Cover Pages: XML Industry News: 2003 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:

Main "What's New" Column
XML Industry News April - June 2003
XML Industry News January - March 2003
XML Industry News October - December 2002
XML Industry News July - September 2002
XML Industry News April - June 2002
Earlier press 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, 2003] "Adobe and Xerox Announce Strategic Initiative to Promote Print Production Workflow Standards. Adobe PDF, JDF, XML and PostScript Technologies Incorporated Into Xerox FreeFlow Initiative." - "Adobe Systems Incorporated and Xerox Corporation today announced an initiative to jointly support and promote the widespread adoption of emerging print industry standards for both static and variable information workflow technologies. The standards include Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), JDF (Job Definition Format) job ticketing, Adobe PostScript, XML (Extensible Markup Language), and variable information workflow technologies. The initiative is part of Xerox FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection that improves digital workflow -- the process by which print jobs make their way from creation through final production and fulfillment... Adobe technologies are incorporated throughout the latest release of the Xerox FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection. (1) Xerox DigiPath Production Software 4.0 with Adobe Acrobat, PDF Libraries and PDF plug-in support as part of a full and robust Adobe PDF workflow. Adobe PDF is supported throughout all of DigiPath's functionality, including scanning, preflight, imposition, editing, storage, viewing and printing. (2) Xerox DocuSP 3.7 Controllers for production printing with Adobe PostScript 3, PDF Libraries and Normalizer solutions for reliable, consistent print output, native PDF consumption and the highest quality PPML support. (3) The Xerox VIPP Thin Printer for high-volume production, tagging and delivery of optimized Adobe PDFs from the same print data streams used for production printing, using Adobe Acrobat, Distiller Server and PDF Libraries. These PDF files can be used for single or multi-set proofs, archiving, electronic distribution, and Web presentment of variable data documents produced from Xerox VIPP applications. As part of the new initiative, Adobe and Xerox are undertaking joint efforts to drive acceptance of the JDF standard for job ticketing, and to develop integrated solutions that leverage the strengths of their respective variable data printing technologies. Both companies embrace PostScript, PDF, XML and variable data print streams to provide the broadest possible range of one-to-one business applications. Consistent with these priorities, Xerox is supporting the latest PPML Graphic Arts Conformance Subset standard across its line of production products and one-to-one solutions architecture..." See also: (1) "Job Definition Format (JDF)"; (2) "Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML)."
[September 29, 2003] "Antarctica Systems Announces Visual Net 4.0. Maximizing Information Display to Reveal Clarity, Truth in Data." - "Antarctica Systems Inc., a pioneer developer of visualization technology, today announced the availability of version 4.0 of its Visual Net (VN) software. Visual Net's map-based visual displays convey the relevant, meaningful content that business users need to address key business issues. Most enterprise software tools focus on collecting, aggregating and slicing/dicing data -- they have not focused on presenting information in a compelling and usable manner. As a result, many of these tools obscure problems more than they help to clarify. 'The business problems that people address on a daily basis are complex and multidimensional,' states Tim Bray, founder and CTO of Antarctica Systems. 'Other tools fail to meet this challenge. Sometimes key problems and opportunities are missed, even though all of the required information exists.' The improvements in Visual Net 4.0 are aimed at changing the user focus from dealing with the complexities of constructing complex queries to dealing with key business issues... The VN maps display all the complexities inherent in real business issues, showing multiple dimensions of both macro and micro data, unlike other enterprise tools that try to present complex business problems boiled down to one-dimensional snapshots. This enables users to have a complete view of their business problems. Users are presented with better/more relevant information. The VN interface is designed to provide the maximum amount of relevant content to users. Business users do not need to access multiple reports, screens, graphics etc to collect the information required to solve problems. Visual Net screens contain 60-80% relevant content compared to less than 25% for most other enterprise tools. Key issues 'rise to the top' so they can be acted upon quickly before they become critical problems. Once a problem is identified, users can easily drill down to investigate and gather more details -- 'to clarify, add detail.' Critical business information is easily made available to executives and business users, instead of a small set of 'power users'. Users do not need to know how to construct complex queries or generate reports. Visual Net 4.0 has built in more interactivity, allowing users at all levels of the organization to manipulate and filter data to customize the information on the maps, giving users more flexibility in what they see. Visual Net is now equally adept at visualizing three types of information: numeric, textual and geographic -- either individually or in combination..." See also the Visual Net FAQ document.
