solutions as they emerge from Sun and other vendors. 'Customers are demanding simpler, integrated and open storage management and Sun is delivering on those demands,' said James Staten, director of Network Storage, Sun Microsystems, Inc. 'Sun's new StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager software combines the three most common storage management tasks into a single pane of glass. By integrating these functions, our customers will see real savings in administration costs and greater uptime as health problems discovered by the diagnostic expert can be acted on immediately without changing tools.' The new Sun StorEdge ESM software is based on the Storage One strategy and is built on the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE). The new software also serves as a key element to Sun's fully integrated, open SAN architecture. Sun has been instrumental in advancing the open WBEM/CIM-based standards for storage management. Working side by side with best-of-breed storage partners like Hitachi Data Systems, Qlogic and Brocade, Sun has achieved a new level of interoperability designed to provide customers with ease of deployment and increased manageability, supportability and scalability..." See "DMTF Common Information Model (CIM)."
[August 20, 2002] "CIDX, GPA Join Forces to Promote XML Standards." - "The Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX) and Gas Processors Association (GPA) announced today an agreement to collaborate on the adoption of XML-based standards within the gas processing industry and implementation of the Chem eStandards to facilitate electronic trade within and between the gas processing and chemical industries. Developed by the chemical industry, the Chem eStandards are uniform standards that use Extensible Markup Language (XML) to enable data exchange for the buying, selling and delivery of chemicals. An electronic commerce language, XML is used worldwide to define structures for data exchange among companies in all industries. Under the agreement, GPA will become an associate member of CIDX and will participate through representation on CIDX working teams. GPA representatives will also attend CIDX general membership meetings and will work directly with all GPA members to identify, define and communicate further enhancements to the Chem eStandards that meet the gas processing industry needs. 'Today's announcement represents a sound, strategic move for the gas processing industry,' said Mark F. Sutton, GPA Executive Director. 'Through the CIDX agreement, our members will be able to leverage a proven, effective XML standard, and the association will augment its efforts to build industry-specific XML standards without incurring the significant costs associated with creating and operating an independent standards body.' CIDX is a global trade association and standards body, whose mission is to improve the ease, speed and cost of conducting business electronically between chemical companies and their trading partners. Through the collaborative effort of over 80 chemical industry leaders, CIDX has built the XML based Chem eStandards, which define 52 business messages required by chemical companies to carry out highly secure transactions with suppliers and customers over the Internet. The Chemical Industry Data Exchange uses the trademarks CIDX and Chem eStandards..." See: "XML-Based 'Chem eStandard' for the Chemical Industry."
[August 20, 2002] "F5 Joins the Web Services Interoperability Organization." - F5 Networks, Inc., leading provider of Internet Traffic Management (ITM) products, today "announced it is the first ITM vendor to join the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to help influence and establish emerging standards for Web services. F5 shares WS-I's vision of promoting open standards for Web services interoperability, and is the only networking vendor to offer a fully integrated suite of ITM products that are Web services-enabled via F5's open iControl Application Programming Interface (API). 'We're excited to have F5 Networks join WS-I and welcome their participation in the various working groups,' said Tom Glover, chairman of WS-I. 'The goal of true interoperability can only be achieved with the participation of companies from a diverse set of industries. F5's participation will help to ensure that the deliverables WS-I produce will meet the real-world interoperability needs of businesses.' To successfully deploy Web services and mitigate the risks associated with these new applications, it is crucial that the application and network work in concert to avoid challenges with the availability, scalability, and security of mission-critical deployments. F5 Networks is the only networking vendor that enables applications and web services to 'speak to' and influence the behavior of the underlying global network via F5's open iControl architecture and API; accessible via SOAP/XML and CORBA interfaces to suit a variety of application requirements. Through iControl, each F5 networking device is a Web service provider and consumer offering comprehensive programmatic interfaces exposed via Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Through support for WSDL and SOAP/XML, iControl enables applications to monitor critical network information and combine it with application health and performance to adjust both application and network behavior for optimized scalability, availability, and performance. Further, support for Microsoft .NET and J2EE development platforms enables developers to leverage this API with familiar tools, speeding development and deployment... The Web Services Interoperability Organization is an open industry organization chartered to promote Web services interoperability across platforms, applications, and programming languages. The organization brings together a diverse community of Web services leaders to respond to customer needs by providing guidance, recommended practices, and supporting resources for developing interoperable Web services..." See: "Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."
[August 20, 2002] "Contivo and Open Applications Group Team to Ease Application Integration. OAG to Use Contivo Modeling Solution to Manage XML Dialects to Solve the 'Data Babble' Problem." - Contivo, Inc. has "announced a collaborative agreement with Open Applications Group, Inc. (OAGI), a nonprofit consortium focused on best practices and processes for e-business and application integration based on XML content. The combined Contivo-OAGI solution dramatically shortens the implementation time for companies using OAGIS as part of their integration efforts through the semantic modeling of XML data. As part of the agreement, OAGI will use Contivo's enterprise integration modeling (EIM) technology and products to create and maintain its XML content, known as the Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS). Together, Contivo and OAGI will work towards reconciling the semantics of XML languages, an issue that has hindered the interoperability of various XML dialects... 'Contivo's contribution to the development of OAGI is pivotal,' said David Connelly, president and CEO of the Open Applications Group, Inc. 'Through the ability to create semantic models of OAGI BODs, Contivo gives customers an out-of-the-box solution for transforming data from their applications to OAGI and also vastly simplifies the task of upgrading from one version of OAGIS to another.' 'OAGIS significantly reduces operating costs for companies seeking to manage their e-business and application integration projects,' said Bill French, vice president of industry standards at Contivo. 'By incorporating Contivo's modeling technology, the combined Contivo-OAGI solution dramatically shortens the implementation time for companies using OAGIS as part of their integration efforts.' Contivo's EIM Solution, comprised of the Contivo Analyst and the Contivo EIM Server, analyzes and models the relationships between enterprise applications, automatically configuring integration run-time code. The Contivo Analyst provides an intuitive graphical interface to visually create and customize data maps and interface models including customized and legacy interfaces. The Contivo EIM Server provides a centrally managed repository that introduces model reuse and collaboration to a previous one-off and manual process..." See "Open Applications Group."
[August 19, 2002] "Cognos Announces Immediate Availability of Cognos Web Services. Platform Support for Unix, Microsoft -- Extends Value of Broad Range of Cognos Series 7 Business Intelligence." - "Cognos, world leader in business intelligence (BI), today announced the immediate availability of Cognos Web Services, a universal integration platform for extending industry-leading Cognos Series 7 business intelligence into other applications and environments. Using standard Internet technologies such as XML, simple object access protocol (SOAP) and Web services description language (WSDL) to build connections between Cognos software and multiple applications, Cognos Web Services allows customers and industry partners to rapidly integrate Cognos into leading-edge Web, vertical-market, and wireless applications. Available for Microsoft and Unix platforms, Cognos Web Services was rigorously tested by companies such as travel giant Carlson-Hotels. Cognos Web Services allows organizations to bring the power of Cognos into a broad range of applications including CRM, ERP, SCM, collaborative computing, specialized vertical applications, a full range of mobile devices, and to extend Cognos capabilities into areas such as .NET and J2EE. International Data Corp. predicts the total software, services and hardware opportunity derived from Web services will rise from $1.6 billion in 2004 to $34 billion by 2007." From the website description: "Cognos Web Services are built for Web integration and deployment, using industry-standard protocols. With built-in adapters for Cognos business intelligence servers, Cognos Web Services provides an open means of wrapping business intelligence in whatever protocol or format is required for custom applications. Cognos Web Services basic features: (1) Fully documented, open XML API with support for industry-standard Web protocols; (2) Full integration with Cognos business intelligence servers, Web portal, and security service; (3) Firewall compatible; (4) Complete visual test studio environment for testing and verifying applications..." See also: "Industry-Leading Technology Vendors Endorse Cognos Web Services. Universal integration platform for extending industry-leading Cognos Series 7 business intelligence into other applications and environments."
[August 19, 2002] "Emery Forwarding Uses Microsoft BizTalk Server And Windows Powered Pocket PCs to Build Comprehensive EAI Solution. Leading Global Transportation Company Uses Winning Combination of XML and Mobility To Send Shipment Information From Drivers to Customers in Real Time." - "Microsoft Corp. today announced that Emery Forwarding, a provider of time-definite global transportation services and a component of Menlo Worldwide, has chosen Microsoft BizTalk Server and its enterprise application integration (EAI) capabilities for the company's delivery alert solution, which enables event notification of real-time activity on customers' shipments. Windows Powered Pocket PCs allow Emery to send shipment information from its drivers to Emery's legacy systems. Then, using BizTalk Server, real-time shipping information, such as expected delivery time and notice of any delays, is sent to Emery's customers via e-mail, telephone or another medium they choose, giving Emery and its customers unprecedented business agility... Historically, Emery has been able to collect information about shipments, but the information was locked up in legacy systems and proprietary messaging formats. Emery needed to move to a more flexible system, one that leveraged new Internet protocols, such as XML, and mobile technologies, in order to quickly build a mobile infrastructure that could collect shipping and delivery information for its customers in real time. Now armed with Pocket PCs, Emery drivers can enter information into their devices whenever they pick up or drop off a shipment, and that information is sent to Emery's legacy systems. Leveraging existing investments in its proprietary IBM MQSeries messaging system, Emery pulls that information together internally, picking it up with the BizTalk Adapter for MQSeries, and sends it to customers using BizTalk Server. The combination provides Emery with the best economic solution because it incorporates existing technologies while moving the company toward a more flexible, standards-based solution using the Microsoft platform... 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."
[August 15, 2002] "Corel Corporation Introduces Corel Ventura 10. Enterprise Publishing Software Provides XML and Enhanced Graphics Support for Visually-Rich Documents." - "Corel Corporation today [July 9, 2002] announced the upcoming availability of Corel Ventura 10, a comprehensive page-layout and publishing application. Corel Ventura 10 provides exceptional tools designed specifically for the creation and publishing of highly-formatted and visually-rich business documents. With the addition of a number of new features including XML import, Corel Ventura 10 enables enterprise customers to easily re-use all forms of content. When used in conjunction with an XML editor such as Corel XMetaL, Corel Ventura 10 is the ideal application for combining and transforming an organization's information, data and graphics into highly-manageable, structured business documents... New Features and Enhancements in Corel Ventura 10 include: (1) XML Import: Format and publish XML content with precision using the new XML Mapping Editor. (2) Table Tags: Use Table Tags to format multiple tables simultaneously. This enhancement takes the robust table functionality in Corel Ventura to a new level. (3) Publish to PDF: Create PDF files directly from within Corel Ventura 10. Users can take advantage of advanced PDF settings for professional printing output. (4) Integrated Preflight Engine: Receive valuable feedback on publications before final output with new preflight warnings and the ability to save preflight styles for common workflows such as Print, Publish to PDF and Publish to the Web. (5) Enhanced Graphics Capabilities: Power documents with compelling visuals using more than 50 new bitmap effects and improved support for import and export picture file formats, including the soon to be released CorelDRAW 11. Corel Ventura 10 continues to include essential publishing tools such as the Navigator and Tag Window. The Navigator allows users to view the structure and content of multiple publications and efficiently move around and between publications. The Tag Window allows the user to manage style sheet properties and all tags from a central location. Corel Ventura 10 also includes support for more than 80 import and export filters providing exceptional compatibility and enabling users to fully leverage a wide variety of content types. These features make Corel Ventura 10 an ideal tool for organizations who wish to leverage their XML content for document creation. Together, Corel Ventura 10 and Corel XMetaL offer a powerful solution for publishing business documents. The intuitive Corel XMetaL interface simplifies XML creation by providing an environment as easy to use as a word processor -- now anyone within an organization can create XML. This content can be imported into Corel Ventura 10 where documentation specialists produce highly-formatted and design-intensive documents. Leveraging the new Publish to PDF capabilities in Corel Ventura 10, customers can create PDF documents for print and electronic distribution directly within the application without the need for third-party applications..." See also "Ventura 10 Throws Down the XML Gauntlet to Frame. [Content Management.]"
[August 15, 2002] "Choreology's Cohesions Product Will Support WS-Coordination+Transaction." - "Choreology Ltd today welcomed the 9-August-2002 announcement by IBM, Microsoft and BEA of two proposed specifications: Web Services Coordination+Transaction. The new specifications are a response to growing awareness of market demand for reliable application coordination technology. Choreology will support the WS-C+T specifications in its Cohesions product, when they are ready and available for third-party implementation. Cohesions already supports the Business Transaction Protocol (BTP), which is an OASIS Committee Specification... Choreology's forthcoming product, Cohesions 1.0, enables coordination of cross-application updates, including applications delivered as Web Services. In the future it could enable reliable ebXML business transactions, Grid coordinations, or wireless transactions... Choreology Ltd has worked intensively over fifteen months with vendors such as HP, Sun, Oracle, BEA, IONA, Seebeyond and Sybase in the OASIS Business Transaction technical committee to help create BTP 1.0, the first and most advanced specification to support interoperable business transaction management for Web Services. 'We are very keen to work with IBM, Microsoft, BEA and all the other vendors, large and small, in an open, public-review standards consortium. We would like to see a single standard that combines the best features of BTP with those of the new specs,' commented Dr. Peter Furniss, Choreology's Chief Scientist, and editor of the BTP specification. 'For example, the new WS-C+T drafts contain useful initial work on the integration of security and transactions, an area where BTP is weak: we'd like to see that carried forward as part of a single standard initiative.' Choreology's Cohesions 1.0 product will allow customers to obtain a new level of certainty and consistency for information dispersal and updates across application systems. While standards evolve and crystallize, companies will be able to take immediate advantage of this product solution..." On WS-C+T, see: "Web Services Specifications for Business Transactions and Process Automation."
[August 15, 2002] "Tarius Interactive Introduces Next Generation XML Search Engine." - ['The Tarius Interactive regulatory database is now adding new, advanced features to its state-of-the-art XML search engine. The new, user-friendly search options will save pharmaceutical companies costly research time.'] "Tarius Interactive CEO Jakob Blønd-Sørensen announced today the launch of the next generation of the Tarius Interactive search engine. The new features in the next generation will enable database users to search for phrases, synonyms and keywords in an even more user-friendly way than before. An efficient, high-quality search engine in a regulatory information database is a must when it comes to saving time and money, especially when compared to doing research on the Internet and via other non-XML-based repository solutions... New features in the next generation of the Tarius XML search engine include: (1) Phrase matching: Pharmaceutical legislation and guidelines are full of frequently used phrases, like 'Investigational new drug application', 'Good laboratory practice', 'Adverse reaction', etc. Tarius will support searches for exact matches of these phrases. (2) Search for acronyms and full expression; (3) Extended support for different US/British spellings: British and American English have a lot of common words spelled differently. For example aluminum' vs aluminium' and sulfur' vs sulphur'; (4) Extended support for US/British vocabularies: The major differences between British and American English lie in the choice of vocabulary. For example antenatal' vs. prenatal' and attorney' vs. lawyer'..." See also the July 05, 2002 announcement, "Tarius Interactive Offers New 2002 Version of 21 CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] in XML": "The latest 21 CFR information is available in XML because all the information in the Tarius regulatory database is based on XML architecture. This gives users an important advantage in today's highly competitive electronic marketplace as XML is fast becoming a requirement in the industry. In addition, Tarius users find the platform enhances information sharing and reduces time to market for new products releases. XML also provides document users with important knowledge management features such as the ability to create hyperlinks, notes and bookmarks..."