[September 29, 2003] Open Archives Initiative and Project RoMEO Initiate OAI-Rights Working Group." - "The Open Archives Initiative and Project RoMEO announce the formation of OAI-rights. The goal of this effort is to investigate and develop means of expressing rights about metadata and resources in the OAI framework. The result will be an addition to the OAI implementation guidelines that specifies mechanisms for rights expressions within the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). The area of rights expressions is wide-open with many organizations proposing languages and mechanisms. Therefore, the OAI-rights effort will aim to be extensible, providing a general framework for expressing rights statements within OAI-PMH. These statements will target both the metadata itself and the resources described by that metadata. In the context of this broader framework, OAI-rights will use Creative Commons licenses as a motivating and deployable example. A white paper describing the scope and issues in OAI-rights is available online... OAI-rights work will begin in September 2003, with completion of specifications planned for second quarter 2004." Members of the Organizing Committee include Carl Lagoze, Herbert Van de Sompel, Michael Nelson, and Simeon Warner (for the OAI); Elizabeth Gadd, and Steve Probets (for Project RoMEO). The OAI-Rights Working Group includes representatives from US Library of Congress, Rightscom, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, American Physical Society, Erasmus Electronic Publishing Initiative, Hewlett/Packard DSpace, Project RoMEO/Loughborough University, eprints.org/University of Southampton, Cornell University Information Science, Humboldt University Berlin, Old Dominion University Computer Science, California Digital Library, FEDORA/Cornell University Information Science, UKOLN, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Creative Commons. See details in the 2003-09-26 news story: "RoMEO and OAI-PMH Teams Develop Rights Solution Using ODRL and Creative Common Licenses."
[September 29, 2003] "OASIS Members Collaborate on Global Framework to Enhance Web Services Deployment." - "Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to collaborate on the development of a global Web services framework that will define a methodology for broad-based, multi-platform, vendor-neutral implementation. The new OASIS Framework for Web Services Implementation (FWSI) Technical Committee plans to design a template for Web services deployment, enabling systems integrators, software vendors, and in-house developers to deliver eCommerce solutions faster and easier. 'FWSI will define the functionality required to help people build robust applications for Web services and Service Oriented Architectures,' said Roberto B. Pascual of the Singapore Government's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), proposed co-chair of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee. 'It will speed adoption of Web services by tremendously reducing the risk, complexity, and implementation effort involved.' The OASIS FWSI Technical Committee will specify a set of functional elements required for practical implementations of Web Services-based systems. These functional elements provide building blocks for developers to use when deploying Web services architectures, enabling rapid development of eBusiness applications by eliminating the need to re-invent elements for each implementation. 'The work of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee will be analogous to creating a recipe for baking a cake,' explained Dr. Lee Eng Wah, of the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), proposed co-chair of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee. 'We will first develop a set of implementation methodologies, which will be like cooking instructions. Then we will focus on designing a set of functional elements for Web services -- the ingredients for the cake.' Rather than define standards for implementing specific Web services components, FWSI will leverage applicable work within OASIS and other standards groups. Technical Committee members predict that the work of the WS-I Consortium will complement FWSI at OASIS. 'We are very pleased that the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee is being launched in Singapore and has the backing of so many companies and agencies here and around the world,' said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, in an address today at the iX2003 conference. 'By creating a library of core eCommerce Web services, FWSI will accelerate the deployment of Web services and Service Oriented Architectures into the critical eBusiness marketplace.' Members of the new OASIS FWSI Technical Committee include CommerceNet, IDA, Information Technology Standards Committee of Singapore, RosettaNet, SIMTech, Sun Microsystems, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong, Yellow Dragon, and other OASIS members. Participation remains open to all organizations and individuals, and OASIS will host a mail list for public comment..." See the TC website and other details in the news story: "OASIS Announces Framework for Web Services Implementation (FWSI) TC."
[September 26, 2003] "FSTC Issues Results of Web Services Proof of Concept." - "The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) today announced the results of a proof of concept to develop a set of Web services for cash management system integration. The test was aimed at validating the use of Web services technologies for cash management application and data integration for bank-to-bank and bank-to-customer connections. FSTC brought together Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia, NEC and its consulting arm Niteo Partners, and Sun Microsystems in this five-month initiative to test aspects of interoperability, security, and the reliability of Web services technologies when applied to multi-bank reporting services in treasury management. The project produced a set of Web services, reference implementation, and next generation treasury portal to demonstrate the utility of the services developed. Some of the key results of this project include: (1) A reference implementation generated from the test, comprised of a re-usable architecture and set of technical specifications that can be developed into commercial offerings, provides project participants a valuable set of baseline Web services and a detailed set of supporting technical and business documentation for planning and developing banking applications in .NET and Java environments. (2) The assessment that more work in technical standards and interoperability is needed, particularly for applications and bank interactions that require end-to-end security and reliability to meet expected service levels. (3) The realization that additional industry efforts are needed to address issues of including attachments and the transport of non-XML data using SOAP messaging. The first phase of the project also concluded that interoperability at the interface level is very immature. In addition, having multiple open source and commercial technologies use a common Web services description language (WSDL) file is problematic as the automatic code generators carry numerous bugs. Fortunately, implementations can typically be made to conform with some re- programming of the generated code. Also, project participants found through this hands-on activity that security, including key management, must be examined and tested carefully in banking applications since security interoperability is very immature in open source code and commercial offerings. XML signature and encryption packages proved difficult to use across heterogeneous technology platforms. The project further recommended that financial institutions should remain optimistic about the benefits pledged by these technologies for partner, customer, and enterprise integration, and that the transition to Web services technologies requires a careful examination of the underlying service architecture required to provide manageable, secure, and reliable financial applications. See also: FSTC Completes Industry Assessment of Liberty Alliance and SAML Technologies. Report Identifies Opportunities for Financial Institutions to Extend Trusted Relationships with Customers and Employees Out to Third Parties."