[August 15, 2002] "Journée Software Joins OASIS CIQ Technical Committee. Accelerates Delivery Of XML Standards to Customers." - "Journée Software, a leading provider of customer data integration and management solutions, today announced that Rob Beauchamp, chief technology officer of Journée, has joined the Customer Information Quality (CIQ) Technical Committee of OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium. The CIQ technical committee's objective is to define global XML Standards for Customer Information and Profile Management. Journée also announced that it will ship a reference implementation of the CIQ standard as part of its ServiceStream solution, providing customers with an industry-standard customer data model that can be customized to fit any business environment. The OASIS CIQ Technical Committee has formally approved and published three XML standards that will provide the basis for the Journée reference implementation. These standards include: (1) xNAL: Extensible Name and Address Language; (2) xCIL: Extensible Customer Information Language; (3) xCRL: Extensible Customer Relationships Language... ServiceStream will use the CIQ model to represent a common set of customer data that can be shared by multiple applications within the enterprise. Using ServiceStream's configuration tools, the data in the model is "mapped" to the physical data residing in various business systems. By packaging the enterprise customer model with ServiceStream, Journée eliminates the time- consuming and labor-intensive task of designing and building a customized enterprise data model. Companies can use ServiceStream's tools to easily modify and extend the model, accelerating development schedules and reducing data integration costs. The reference implementation of the CIQ standard will be included as a fully operational part of Journée's ServiceStream software beginning in October 2002..." See: (1) Customer Information Quality (CIQ) Technical Committee, (2) "Customer Identity / Name and Address Markup Language (CIML, NAML)."
[August 14, 2002] "SALT Forum Contributes Speech Application Language Tags Specification Version 1.0 to World Wide Web Consortium. Contribution Furthers Goal of Establishing Open, Royalty-Free Standard for Speech-Enabling Multimodal and Telephony Applications." - "The SALT Forum, a group of companies with a shared goal of accelerating the use of speech technologies in multimodal and telephony systems, today announced that it has contributed the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) specification to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The SALT Forum has asked the W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group and Voice Browser Working Group to review the SALT specification as part of their development of standards for promoting multimodal interaction and voice-enabling the Web. There is a growing interest in multimodal applications, including the use of speech technologies to expand the reach of Web content. 'Many companies within the speech technology industry view standards as key to speeding acceptance of speech-enabled multimodal applications,' said Bill Meisel, president of TMA Associates. 'The contribution of the SALT specification to the W3C gives the group a robust starting point for creating a single standard for multimodal applications, which is ultimately in the best interest for the speech industry.' The SALT specification defines a set of lightweight tags as extensions to commonly used Web-based markup languages. This allows developers to add speech interfaces to Web content and applications using familiar tools and techniques. The SALT specification is designed to work equally well on a wide variety of computing and communicating devices. 'We respect the standards efforts of the W3C and are pleased to bring the SALT specification to W3C Working Groups for their consideration,' said SALT Forum representative Martin Dragomirecky. 'By making a comprehensive royalty-free contribution we hope to accelerate their efforts targeting a new class of mobile devices that support multiple modes of interaction.' The SALT Forum brings together a diverse group of companies sharing a common interest in developing and promoting speech technologies for multimodal and telephony applications. Founded in 2001 by Cisco, Comverse, Intel, Microsoft, Philips and SpeechWorks, the Forum seeks to develop a royalty-free standard that augments existing XML-based markup languages to provide spoken access to many forms of content through a wide variety of devices..." See details in the news item "SALT Forum Contributes Speech Application Language Tags Specification to W3C."
[August 13, 2002] "Seven Vendors Achieve CPFR Data Interoperability in UCC-sponsored Test. First Interoperability Test of CPFR Standards to Drive Adoption in Business Community." - "The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, and the Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), a vendor-neutral interoperability consultancy, today announced the results of the first interoperability test for software products supporting the VICS CPFR (Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment) initiative. The test was sponsored by the Uniform Code Council and used EAN.UCC CPFR XML standard schemas and EDI-INT AS2 technology for message transport. The initial round of CPFR testing put in place transactions and data transfer from different databases. During the three-month test, seven participating software companies successfully achieved data interoperability for sales forecasts, sales forecast revisions and product activity. These vendors included i2 Technologies, Inc, IPNet Solutions, Inc., JDA Software Group, Inc., Logility, Inc., Manugistics Group, Inc., SAP, and Syncra Systems, Inc. The test, recognized as the first of its kind worldwide, was designed and managed by DGI, using the DGI Interoperability Compliance Testing Processes. Additional support was provided by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards (VICS) Association and VICS member companies, which provided sample data... Participating Companies in the UCC/Drummond Group CPFR Interoperability Validation Test: i2 Technologies, Inc. [i2 Supply Chain Collaboration 6.0]; IPNet Solutions, Inc. [BizCollaborate v2.2]; JDA Software Group, Inc. [Marketplace Collaborative Planner v2003.1.0]; Logility, Inc. [Voyager Collaborate 6.5.04]; Manugistics [Manugistics NetWORKS Collaborate v7.0]; SAP America, Inc. [SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) v3.0, a component of mySAP Supply Chain Management]; Syncra Systems, Inc. [Syncra Xt v4.0]... The UCC and Drummond Group Inc. (DGI) announced that future interoperability tests will be conducted to address additional functionality within the CPFR schemas. Future test rounds will include error handling, bulk data, and message choreography. The next CPFR interoperability test is scheduled to begin in November 2002."
[August 10, 2002] "Seybold San Francisco 2002 Conveys How XML is Driving the Publishing Industry. XML is Changing the Way Organizations Publish and Do Business On the Internet." - "As evidence of influential technological developments continue, changes occurring in the publishing industry point towards one direction. Seybold Seminars, a division of Key3Media Events, Inc., will focus on how Extensible Markup Language (XML) and related standards are shifting within the publishing industry. XML is rapidly evolving into the de facto language of the Internet, allowing cross-media or multi-channel publishing, permitting the same structured content to be delivered to CD-ROM, Web, print, or wireless devices, as well a near universal data interchange between different systems both within and between enterprises. XML is becoming known as one of the most influential technological developments in the history of the Web. As XML related technologies emerge, its growth and increased impact on a number of industries, such as financial, has been made more evident over the past several weeks. Recently, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it is working on a new XML-based standard to help news services report the use of stock market data by their clients to the NYSE; these vendors are required to report this use. In conjunction with the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the NYSE is now gathering comments from the industry on what it calls Vendor Reporting Extensible Markup Language (VRXML). Market data vendors such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson and Moneyline would use VRXML to report the use of their published information by clients. The NYSE believes that VRXML would be extended to cover a broader range of industry requirements in the future..." See the entry for Seybold SF in the events calendar.
[August 09, 2002] "Microsoft, IBM and BEA Deliver Specifications for Business Transactions and Process Automation Within and Between Companies. WS-Coordination, WS-Transaction and BPEL4WS Describe How to Reliably Define, Create and Connect Multiple Business Processes in a Web Services Environment." - "Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and BEA Systems, Inc. today announced the publication of specifications to collectively describe how to reliably define, create and connect multiple business processes in a Web services environment, and help organizations coordinate business processes and transactions within the enterprise and with partners and customers across heterogeneous systems and within the enterprise. Announced were the new specifications to address transacted communications of Web services (WS-Coordination, WS-Transaction) and a new language to describe business processes (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, or BPEL4WS). A business process describes the flow of tasks, the order in which they need to be performed, the type of data shared and how other partners are involved. BPEL4WS allows companies to describe business processes that include multiple Web services and standardize message exchange internally and between partners. WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction provide companies with a reliable and durable way of handling multiple Web services interactions, regardless of the underlying computing infrastructure. In addition, they outline how partners can interact with a collection of Web services and coordinate the outcome of those corresponding activities..." See details in the news item.
[August 09, 2002] "OASIS and W3C Cosponsor Forum on Security Standards for Web Services. XML Web Services One Conference to Showcase Security Standards." - "The OASIS standards organization and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) will cosponsor the Forum on Security Standards for Web Services on 26 August 2002, as part of the XML Web Services One conference in Boston. The program will provide an overview of the Web services security work currently being accomplished at W3C, OASIS, and other standards groups. 'For years, W3C has been at work on the foundation technologies for the Web, and the subset now labeled 'Web Services,'' explained Daniel J. Weitzner, W3C's Technology and Society Domain Leader. 'Now as people are looking at the upper layers, we want to make sure these pieces work together as smoothly. This Forum provides an excellent opportunity for groups like OASIS and W3C to show users what's out there, and listen to end user and expert perspectives.' The Forum on Security Standards for Web Services will explore the status and relationship of key specifications including XML Signature (XML-SIG), XML Key Management Specification (XKMS), XML Encryption (Xenc), the developing model for Web Services Architecture and the security segment from W3C, as well as the Security Authorization Markup Language (SAML), WS-Security, and standards for access control, provisioning, biometrics and digital rights from OASIS. 'People are very much aware that security standards are critical for Web services, but there are a lot of questions about who is doing what and how the pieces fit together,' commented Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. 'W3C and OASIS are coming together to host this forum in order to give the community a better understanding of the relationship between security standards and shed light on connects, disconnects, overlaps, and gaps.' The Forum will feature speakers from providers and users of Web services security standards including Boeing, Lexis/Nexis, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, and the US Federal Government. In addition to representatives from W3C and OASIS, experts from other security efforts including Liberty Alliance will also be participating..." See the entry in the events calendar.
[August 08, 2002] "RosettaNet Merges With the Uniform Code Council. Unified Organizations Will Promote Global Leadership of B2B Standards." - "The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, and RosettaNet, the high technology industry's leading e-business standards consortium, today announced a merger between the two organizations. Under the agreement, RosettaNet will become a subsidiary of the UCC, while continuing to operate as an entity directly with its members. The merger is aimed at strengthening the development and adoption of business-to-business (B2B) standards across the industries served by the two organizations and expanding the standards-based business opportunities for respective member companies. A primary goal of the relationship is to accelerate B2B integration via industry implementation efforts for XML standards and emerging services. By forming a common architectural environment, the two organizations will drive joint development of B2B standards supporting multiple industries, thereby increasing the speed and number of implementations across user communities, and attracting adjacent industry sectors on a worldwide basis... The UCC and RosettaNet have worked together since 1998, collaborating on existing projects to promote a single, unified approach to the standards adoption process. The merger presents a greater opportunity around a variety of standards initiatives, such as supply chain interoperability, which will be driven by the proliferation of high quality business processes supported by robust solution provider offerings. The UCC currently works within 23 industries with an emphasis on retail and grocery. RosettaNet focuses on the high tech sector, and specifically companies representing electronic components, information technology and semiconductor manufacturing. The pairing of the two organizations will accelerate strategic innovation and leadership initiatives throughout the industries serviced by each organization, resulting in rapid supply chain integration across global trading networks..." See: (1) details in the news item; (2) "RosettaNet."
[August 07, 2002] "IPNet Successfully Completes CPFR Testing. Interoperability Ensures Visibility Between Trading Partners." - "IPNet Solutions Inc., a leader in flexible supply chain connectivity, today announced it has successfully completed testing for CPFR (Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment) standards. By completing the testing, IPNet BizCollaborate v2.2 has successfully completed the testing for CPFR Interoperability testing, sponsored by Uniform Code Council (UCC). This product supports the BizManager products including BizLink and BizConnect, and IPNet eBizness Transact... IPNet products endured rigorous testing and evaluation for conformance to EAN.UCC CPFR standards. They have successfully demonstrated data interoperability for sales forecasts, sales forecast revisions and product activity reports as well as interoperability with multiple vendors' products. Managed by the Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), a vendor-neutral consultancy, the test is designed to offer supply chain participants a choice of interoperable products, which support collaborative processes and use EDI-INT AS2 technology to transport CPFR messages. CPFR is a revolutionary business process that uses forecasting models and ongoing point-of-sale transaction information to produce a collaborative environment for trading partners to improve efficiencies in inventories, customer service and bottom-line savings. The goal of the testing program is to drive increased interoperability and seamless connectivity between trading partners..." See: (1) the 2001-07 announcement "VICS Board of Directors Approves CPFR XML Messaging Standard"; (2) the main reference document "VICS CPFR XML Messaging Standard."
[August 06, 2002] "HR-XML's Open Standard for Benefits Enrollment Expanded and Improved. Version 2.0 supports a broader range of benefit plan types, extensible to meet custom requirements." - "The HR-XML Consortium, the vendor-neutral, non-profit organization dedicated to creating data interchange standards for human resources, has approved an updated version of its XML specification for employee benefits plan enrollments. Version 2.0 of HR-XML's Benefits Enrollment specification supports a broader range of benefit plan types and is more extensible than Version 1.0, which was approved by the Consortium last year. Today, insurance carriers and third-party benefits administrators often use either their own specifications or electronic data interchange (EDI) formats for accepting employee enrollment from external systems. Compared to proprietary or EDI specifications, HR-XML's enrollment specification is easier to implement and more flexible since it is both standardized and based on XML. 'Version 2.0 of HR-XML's Benefits Enrollment specification lowers the barriers to adoption for many disparate benefit and HR systems, while providing a rich structure capable of supporting complex transactions,' said Elizabeth O'Neal, Director, Integration Services, Employease, Inc., and chair of HR-XML's Enrollment workgroup. The new version of the specification supports enrollment and maintenance of human resources in (1) tier-based coverages -- such as medical, dental and vision; (2) Spending Accounts -- more commonly known as flexible spending accounts (FSA); and (3) rate-based coverage -- such as life, short term disability, and long term disability. Version 2.0 also includes built-in 'user areas' to accommodate trading-partners customizations... The updated standard, like the original, was developed to provide a ready path to the EDI transaction sets mandated under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In April 2001, the HR-XML Consortium illustrated in a proof-of-concept demonstration how industry-standard XML can be leveraged to bring HRIS-sourced data in conformance with the HIPAA-required EDI transaction sets..."
[August 05, 2002] "NACS Brings Convenience Stores to OASIS UBL Liaisons." - "NACS, an international trade association representing the convenience store and petroleum marketing industry, has become the latest industry group to appoint a representative to the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Technical Committee. NACS 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. NACS is an international trade association representing 2,300 retail and 1,700 supplier company members. NACS member companies do business in nearly 40 countries around the world, with the majority of members based in the United States. The U.S. convenience store industry, with over 124,500 stores across the country, posted $283 billion in total sales for 2001, with $171 billion in motor fuel sales... Other organizations with liaisons to UBL include: ACORD, representing the insurance industry; ARTS, representing retail sales; ASC X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Working Group, representing U.S. and international 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 industry data exchange organizations 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 our library of UBL schemas allows industry groups to pool their resources in the design of common business documents and to focus their special expertise on the development of XML schemas for the documents that are specific to their own domain.' The OASIS UBL (Universal Business Language) Technical Committee defines 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..." See: (1) "NACS XML Data Interchange (NAXML)"; (2) "Universal Business Language (UBL)."
[August 05, 2002] "The Mind Electric Announces Glue 3.0 Web Services Platform, Delivering 'the Power of Java, the Simplicity of .NET' to Enterprise Software Development." - "The Mind Electric, a leading provider of software for service-oriented architectures, announced today the immediate availability of GLUE 3.0, TME's comprehensive Java platform for creating and deploying applications using web services, servlets and JSPs. GLUE 3.0 continues to deliver on TME's reputation for providing a robust feature set including high-performance, deep integration with J2EE, broad standard support for XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI, and strong interoperability with .NET... This latest version of GLUE delivers: (1) Comprehensiveness. Integrated web server, servlet engine and JSP engine allows creation of complete web services applications; (2) Sophistication. Hot deployment, drag-n-drop web services, effortless system configuration, advanced remote deployment; (3) Security. Integrates via JAAS with enterprise directories (LDAP/NT); (4) Speed. Additional performance enhancements (up to 30x faster than Apache AXIS)... GLUE is available in Standard and Professional versions. GLUE Standard is free and serves as an introduction to GLUE Professional which builds on the standard edition by including enterprise features such as EJB, JMS, JAAS integration; UDDI server; and customer/technical support. Products are available for immediate download."