[September 26, 2003] "IEEE Communications Magazine Special Issue on XML-based Management of Networks and Services." - Call For Papers, IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Issue on XML-based Management of Networks and Services. The increasing dependence of society on the availability and the correct operation of the Internet demands for continuous improvement of Internet management technologies. Traditionally, Internet management is based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which defines the management information exchange between managers and agents. Within agents, the management information is organized in Management Information Bases (MIBs) and described according to the rules of the Structure of Management Information (SMI). Although several versions of SNMP, MIBs and the SMI exist, the basic concepts did not change since the first versions appeared nearly 15 years ago. At that time bandwidth was scarce and processing power of devices was limited. Although many years of experience proved that existing Internet management technology is well suited to monitor network devices, it also became clear that SNMP technology is hardly used for configuration management and management of higher level services. These management tasks still rely on proprietary and ad-hoc technologies. Currently, there is a growing interest in using XML technologies for management purposes. XML has the advantage that it is widely accepted, which means that there are many tools available that potentially support the implementation of management functions. In addition, the promise of XML is to facilitate the easy integration of different applications; something that is particularly important for the cooperation of network and service management applications... It is the intention to present the state of the art and recent developments in XML based management in a feature issue of IEEE Communications Magazine. Authors are therefore invited to submit complete unpublished papers, which are not under review for any other conference or journal, in the following areas: Architectures for XML based management, Management based on Web Services (SOAP, WSDL), Management information and data modeling using XML Schema, Translation from traditional information and data models to XML schemas or DTDs, Protocols for XML based management, Interworking between XML and traditional management systems, Secure management using the XML security framework, Application of generic XML technologies (XPath, RDF, XQuery) for management, Implementation experiences and case-studies, Standardization activities (IETF, DMTF)..." Submission Deadline: November 15, 2003. See also: (1) IEEE Communications Magazine; (2) online CFP.
[September 24, 2003] "Microsoft and Monster to Offer Customers 'Smart' Resumes. XML-Enabled Smart Document Templates in Microsoft Office Word 2003 Will Help Job Seekers Create a Professional Resume." - "Microsoft Corp. and Monster, the leading global online careers property and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide Inc., today announced a technology alliance designed to help job seekers build professional resumes. Through the alliance, Monster's downloadable Extensible Markup Language (XML)- enabled 'smart' document templates can be seamlessly installed in Microsoft Office Word 2003, enabling job seekers to upgrade the quality of their resume. The templates will be available via the Microsoft Office Online Web site, which is visited by nearly 25 million unique visitors per month. The Microsoft-Monster alliance is designed to help job seekers create and submit professional-quality resumes easily using industry-standard XML. The resume templates, created in Word 2003, give job seekers the opportunity to build their resumes in a familiar format while incorporating expert resume advice from Monster, the leading provider of comprehensive career management products and services. The advanced technology of Microsoft and Monster also allows job seekers to save their resume in Microsoft Word and promptly post it on the Monster Web site, making it readily viewable to thousands of leading employers nationwide. The use of XML enables the delivery of ready-to-use data to the Monster site, so that resumes can be instantly posted to an individual's My Monster account. Any Microsoft Office Word 2003 customer with an Internet connection will have access to the Monster resume templates. 'The combination of Monster resume templates and XML-enabled Microsoft Word is a natural fit that will offer great benefits to people who want to create an effective, professional resume,' said Brian Farrey, president of Monster Technologies. 'We are very excited about this relationship, which will provide quality Monster resume templates to the extensive Microsoft Office Online audience. The alliance is also further confirmation of Monster's leadership position in providing job seekers the best technological tools and services by being the first career site to partner with Microsoft with this innovative integrated tool.' The templates will be created using smart document technology. Smart documents, an XML-based feature in Microsoft Office Word 2003 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003, include an interactive task pane that provides context-sensitive information and a list of actions the user could choose from that are relevant to the user's current location in a structured XML document. The content available via the task pane will provide job seekers with relevant advice and feedback from Monster as they create their resumes while using the resume templates. For example, job seekers creating a resume can type their 'Objective' information into the document. As they do this, information from Monster resume experts will be available to provide detailed advice on how to create the most effective description of their objective for the type of position they seek..." See also "Rosetta Group XML Résumé Library."
[September 22, 2003] "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Version 1.1 Ratified as OASIS Standard. Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Computer Associates, Entrust, Hewlett-Packard, Netegrity, Oblix, OpenNetwork, Reactivity, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, and Others Collaborate on Authentication and Authorization." - "The OASIS standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. SAML provides an XML-based framework for exchanging authentication and authorization information, enabling single sign-on -- the ability to use a variety of Internet resources without having to log in repeatedly. 'SAML has gained widespread industry adoption as a basis for federated identity and security environments,' said James Kobielus, senior analyst at Burton Group. 'Clearly, SAML is a living, evolving standard, and OASIS has, with the new version 1.1, incorporated changes that reflect real-world experience with SAML version 1.0.' According to Prateek Mishra of Netegrity, co-chair of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee, 'Prior to SAML, there was no XML-based standard that enabled exchange of security information between a security system (such as an authentication authority) and an application. SAML provides a way to specify authentication, attribute, and authorization decision statements. It also specifies a Web services-based request/reply protocol for exchanging these statements.' 'The SAML 1.1 standard introduces important enhancements that improve its interoperability and utility to other Web services security efforts in the industry. This can be seen through the adoption of SAML 1.1 as a foundation for the Liberty Alliance's Identity Federation Framework, the implementation of SAML 1.1 by the Internet2/MACE Shibboleth project, and the development of a SAML profile by the OASIS Web Services Security (WSS) Technical Committee for using SAML with WS-Security,' added Rob Philpott of RSA Security, co-chair of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. 'The growing participation of OASIS member companies in SAML's development and our committee's increasing collaboration with other security-related standards groups demonstrate the value of OASIS SAML standardization to the industry.' Liberty Alliance Management Board president, Michael Barrett, also vice president of Internet Strategy at American Express, commented, 'Collaboration between standards organizations is critical to industry momentum and to ensure new technologies like single sign-on and Web services succeed. Organizations looking to benefit from these new technologies need access to proven, interoperable, and secure standards that they can build on for the next new technology. Open standards like SAML and Liberty's specifications have been proven to meet that need.' Members of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee include Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Computer Associates, Entrust, Hewlett-Packard, Netegrity, Oblix, OpenNetwork, Reactivity, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, and other security software vendors, financial institutions, government agencies, and academia..." See: (1) "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)"; (2) "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."
[September 22, 2003] "RSA Security Announces New Products to Deliver on Identity and Access Management Strategy. RSA ClearTrust V5.5 Software Enhances Identity Infrastructures with Tighter Integration with Microsoft Platforms and New User Management and Federated Identity Management Capabilities." - "RSA Security Inc., the most trusted name in e-security, today announced RSA ClearTrust v5.5 web access management software. Delivering advanced user management capabilities, web services support (including SAML v1.1-compliant federated identity management capabilities), robust transactional authorization functionality, and unparalleled integration with Microsoft platforms, RSA Security demonstrates progress in its Identity and Access Management strategy with this new release of RSA ClearTrust software. RSA Security's Identity and Access Management strategy includes an integrated architecture (codenamed NEXUS), new products and strategic alliances that enable organizations to quickly derive quantifiable business value -- including reduced costs, enhanced revenue opportunities and increased user productivity -- from their online applications by securely leveraging digital identities across their infrastructure. "Global enterprises are today faced with the increasing complexity of securely managing expanded populations of users accessing internal and external applications and systems," said Ray Wagner, research director, Gartner Inc. "To meet these challenges, it is critical that they implement a flexible identity management solution that integrates easily with existing technology, protocols and standards. Features like innovative user administration, support for federated identity initiatives, and strong out-of- the-box integration options increase the value of these solutions." ... RSA ClearTrust v5.5 software offers new functionality in the primary areas of concentration within RSA Security's Identity and Access Management strategy, including: (1) Identity Authority Services: The RSA ClearTrust Federated Identity Management Module provides the first commercially available Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML) functionality for generating and consuming SAML v1.1 assertions, enabling customers to leverage identities across business boundaries to drive new relationships and business models. Features of the implementation include full web-based administration, simple installation and configuration, a time-saving policy cloning feature and advanced built-in security capabilities, including digital signatures, certificate validation and authentication mapping between different sites. (2) Access Authority Services: Transactional Smart Rules extends the business rules and user properties of RSA ClearTrust software, enabling real-time dynamic authorization decisions based on attributes from multiple data sources, including databases, directories, XML, flat files or web services. This powerful capability allows customers to implement sophisticated authorization rules using real-time business data and processes..." See also "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Version 1.1 Ratified as OASIS Standard. Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Computer Associates, Entrust, Hewlett-Packard, Netegrity, Oblix, OpenNetwork, Reactivity, RSA Security, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, and Others Collaborate on Authentication and Authorization."