[July 31, 2002] "Aspect Communications Announces First IP-based Self-Service with VXML. Aspect Continues to Prove Customer Service Benefits of Converged Network by Enabling New Types of Voice Self-Service Applications." - Aspect Communications Corporation, a "leading provider of business communications solutions that help companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce operating costs, gather market intelligence and increase revenue, today announced the first IP-based self-service offering with VoiceXML (VXML) capabilities. The combination of IP-based self-service with VXML changes how customers use voice self-service. While customers are accustomed to voice self-service for routine tasks like checking balances and paying bills, IP and VXML open a wide range of more complex activities like filling out forms, placing detailed orders or completing any transaction that could also be handled on the Web. Aspect's offering will provide customers tremendous flexibility in how they interact with businesses. Using IP-based self-service that supports VXML, enterprises can simplify their infrastructure and reduce costs by automating many more customer service tasks than are automated today. Aspect's solution has several unique features that will let companies quickly and affordably develop newer, more useful self-service applications for customers. It offers a single development environment for creating rules that handle self- and live-service via voice, the Web and e-mail. Aspect's software is completely standards-based and integrates with VXML 2.0, allowing customers to perform the same self-service functions over the phone that they perform on the Web. Using natural language, customers can request information, fill out forms and place orders, and the enterprise uses the same databases, application servers and business rules as it does for the Web to process the voice self-service interactions... The Aspect IP Contact Suite enables fully integrated multichannel communications, including traditional voice technologies (PSTN), VoIP, e-mail and Web collaboration. Voice traffic travels over the same IP network as data and other communications such as e-mail and Web-based communications, versus over a separate circuit-switched network. Aspect's solution merges all communication into a unified queue and delivers it to the integrated desktops of service representatives. One network for voice and data centralizes administration, and the browser-based desktop applications empower the representatives to respond to contacts via all channels -- voice, e-mail, Web chat, assisted browsing and more -- on a single desktop with an easy-to-use interface..." See "VoiceXML Forum."
[July 31, 2002] "Avaya Self-Service Solution Lets Customers Access Web-Based Information by Telephone. Avaya IVR 9.0 integrates Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML 2.0) on the server for more efficient implementation of speech-enabled Web and telephony applications." - "Avaya Inc., a leading global provider of voice and data networks to businesses, today announced Avaya Interactive Voice Response (IVR) 9.0, the newest release of its voice applications platform for self-service. Avaya IVR 9.0 enables customers to access information, including Web-based data, by using spoken instructions, touchtone or rotary-dialed input from any telephone. Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML 2.0) is a built-in component of the Avaya IVR 9.0 server-based software. This open standard protocol allows speech recognition technology to be embedded in a variety of applications, making it easier for businesses to develop and implement Voice Browser applications that deliver natural language speech recognition across Web and telephony functions. Avaya IVR 9.0 includes Avaya Interactive Voice Response Designer, a development tool that leverages VXML 2.0 and a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for easier, more efficient development of applications. With VXML 2.0 as an integral part of the server software, Avaya IVR 9.0 can also simplify administration in a distributed, multi-vendor network by eliminating the need to support auxiliary VXML servers... 'Open standard protocols such as VXML will help businesses integrate speech- enabled applications more effectively in the enterprise,' said Brian Riggs, senior analyst, Current Analysis. 'The new Avaya voice applications platform, including VXML as a fully incorporated component, will help place the company in a favorable position as this technology continues to gain popularity and improve functionality.' In addition to VXML 2.0, Avaya IVR 9.0 integrates with many popular communications platforms, applications, and interfaces, including Siebel 7, Java, Avaya Interaction Center, Avaya Predictive Dialing System and multiple communications switches. The solution is a logical component of a multi-channel customer care strategy that encompasses customer segmentation, service personalization, inbound and outbound interaction management, and reporting and analysis..." See "VoiceXML Forum."
[July 31, 2002] "Xbridge Host Data Connect Now Supports XML. Improves Data Access and Reporting Capabilities." - Host Data Connect from Xbridge Systems, Inc. "can now create XML data streams, providing a common method for communicating between applications. For increased flexibility, the product can create XML data in two ways. The ASP.net server side control can create XML data streams (as well as HTML tables) for use on the Internet; the new Host Data Access Utility can create the data streams for use in desktop applications. Both methods can create XML data from the entire range of OS/390 data... With its new support for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and enhanced data-access and reporting capabilities, Xbridge Host Data Connect now makes it easier to use mainframe data in virtually all key desktop applications. Host Data Connect enables Windows and Web-enabled applications to directly access mainframe data and to see that data in the format of the requesting application, all in real time... Data-access utility: in addition to implementing support for XML, the Host Data Access Utility supports creating text files (for use with virtually any text editor), delimited files (for spreadsheets) and Microsoft Access databases. Host Data Connect continues to support Microsoft Word, Excel and Web formats... Xbridge Systems, the authority on mainframe data access, develops and markets high-performance software that enables critical corporate data to be shared instantaneously between OS/390 mainframes and desktop open-systems environment..."
[July 29, 2002] "Vignette Joins Web Services Interoperability Organization. Vignette Supports Effort to Establish Greater Compatibility of Web Services Across Technologies and Applications." - "Vignette Corp. today announced that it has joined the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), a cross-industry community whose mission is to promote Web services interoperability across platforms, applications and programming languages. The WS-I community includes software vendors, enterprise customers, technology developers and many others with a common interest in creating interoperable Web services. Vignette will collaborate with more than 125 other WS-I members to develop implementation tools, guidelines and other resources that help companies use Web services to integrate and automate their business processes. Vignette V6 Content Suite, the company's flagship content management solution, enables content management processes to be provided as Web services by offering support for the XML Schema, Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) standards. Vignette V6 also offers support for major industry-standard platforms, including the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Microsoft .NET environments... Initially, Vignette plans to join the WSBasic Profile working group, which is focused on providing guidance for using existing XML-based standards such as SOAP, WSDL and UDDI as a foundation for Web services. WS-I working groups are focused on various priorities, including providing Web services usage scenarios and testing tools to accelerate deployments; grouping key Web services standards into profiles to simplify implementation and promote interoperability; and creating a road map for the long-term evolution of Web services to guide WS-I and standards organizations in achieving Web services interoperability... By offering support for Web services, Vignette enables customers to reduce the complexity and cost associated with sharing information and content between users and their internal business applications or with their business partners, employees, customers or suppliers. Vignette's Web services and XML adapter libraries are immediately available and are included with Vignette V6 software licenses in the Vignette V6 Content Suite..." See "Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."
[July 24, 2002] "UN/CEFACT and OASIS Finalize Appointments to Joint Coordination Committee for ebXML. Oracle and Sterling Commerce Join ebXML Management." - "ebXML sponsors, UN/CEFACT and OASIS, announced that Arijit Sengupta of Oracle and Bill Burcham of Sterling Commerce have joined the ebXML Joint Coordination Committee (JCC), the management body responsible for overall supervision of ebXML development, adoption and implementation. While ebXML specifications are advanced by specific OASIS technical committees and UN/CEFACT project teams, both standards organizations remain committed to jointly managing ebXML strategic vision, technical architecture, and education. Members of the ebXML JCC offer a balanced perspective, representing major Web services vendors, standards bodies, and government agencies. The committee is made up of five representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations. OASIS representatives include Arijit Sengupta of Oracle, Bill Burcham of Sterling Commerce, Simon Nicholson of Sun Microsystems, and Karl Best and Patrick Gannon of OASIS. Serving on behalf of UN/CEFACT are Klaus-Dieter Naujok of UN/CEFACT ebTWG and TWMG working groups, James Bryce Clark of McLure-Moynihan, Duane Nickull of XML Global, Ray Walker of the United Kingdom's Department of Trade and Industry, and Brian Hayes of Collaborative Domain. 'The ebXML framework -- available today and supported by a growing list of software vendors -- provides companies with a standard way to develop and deploy secure, reliable business-centric Web services,' said Simon Nicholson of Sun Microsystems, who currently serves as chair of the ebXML JCC. 'We're pleased to welcome Oracle and Sterling Commerce to the JCC and look forward to their input and continued support of ebXML development and adoption'... The ebXML JCC hosts joint meetings, where OASIS technical committees and UN/CEFACT project teams interface on related issues. The JCC also sponsors educational events, such as the recent 'Implementing ebXML' day at XML Europe 2002 in Barcelona... ebXML (www.ebXML.org), enables mission-critical Web services and transactional electronic commerce, allowing enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. Using ebXML, companies now have a set of standard methods to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms and define and register business processes. ebXML is sponsored by UN/CEFACT, the United Nations body whose mandate covers worldwide policy and technical development in the area of trade facilitation and electronic business, and OASIS, a not-for-profit, global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards..." See: "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[July 24, 2002] "UDDI.org Announces an Enhanced UDDI Business Registry. Multi-version UDDI Business Registry Goes Live." - "The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) project announced today that the UDDI Business Registry (UBR) -- public UDDI nodes that provide businesses a uniform way to describe their services, discover other companies' services, and understand the methods necessary to conduct e-business with a particular company -- is now compliant with Version 2 of the UDDI specification. The UBR is now a multi-version UDDI registry with support for V1 and V2 of the specification. The number of public node operators has also increased from two to three, with a fourth operator expected to release its node shortly. 'We've extended the initial vision of the UDDI Project, which was to create an open platform-independent specification that enables companies to transact with one another with ease,' stated Chris Kurt, general program manager for UDDI.org. 'Momentum for UDDI continues to grow as evidenced by the launching of additional UBR nodes and by the ever increasing number of registered services." The number of businesses registered among the three public UBR nodes recently surpassed 10,000 with over 4,000 individual Web services available. All registered data is now being replicated between the UBR nodes. This allows services registered in one UBR node to be discovered from any of the other UBR nodes.' With the availability of UDDI V2, enterprises will now benefit through improved programmatic access to UDDI data and stronger business relationship modeling. UDDI V2 enables more efficient access to UDDI registries, such as the UBR and private Web service registries, and bolsters users' confidence in the trustworthiness and legitimacy of businesses they find in the UDDI registries... The UDDI Community is comprised of more than 300 business and technology leaders working together to enable companies to quickly, easily, and dynamically find, and transact with one another. As a cornerstone of the emerging Web services architecture, UDDI will benefit businesses of all sizes by creating an open platform-independent specification. As a part of the UDDI project, a global business registry has been established to allow businesses to publish and discover Web services..." See also the posting from George Zagelow (IBM Program Manager for UDDI, Managing Director, UDDI Operators Council). References: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."