[September 17, 2003] "Sun Microsystems Selects Sleepycat Software for New Middleware and Desktop Initiatives. Sun to Standardize on Berkeley DB to Meet Non-Relational Data Management Needs Within Key Components of Sun Java Enterprise System and Sun Java Desktop System." - "Sleepycat Software, makers of Berkeley DB -- the most widely-used application-specific data management software in the world with over 200 million deployments -- today announced a worldwide agreement with Sun Microsystems for internal use of Berkeley DB in all current and future Sun products, including key components in the Sun Java Enterprise System, previously called Project Orion, and the Sun Java Desktop System, previously called Project Mad Hatter. The agreement also includes premium support and rights for Sun to use future Berkeley DB upgrades. 'We're very pleased that Sun has standardized on Berkeley DB for embedded use within its software product line,' said Michael Olson, CEO of Sleepycat Software. 'Based on our long, successful history with Sun and proven reliability across thousands of open source and proprietary products, Sun knew they could count on our company and our technology within key components of their exciting new desktop and enterprise software initiatives.' 'Sun Java Enterprise System and Sun Java Desktop System reduce cost and complexity for our customers,' said Joe Keller, vice president of marketing for Java Web Services and Tools, Sun Microsystems. 'Many of the components in Java Enterprise System and Java Desktop System incorporate Berkeley DB, and its stability, performance, scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness make it the natural choice to embed in these components.' 'The agreement between Sun Microsystems and Sleepycat Software is an important demonstration of the viability and value that open source software can deliver in a maturing IT market that demands price performance and ROI,' said Wayne Kernochan, senior vice president at market research firm the Aberdeen Group. 'Sun has carefully chosen best-of-breed software components and Sleepycat's Berkeley DB is certainly a leader in application-specific data management software.' Java Enterprise System is Sun's new integrated infrastructure software system for enterprise computing that offers customers simplified pricing and licensing, and predictable, quarterly updates to lower the cost and complexity of enterprise software. It includes several components that use Berkeley DB for persistent storage, including Sun's market-leading Directory Server, Messaging Server, Identity Server, Portal Server, and Calendar Server. Java Desktop System is Sun's lower cost alternative to the Microsoft Windows and Office desktop software stack, and includes many applications that rely upon Berkeley DB's fast, reliable and proven data management technology for elements of functionality. Berkeley DB helps manage, store and retrieve data in Sun's StarOffice productivity suite, Ximian's Evolution email/PIM client, and the GNOME desktop environment, as well as many other applications that are included with the Linux operating system. Project Mad Hatter also supports connectivity to any database with a JDBC interface..." See: (1) "Sleepycat Software Releases Berkeley DB XML Native XML Database"; (2) "Berkeley DB XML: An Embedded XML Database."
[September 17, 2003] "Attachmate to Host World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Services Choreography Working Group September 15-17, 2003." - "Attachmate Corporation, with more than 20 years of innovation in the legacy application integration space, will host the upcoming World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Services Choreography Group meeting, September 15-17, 2003, at its corporate headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. The W3C develops interoperable technologies, such as specifications, guidelines, software, and tools, to lead the Web to its full potential. W3C provides a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding between organizations. As part of W3C, the Web Services Choreography Working Group, formed in January 2003, addresses issues inherent in the development of Web services and the relationships between different levels of operations within organizations. Web Service Choreography aims at using the power of Web services to allow corporations to create business processes that mirror today's dynamic and ever-changing business needs. 'We are pleased to provide a venue for the important work being done by the W3C because it closely aligns with our customer solutions,' said Markus Nitschke, Attachmate vice president, marketing and product management. According to W3C, the term 'choreography' is used to denote the space that includes differing terminology in the industry, such as orchestration, collaboration, coordination, and conversations -- these terms share a common characteristic of describing linkages and usage patterns between Web services. There is a need for a common interface and composition language to help address choreography. Corporations can expose their application software and resources as Web services so that other corporations can dynamically find and use them in their business processes. Creating a business process requires not only a clear definition of collaboration patterns of all its components but also a way of depicting standard B2B interactions... Attachmate Corporation is a privately held, worldwide supplier of host data and business-logic access and management solutions for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. The company provides solutions for direct, real-time access to back-office systems, Web-to-host and desktop-to-host solutions, and flexible enterprise application integration and Web service offerings. Attachmate is member of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Unisys Partner, and BEA Star Partner..." See: (1) W3C Web Services Choreography Working Group; (2) general references in "Messaging and Transaction Coordination."
[September 16, 2003] "XML Common Biometric Format (XCBF) Ratified as OASIS Standard." - "The OASIS standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the XML Common Biometric Format (XCBF) version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. XCBF provides a standard way to describe information that verifies identity based on human characteristics such as DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, and hand geometry. XCBF can be used in applications as varied as homeland security, corporate privacy, law enforcement, and biotechnical research. It will assist in identifying citizenship, measuring attendance, controlling access to documents, facilitating non-repudiation in commerce, and many other functions... XCBF adds to the growing portfolio of OASIS Standards and specifications for security, which also includes SAML for exchanging authentication and authorization information, SPML for provisioning, XACML for access control, WS-Security, and others. OASIS currently has more than 60 active technical committees. Members of the OASIS XCBF Technical Committee include Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, MTG Management Consultants, and others... Tyky Aichelen of IBM, chair of the OASIS XCBF Technical Committee, stated, "XCBF bridges the gap between the worlds of biometrics and Web services, making it possible to have a common, standardized, secure way to define, store, manage, and exchange biometric information with greater interoperability between systems." "Traditional biometric standards are based on binary encoding formats, which severely limit their use in XML-enabled systems and applications," explained John Messing, American Bar Association representative to OASIS. "By providing a standard way for biometric information to be exchanged using XML, XCBF literally redefines biometrics as a practical solution for a Web-based environment'..." See: (1) OASIS XML Common Biometric Format TC website; (2) XML and Security; (3) general references in "XML Common Biometric Format (XCBF)."
[September 16, 2003] "Sun Microsystems Announces Vision and Initiative for Enterprise Auto-ID/EPC Deployments. Newly Formed Sun Business Leads Auto-ID/EPC Product and Market Development Efforts." - "Sun Microsystems today announced its enterprise Auto-ID initiative. Sun, an Auto-ID leader and visionary with over three years of involvement as a leading member of and advisor to the Auto-ID Center, along with partners including Alien Technology, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, ConnecTerra, Gorilla Logic, Manhattan Associates, Provia, ThingMagic, Tyco Sensormatic, VeriSign and Xterprise, announces the vision and initiative for delivering the hardware, software and services that enable enterprises to link into the EPC (Electronic Product Code) Network. The EPC Network helps make the supply chain efficient, safe and secure by tracking goods along the way, reducing threats of counterfeiting, tampering and terrorism while increasing regulatory compliance. Further accelerating its presence in the Auto-ID market, Sun today also named Julie Sarbacker as director of a new Auto-ID Business Unit at Sun Microsystems. This new business unit will work aggressively with customers and partners to develop and deliver a standards-based Auto-ID/EPC Solution. Encompassing hardware, software, services and best-of-breed partnerships, Sun's enterprise Auto-ID initiative and proposed solution go far beyond that of any other company today. The initiative will help enterprises integrate real-time supply chain data seamlessly into their existing business processes and enterprise assets. 'Sun welcomes all Wal-Mart suppliers, and all other companies seeking to leverage EPC deployments to comply with next generation Auto-ID standards,' said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president for Sun Software. 'Our commitment is indisputable -- with an Auto-ID Business Unit, Julie Sarbacker's executive leadership -- and now with a commitment to leverage our Java Enterprise System in pursuit of Auto-ID opportunities, Sun has clearly set itself apart from those simply writing press releases. Auto-ID is here, and so is Sun with technology and programs.' Enterprise-class reliability, availability and scalability (RAS) is delivered through Solaris OE and Linux-based hardware platforms from Sun, setting the stage for transparent integration into the EPC Network. Sun's software for managing EPC events and the Sun ONE Integration Server are the key software components for this comprehensive offering. Based on the standards set forth today by the Auto-ID Center, Sun software tightly manages EPC events. Specifically designed for the enterprise, the software will deliver a dynamic federated service architecture emphasizing RAS along with manageability and integratability for Auto-ID pilots and deployments. The proposed solution will also include lifecycle services to maximize the value of Auto-ID deployments, helping customers proactively architect, implement and manage IT operations in heterogeneous environments..." See: (1) "Physical Markup Language (PML) for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)"; (2) "Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Resources and Readings."
[September 15, 2003] "IBM Announces Comprehensive New RFID Service. Helping Retailers and Consumer Packaged Goods Companies Boost Accuracy in Picking, Packing, Shipping. Cutting Theft in the Supply Chain." - "IBM today announced a comprehensive new service to help retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies harness radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for advanced product tracking and inventory control. IBM made the announcement at the Electronic Product Code Symposium here, where the company conducted live demonstrations of pallets and computer read-outs that show how goods move through -- and are automatically tracked by -- the RFID system, and how payments and inventory are expedited. IBM's offering, which comprises consulting and implementation services as well as specialized software, gives companies a phased approach to RFID. The IBM offering is based on open standards and leverages existing technology investments by linking with the retailer's existing back-end inventory system. It is based on Websphere Business Integrator running on WebSphere Application Server, DB2 Information Integrator, Tivoli Access Manager, and WebSphere Portal Server. Phases: (1) Phase I includes consulting and development of the business case for RFID; (2) Phase II is a 12-week pilot; (3) Phase III, IBM provides the full roll-out of the system... It is estimated that the retail industry, alone, could reduce inventory levels by 25 percent, saving billions of dollars annually by tagging products and using computers to automatically trace them from the warehouse through shipping and to store shelves. In June, executives at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, called for their top 100 suppliers to implement an RFID system at the case and pallet level by 2005. More recently this was extended to all their suppliers by 2006. 'IBM believes RFID's time has come,' said Faye Holland, worldwide RFID leader, IBM Global Services. 'As our retail and CPG customers see the dramatic benefits this technology brings in cost reduction, improved customer service and streamlined operations, the demand is escalating for RFID expertise, and IBM -- with its Business Partners -- is perfectly aligned to deliver the most comprehensive RFID solution in the marketplace'..." See: (1) "Physical Markup Language (PML) for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)"; (2) "Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Resources and Readings."