[July 23, 2002] "OASIS Members Form Web Services Security Technical Committee. WS-Security Specification To Be Advanced by BEA Systems, Blockade Systems, Commerce One, divine, Documentum, Fujitsu, Intel, IBM, IONA, Microsoft, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork, Perficient, SAP, SeeBeyond, Sonic Software, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, VeriSign, webMethods, XML Global, and Other OASIS Members." - "The OASIS standards consortium has organized a new technical committee to advance the WS-Security specification. WS-Security provides a foundation for secure Web services, laying the groundwork for higher-level facilities such as federation, policy, and trust. Through the open OASIS process, providers and users will come together to extend the functionality of WS-Security, which was originally published by IBM, Microsoft, and Verisign. The WS-Security specification 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. 'WS-Security 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,' said Chris Kaler of Microsoft. Kaler and Kelvin Lawrence of IBM serve as co-chairs of the OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee..." See details in: (1) the news item 2002-07-23: "OASIS Announces Technical Committee for Web Services Security"; (2) the main reference section "Web Services Security Specification (WS-Security)."
[July 22, 2002] "CSC Adopts Business Process Modelling Language (BPML) as Foundation for E3 Enterprise Architecture." - Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), one of the world's leading consulting and information technology (IT) services firms, today announced its adoption of Business Process Modelling Language (BPML) 1.0 as a foundation of its e3 enterprise architecture. BPML and e3 facilitate business process management (BPM), a process-centric approach to aligning business objectives with IT. BPM differs from other process-driven efforts in that it starts with a top-down, business-oriented approach - in contrast to a bottom-up, technology-focused one. The e3 architecture enables clients to react quickly to change, institute process improvements rapidly and collaborate better both internally and externally. Because change happens at the process level, and the system - using BPML - makes the appropriate adjustments without manual coding keystrokes, delays are greatly reduced. This helps companies free themselves from the limitations of legacy systems and capitalize on multi-party collaboration. CSC has identified nine major business drivers forcing the types of changes BPM is designed to address. They include consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, regulatory compliance, business model shifts, changing customer expectations, industry standardization and business process outsourcing. CSC has helped deliver BPM capability to businesses since 1998 based on previous generations of technology. The company is now making the BPML innovation available to its customers through its proven e3 approach and is engaged with customers in several industry sectors worldwide on this basis. Some of the benefits derived are reduced process design to production cost, enhanced automation, improved time to market, change control throughout the process improvement lifecycle, and end-to-end control, visibility and accountability... 'Our adoption of BPML within e3 highlights the many practical attributes of this new standard,' said Howard Smith, CSC's chief technical officer for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. 'BPML supports the automation and continuous improvement of thousands of unique transactional and collaborative business processes in parallel for all functional areas. Processes can be customized to meet the needs of clients, suppliers, employees, business units and systems interfaces and can accommodate industry standards such as STP, TMF, CPFR and SCOR'..." See: "Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)."
[July 19, 2002] "NTT Com and IBM to Build Asia's First UDDI Business Registry." - "NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) and IBM Corporation announced today that the two companies will collaborate to construct NTT Com's UDDI Business Registry. This will be Asia's first Universal Description Discover and Integration Registry, and will use IBM's WebSphere and DB2 products and technologies. Joint construction will begin in mid-July and operations will commence in October this year. The UDDI Project is a worldwide initiative to enable businesses, irrespective of industry, to quickly, easily and dynamically find one another, leading potentially to new business-to-business e-commerce. UDDI enables a company to describe its business and services on the Internet, to discover other companies that offer desired services, and to negotiate and settle with those companies... The UDDI Business Registry is a global public online catalog for companies to register their business and the services they offer. The registry allows a business to easily locate a supplier to meet its needs and then to negotiate and settle e-transactions. It is a significant part of the framework supporting Web services. Today's joint announcement paves the way for commercial e-commerce expansion in the Asian region. In December 2001 NTT Com received approval to become Asia's first Business Registry node operator under the UDDI Project. NTT Com chose IBM based on IBM's leadership in advancing Web services standards and its comprehensive Web services-enabled product portfolio. 'As the first UDDI operator in Asia, NTT Com is dedicating its efforts to help customers and partners take advantage of Web services,' says Akira Kotani, vice president, Business Product Development and Marketing Department of NTT Com. NTT Com will base its Business Registry on IBM's model, and will translate the user interface and management code into Japanese. The registry will operate in IBM's WebSphere runtime environment and will use IBM's DB2 software for data repository, thereby enabling construction of the registry system based on Web services standards..." See the diagram NTT Com and IBM. References: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."
[July 19, 2002] "Netegrity Announces New TransactionMinder Product. Provides Missing Link for Authentication and Authorization of Web Services." - "Netegrity, a "leading provider of application infrastructure for access, identity and portal management, today [2002-07-15] announced a new Web services security product, TransactionMinder. Global 2000 companies are now implementing Web services to provide customized and personalized services to customers, partners, and prospects. However, the full potential of Web services has been limited because of the lack of a robust security model. Netegrity TransactionMinder provides a scalable product for authenticating, authorizing, and auditing the documents used in Web service transactions, enabling companies to now securely deploy their applications as Web services. With the addition of TransactionMinder, Netegrity now provides a comprehensive platform for discovering, securing, and deploying Web services... Netegrity's new TransactionMinder product provides the market with the first centralized policy based platform for securing and managing XML based Web services. TransactionMinder goes beyond basic transport level authentication and provides a broad range of shared security services to secure Web service XML documents and messages. TransactionMinder delivers a range of innovative features including: (1) Content and message level authentication: With TransactionMinder, administrators can define policies for a range of authentication schemes, including XML digital signatures and SAML assertions, based on the content of the XML message. TransactionMinder can also authenticate based on fields within the XML document, such as user or service names, or any other attributes stored in the directory. (2) Fine grained authorization: Using eTelligent rules, technology which was introduced with SiteMinder 5.0, TransactionMinder can define dynamic authorization policies which use information extracted from any layer of the XML message including transport information, envelope, or payload information. (3) Auditing and reporting: TransactionMinder captures all activities associated with the Web service transaction in an audit log. Administrators can then create a broad range of audit reports from the log. TransactionMinder will provide XML agents for leading Web service platforms, including Sun ONE, Apache, and Microsoft .Net..." See the white paper.