[September 15, 2003] "ODRL International Workshop 2004 In Vienna." - "The ODRL International Workshop 2004 will be held in Vienna, Austria on 21-23 April 2004. Over the past four years the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) Initiative has gained international significance in the field of digital rights management (DRM) for many sectors and communities. Rights Expression Languages (REL) enable the formalisation of standard and interoperable semantic agreements and contracts from rights holders over the usage of their content by end users and other parties. RELs, like ODRL, are seen as key infrastructure for the management and trading of digital content on the Internet. The ODRL rights expression language has been adopted as an international standard by the Open Mobile Alliance for mobile content and numerous projects and groups around the world. The objective of the ODRL International Workshop is to bring together the research and industry communities to share experiences and discuss the future developments of the language to ensure its timeliness, usability, openness, and future success. The ODRL International Workshop topics of interest include, but are not restricted to, the following aspects: Implementations of ODRL or parts of ODRL; Processing of ODRL instances in applications; Language concepts and semantics of ODRL; Technical and Semantics Extensions to ODRL; Industry and Research Experiences with ODRL; Domain Specific Vocabularies and Profiles of ODRL; Deploying ODRL for Rights Expressions and Contract Modelling; Potential applications for the use of Rights Expression Languages. The Call for Participation includes the details of the submission requirements for the Workshop..." See also: (1) Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) Initiative website; (2) Open Mobile Alliance; (3) local references in "Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL)"; (4) general references in "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."
[September 15, 2003] "Center for Document Engineering Established at UC Berkeley. Focal Point for Initiatives in XML and Model-Based Approaches for Automatable, Standards-Based Business Computing." - "UC Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) and the e-Berkeley Program have established the Center for Document Engineering (CDE). The CDE's mission is 'to invent, evaluate, and promote model-driven technologies and methods' that allow business semantics to drive IT systems. The CDE's origins date to Spring 2002 when SIMS became the first academic institution in the world to teach courses on Document Engineering, emphasizing analysis and design methods that yield XML-encodable models of business processes and business documents. A collaboration with the e-Berkeley Program began soon afterwards because of the natural fit with e-Berkeley's goal of using the Web to transform the University's information-intensive operations. Dr. Robert Glushko, an Adjunct Professor at SIMS and an XML industry veteran, is the Director of the CDE. Glushko said, 'The complex legacy computing environment of the University is a perfect test bed for XML, information architecture, and web services and the E-Berkeley program is a perfect partner for an academic research team.' Jon Conhaim, who heads the E-Berkeley program, will serve as Associate Director of the CDE... The CDE will create, collect, and disseminate XML schemas, software, best practices, and other content for building web services and applications that allow business semantics to drive IT systems and automate business processes. 'I'm delighted to see Berkeley take the lead in the emerging discipline of document engineering, which will be critical to the development of the data standards on which the next generation of electronic commerce systems will be constructed,' said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, leader of the working groups that created the XML and the Universal Business Language (UBL). 'An enlightened public policy requires the existence of unbiased centers for the development and vendor-neutral evaluation of technologies for business data modeling. The establishment of the Center for Document Engineering represents a milestone in the development of our future business infrastructure and a model for the creation of similar programs in other colleges and universities.' The first initiative of the CDE is the Berkeley Academic Business Language (BABL), an evolving set of models and associated XML schemas for the domain of University education and operations. A second major CDE initiative is an XML application platform that uses models like those in BABL to implement enterprise-class applications whose core data-models are encoded in XML. This platform allows developers to represent data models, business rules, workflow specifications, and user interfaces as externalized XML documents, rather than mixing and scattering them throughout application code. This will make it easier for nonprogrammers to design, develop, and maintain forms and workflow-based Internet applications..." See details in the news story: "Berkeley Center for Document Engineering (CDE) Promotes XML-Encodable Business Models."
[September 15, 2003] "Talking Blocks, CA, and, IBM Announce Submission of Web Services Manageability Standard to OASIS. Leaders in Systems and Web Services Management Create and Jointly Submit Standard to OASIS Web Services Distributed Management Technical Committee." - "Talking Blocks in collaboration with Computer Associates International, Inc. and IBM, will today announce a proposed standard for Web services manageability. The three companies will jointly submit the proposal to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) technical committee. The tenets of the proposed standard create an easily implemented Web services solution that dramatically reduces the amount of custom development that must be done on an ongoing basis. Specifically, the proposed standard: (1) Enhances manageability with XML and WSDL; (2) Uses existing infrastructure mechanisms; (3) Is fully consistent with existing standards based Web Services infrastructures; (4) Does not imply the implementation of the manageability or the manager..." See details in the news story "IBM, Computer Associates, and Talking Blocks Release WS-Manageability Specification."