[July 17, 2002] "Amazon.com Launches Web Services. Developers Can Now Incorporate Amazon.com Content and Features into Their Own Web Sites. Extends 'Welcome Mat' for Developers." - On July 16, 2002 Amazon.com "launched its first version of 'Amazon.com Web Services,' a platform for creating innovative Web solutions and services designed specifically for developers and web site owners. By using Amazon.com Web Services, developers can build applications and tools that will allow them to incorporate many of the unique features of Amazon.com into their web sites -- free of charge... Among its many features, Amazon.com's Web Services will allow third party sites to search and display products from Amazon.com's web site, and enable visitors to those sites to add items to their Amazon.com shopping carts. Developers can access AWS through two industry standards: XML and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)... Amazon.com Web Services is available free of charge. It is also integrated with the Amazon.com Associates Program, which allows web sites to earn referral fees from purchases made at Amazon.com via links on their web sites. The powerful combination of Amazon.com Web Services and the Associates Program will allow developers to incorporate more Amazon.com features onto their web sites, ultimately driving more traffic and more referral fees as a result..." See the news item.
[July 16, 2002] "Creative Commons Announces Innovative Coupling of Law and Technology." - "Representatives from the new nonprofit Creative Commons today [2002-05-16] outlined the company's plans to help lower the legal barriers to creativity through an innovative coupling of law and technology. The Creative Commons will provide a free set of tools to enable creators to share aspects of their copyrighted works with the public. "Our tools will make it easier for artists and authors to make some or all of their rights available to the public for free," Stanford Professor and Creative Commons Chairman Lawrence Lessig explained at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference. "If, for example, an artist wants to make her music available for non-commercial use, or with just attribution, our tools will help her express those intentions in a 'machine-readable' form. Computers will then be able to identify and understand the terms of an author's license, making it easier for people to search for and share creative works." Creative Commons was formed by a coalition of academics from a broad range of institutions, including Duke, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Villanova. Its aim is to use the flexibility of copyright law to help support a rich public domain alongside traditional copyrights. In a separate Creative Commons presentation, Molly Van Houweling, Executive Director, and Lisa Rein, Technical Architect, previewed the web-based application that will help scholars, artists, and others make their works available for copying, modification, and redistribution. Authors and artists who use the tool may choose to dedicate their works to the public domain or choose to retain their copyright while allowing creative reuses subject to custom combinations of conditions. An illustrator seeking exposure, for example, might choose to let anyone freely copy and distribute her work, provided that they give her proper credit. An academic eager to build a public audience could permit unlimited noncommercial copying of his writings... Creative Commons expects to launch these applications for general public use this fall [2002]. In the meantime, Creative Commons is inviting feedback on its prototype and its mission. Creative Commons also announced its longer-term plans to create an intellectual property conservancy. Like a land trust or nature preserve, the conservancy will protect works of special public value from exclusionary private ownership and from obsolescence due to neglect or technological change. The conservancy will house a rich repository of high-quality works in a variety of media, and help foster an ethos of sharing, public education, and creative interactivity..." See "Creative Commons Project."
[July 16, 2002] "Sun Microsystems Delivers First Liberty-Enabled Single Sign-On Solution. Announces New Sun ONE Identity Server 6, Sun ONE Directory Server 5.2. Enables Enterprises to Consolidate Authentication Systems, Reducing Integration Costs and Increasing Time to Service." - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the first shipping, end-to-end network identity solution that addresses customers' needs for heightened security, privacy and federated identity management. The new products, services and support available today are fully compliant with the Liberty Alliance version 1.0 specification announced yesterday... 'Identity is the most fundamental Web service and customers want open, interoperable solutions that enable frictionless commerce on the Web,' said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president, software, Sun Microsystems Inc. 'CIOs and commerce sites are spending millions in redundant, proprietary identity infrastructure. By offering early support of the Liberty spec, Sun is giving enterprises more choice in network identity and enabling them to take advantage of the rising tide of business opportunities. With Sun's solutions, customers can reduce redundancies between existing systems while extending their network identity environment safely to deliver single sign-on today within their own organizations or among groups of companies working together in a circle of trust.' 'Wells Fargo is providing next-generation single sign on across all of our retail banking Internet sites, including Wells Fargo Internet Banking, Brokerage, Bill pay and Wells OneLook. As an early pioneer and leader in network identity, Sun was the logical partner to help Wells Fargo realize this vision,' said Avid Modjtabai, executive vice president, Wells Fargo Consumer Internet Services. 'By leveraging the Sun ONE architecture and Sun's new network identity solution, we believe we will be able to improve the efficiency of our existing single sign on environment and even extend it to partner companies such as airlines through a federated network identity. Sun's identity solution will be critical to our ability to continue to provide customers with the quality and types of services they desire.' The Sun ONE Platform for Network Identity features pre-integrated software, hardware and services. It has been completely updated with the Liberty-enabled Sun ONE Identity Server 6, Sun ONE Directory Server 5.2, Solaris 9 Operating Environment and new professional services offerings. Other products in the Sun ONE portfolio will be Liberty-enabled over time, beginning with the award-winning Sun ONE Portal Server... the new version enables enterprises to bridge disparate authentication systems with single sign-on. Based on open standards, including Liberty, SAML and Java Authentication and Authorization Service, customers can integrate Sun ONE into existing systems without lock-in to a single vendor..." See: "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."
[July 15, 2002] "PureEdge's Secure XML E-Forms Product Features Expanded. Enhanced Accessibility and Internationalization." - "PureEdge Solutions announced today [July 8, 2002] new versions of its three key products: an XML e-forms Viewer, Designer and API (Application Programmers Interface), all part of PureEdge's Internet Commerce System. The new release provides greater accessibility to the visually impaired, French-language compatibility, an architecture that supports the addition of more languages, and additional security features. Leading analysts have estimated that billions of dollars are spent each year printing and processing millions of paper forms in North America. As cost-effective electronic forms are more widely adopted, customers are looking for products that can be used by everyone... PureEdge Viewer 5.0 is used to view and fill electronic forms. This new version has added full support for the JAWS screen reader, improving Section 508 accessibility for the visually impaired and blind. The ability to control the order of information read aloud ensures a meaningful listening experience for users. Display characteristics can also be set for the visually impaired. As well, the Viewer can now be used with the keyboard (or equivalent) alone, providing enhanced accessibility for those unable to use a mouse. PureEdge's powerful API 5.0 (Application Programmers Interface) features comprehensive programmatic support for the manipulation and processing of XML e-forms, allowing maximum flexibility and integration with legacy, workflow, document management and other third-party applications. The new releases of both the PureEdge Viewer and API also have a French language version. The architecture has been internationalized for both products, so additional languages can be added. Security enhancements and other additional features include: (1) PureEdge Designer 2.1 allows e-form developers to import and export objects, saving time and increasing functionality. (2) Additional support for multiple digital signature certificates, allows complete control over which signatures are made available for each e-form. (3) As much, or as little information as needed, can now be displayed about each of a user's digital signature certificates..."
[July 15, 2002] "Endeavor Announces XML Gateway to LexisNexis. ENCompass Will Have First Digital System Connection to Leading Database Vendor." - "Endeavor Information Systems and LexisNexis announced an agreement today that will make select LexisNexis databases available through ENCompass, Endeavor's digital management, organization and linking tool. Through an XML Gateway, ENCompass will be able to search specified content from three popular LexisNexis research databases: LexisNexis Academic Universe, LexisNexis Congressional Universe, and LexisNexis Statistical Universe. The first agreement of its kind with LexisNexis, the Endeavor plan will provide a single point of access for simultaneous searching that will include these three popular library databases. ENCompass employs multi-protocol federated searching across resources, using traditional protocols like Z39.50 and new technology advances in XML gateways and HTTP searching. "With the ENCompass XML gateway to LexisNexis content, researchers can have one-stop shopping to selected areas of a very valuable and extremely popular resource like Academic Universe, plus discover content from local library collections, other databases and the local library OPAC," said Jane Burke, Endeavor President and CEO. "Endeavor is happy to partner with the database vendors that are instrumental in the important research happening at academic and research libraries. We are very proud to be working with LexisNexis to enable even more researchers to quickly find valuable content."
[July 15, 2002] "OASIS Members Demonstrate Support for New Web Access Security Standard at SAML Interoperability Event. IBM, Novell, Oblix, Sun Microsystems, and Other Companies Showcase Standard for Exchanging Authentication and Authorization Information on the Internet." - "The first public demonstration of the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) was held today at the Catalyst Conference in San Francisco. Twelve vendors, including IBM, Novell, Oblix, Sun Microsystems Inc., Baltimore Technologies, CrossLogix, Entegrity Solutions, ePeople, Overxeer, Netegrity, RSA Security, and Sigaba participated in the event, which demonstrated interoperability of SAML 1.0-conformant security software products. "SAML is an important security interoperability initiative," said James Kobielus, senior analyst at Burton Group. "Most Web access solution vendors have committed resources to the emerging standard and are in the process of implementing SAML 1.0 in the next releases of their products. The OASIS SAML interoperability demonstration proves the standard's viability in practice." SAML allows authentication and authorization information to be exchanged among disparate Web access management and security products. The OASIS specification addresses the need for secure single sign-on among diverse Web access management environments implemented across various organizations, applications, Web sites and portals. Defining standardized exchanges of identity and access management information, SAML leverages such Web services standards as XML and SOAP..." See details in the news item of 2002-07-15: "Burton Group's Catalyst Conference Features SAML Interoperability Event."
[July 09, 2002] "RSA Security Embraces SAML Standard Across Product Lines. RSA Security Demonstrates SAML Functionality with RSA ClearTrust Software at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference in San Francisco on July 15, 2002." - RSA Security has "announced its broad scale intention to support the proposed OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) specification across its product lines. The SAML 1.0 specification, which is an XML framework for exchanging authentication, attribute and authorization information, is designed to enable secure single sign-on to applications within organizations, as well as across companies. RSA Security plans to incorporate SAML functionality with RSA ClearTrust Web access management software by the end of the year, and intends to follow with support across other solutions, reflecting RSA Security's corporate commitment to deliver highly interoperable products... The RSA ClearTrust Web access management solution is designed to be an easy-to-deploy, rules-based solution that centrally controls and manages user access privileges to Web resources based on definable user attributes, business rules and security policies of an organization. RSA Security is incorporating SAML into RSA ClearTrust software to enable a standards-based approach to implementing Web single sign-on and allowing authentication and identity information to be shared among multiple organizations and servers. The use of the SAML standard is a key step in fostering interoperability, facilitating industry growth and limiting proprietary implementations. To support standardization efforts, RSA Security is granting non-exclusive royalty-free licensing for two patents to companies building and using SAML implementations. (See press release dated April 29, 2002 and RSA Security's Web site for more details.) RSA Security is showcasing its SAML-compliant solution at SAML Interoperability 2002, a SAML 1.0 interoperability showcase at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference in San Francisco on July 15. The showcase will demonstrate an e-marketplace that allows users to sign-on to one site with the transparent transfer of security credentials and information across affiliated sites. The solution demonstrated allows online business partners to easily and securely share authentication and authorization information across corporate boundaries, which is intended to strengthen business relationships and maintain a faster, seamless and hassle-free end-user experience..." See: (1) Burton Catalyst Conference 2002; (2) "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."
[July 09, 2002] "Microsoft Announces Availability of Content Management Server 2002 Beta. New Integration With Microsoft Word and Visual Studio .NET Further Empowers Business Users and Developers for an Unparalleled Enterprise Web Content Management System." - "Microsoft Corp. today [2002-07-09] announced the availability of the beta version of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. Following a year of increasing momentum and growth, Content Management Server 2002 will provide customers with a faster, easier and more cost-effective way to create, deploy and maintain mission-critical, content-rich Web sites. Part of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, including BizTalk Server, SharePoint Portal Server and Commerce Server, Content Management Server 2002 will offer support for XML Web services, enhanced content authoring and site deployment capabilities, and provide industry-leading developer support through its integration with Visual Studio .NET and support for ASP.NET. Content Management Server 2002 demonstrates Microsoft's continued commitment to delivering innovative .NET technology throughout the .NET Enterprise Server family... .NET and XML Web services support. New support for XML Web services enables customers to expose Content Management Server content and features as Web services for content syndication and to enable customers to integrate their Web sites and content with other applications without being limited by heterogeneous platforms and development languages. This will create the ability to build powerful distributed solutions spanning internal users, business partners and customers, using open standards and keeping implementation costs under control... With its native support for managing standards-based XML content and exposing content and functionality as XML Web services, Content Management Server easily integrates into a heterogeneous environment and connects to the rest of customers' business systems..."
[July 03, 2002] "Oblix To Demonstrate Support for Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML) In Oblix NetPoint At Burton Group Catalyst Conference 2002. SAML Support Part of Oblix NetPoint's Broader Strategy Enabling Customers to Share User Identity Information Across Multiple Authentication Services and Web Sites." - "Oblix, a leading developer of identity-based security solutions, today announced that it will preview Oblix NetPoint's security assertions markup language (SAML) compliance in the industry's first security interoperability demonstration at Burton Group's Catalyst Conference 2002 on July 15th in San Francisco. Proposed by Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), SAML 1.0 is a standard for exchanging authentication and authorization information among multiple Web access management and security products. The OASIS-sponsored demonstration will highlight the interoperability of several SAML implementations from leading security vendors, including Oblix, that support Web single sign-on, access management and other network security services. SAML is an important emerging standard that enables the benefits of single sign-on for consumers of Web applications and services without requiring duplication of identity information at every Web service provider's site,' said Phil Schacter, Vice President and Service Director of the Network Strategy Service (NSS) Burton Group. 'Oblix is demonstrating its commitment to support the SAML specification in its NetPoint product line, and to showcasing standards-based interoperability with diverse identity systems. As one of the early supporters and technical contributors to the work of OASIS, Oblix is to be commended for its role in helping SAML progress to the important milestone that this demonstration represents.' Oblix is fully committed to supporting SAML when it is a ratified standard and will incorporate SAML into Oblix NetPoint's Federation Services, a comprehensive set of services that enable enterprise customers to share identity information across authentication services and Web sites..." See: (1) "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)"; (2) Burton Catalyst Conference 2002 ['Day Two examines industry support for the Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML), Microsoft's proposal to apply Kerberos to the security federation problem, and whether PKI is ready to deliver on its promise of an interoperable public trust network.']
[July 01, 2002] "Microsoft Rounds Out Developer Languages With Launch of Visual J# .NET. Industry's First Java-Language Tool With Native XML Web Services Support Provides Increased Productivity, Smoother Integration for Customers ." - "Today at Microsoft TechEd 2002 Europe, Microsoft Corp. launched Microsoft Visual J# .NET, a development tool for Java-language developers building applications and services on the Microsoft .NET Framework. The launch of Visual J# .NET signals the completion and availability of all the Microsoft programming languages within Visual Studio .NET, including Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET and Visual Basic .NET. Visual J# .NET provides an easy transition for Java-language developers into the world of XML Web services and dramatically improves the interoperability of Java-language programs with existing software written in a variety of other programming languages. Visual J# .NET enables Microsoft Visual J++ customers and other Java-language programmers to take advantage of existing skills and code to fully exploit the .NET Platform....With Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, developers can create and deploy XML Web services on the .NET Platform easily. XML Web services provide businesses with a new way to employ the Internet as a development platform and enable businesses to seamlessly interoperate across disparate systems and platforms. With support for more than 20 programming languages, these products allow developers to extend their existing skills to embrace the new world of XML Web services..." See "Java Language Support for .Net" - 'Visual J# .NET is the comprehensive tool for rapidly building and integrating XML Web services and applications.'

Previous announcements from June 2002...

[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] "ISDA Issues Call For Participation for FpML Messaging Working Group." - "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) [on June 26, 2002] issued a call for participation for the messaging 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 timing is right to focus on the business processes,' said Michael Liberman, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs and Co-Chair of the FpML standards committee. The working group will extend the FpML standard to include messages supporting business processes relating to pricing, trading, risk management and credit checking... 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. Currently focusing on interest rate derivatives, FX and equity derivatives, FpML will eventually cover all categories of privately negotiated derivatives. 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 46 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. Information about ISDA and its activities is available on the Association's web site." See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."
[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 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."


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