[September 11, 2003] "Sun is First to Market With Platform for WS-I Compliant Web Services Applications. Recent Beta Release of the J2EE 1.4 Software Developer Kit and Java Web Services Developer Pack 1.2 Demonstrate Sun's Java Web Services Leadership." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the availability of a qualification release of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version 1.4 source code for licensees of the J2EE platform. Available less than one month after the WS-I Basic Profile was finalized, the source code delivers support for the final WS-I Basic Profile and includes the J2EE programming model for portable Web services applications. The source-code release includes compatibility tests, allowing J2EE licensees to make progress on implementing J2EE 1.4. 'With our partners and as a WS-I board member, Sun is leading the charge in supporting standards-compliant, Java Web Services platforms,' said Jeff Jackson, vice president of Sun J2EE platform and application server engineering, Sun Microsystems, Inc. 'Java and Web Services merge in J2EE 1.4 as the preferred platform for building enterprise-grade applications and the only available software environment that is platform independent and interoperable by design. The introduction of J2EE 1.4, with its support for more Web services standards and protocols than any other platform, is a prime example of Sun's leadership position in this space.' WS-I specifications are designed to ensure interoperability between different vendors' Web services products. Through the Java Community Process (JCP), Java provides open application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide enterprises with a choice and to keep developers from becoming dependent upon a single vendor's technology. Java developers can save time and money by working with standard APIs for XML (Extensible Markup Language) and Web Services, such as JAXP, JAXB, JAX-RPC and JAX-R, instead of proprietary APIs that may change from vendor to vendor. Java and XML technologies allow users to easily develop applications that can be seamlessly deployed across all major operating platforms, including Solaris, Linux and Windows. In addition, Java developers won't be tasked with learning specific Web services specifications or acquiring WS-I interoperability expertise, because profile guidelines are included in Java platforms and development toolkits such as the Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP). The Java platform also enables IT organizations to leverage their current technology investments by providing simplified integration with applications and legacy systems, reducing cost and complexity within the organization. As a board member of the WS-I organization, Sun is continuing to make key technological contributions to enhance the interoperability of Web services. To date, Sun has released several versions of its J2EE platform based on early WS-I specifications, such as Java Web Services Developer Pack 1.2 and J2EE 1.4 SDK Beta 2. Once J2EE 1.4 is finalized, Sun will release compatibility tests, source code and a software development toolkit (SDK). Java has long been the developer's choice for Web services, and J2EE 1.4 represents a culmination of work by the JCP and the technology industry to deliver the first platform to support the WS-I Basic Profile..." See also: Java Web Services Developer Pack V1.2 Supports WS-I, WS-Security, and UBL Applications."
[September 11, 2003] "Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) Approved as OASIS Standard. BEA Systems, Citrix Systems, Factiva, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Plumtree Software, Reed Elsevier, SAP, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, Vignette, and Other OASIS Members Standardize Integration of User-Facing Web Services." - "The OASIS standards consortium today announced that its members have approved Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. WSRP standardizes the consumption of Web services in portal front ends, as well as the way in which content providers write Web services for portals. 'WSRP defines how Web services plug into portals,' explained Delphi President, Thomas Koulopoulos. 'Once a WSRP service is published to a public directory, portal administrators are able to locate and dynamically integrate it with just a few mouse clicks. WSRP is a critical standard enabling distributed portals to share portlets as visual, user-facing Web services for integration with other portals.' WSRP eliminates the need for content aggregators to choose between locally hosting a content source or writing code specific to each remote content source. Instead, WSRP allows content to be hosted in the environment most suitable for its execution while still being easily accessed by content aggregators. The standard enables content producers to maintain control over the code that formats the presentation of their content. By reducing the cost for aggregators to access their content, WSRP increases the rate at which content sources may be easily integrated into pages for end-users. 'The OASIS WSRP Technical Committee was founded in early 2002 with the vision of providing a single interface standard for all interactive, presentation-oriented Web services. WSRP v1.0 succeeds in providing this platform neutral definition of an interface,' said Rich Thompson of IBM, chair of the OASIS WSRP Technical Committee. 'Early vendor support for WSRP -- we've tracked eight implementations to date -- clearly demonstrates the need for this standardized means of accessing remote content.' 'WSRP builds on foundational work from the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C),' said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. 'WSRP uses WSDL to describe interfaces, and requires SOAP bindings for all conformant services. WSRP is an excellent example of how an open, standards-based approach will enable end-user interactive web services to be deployed in a lower cost, faster-to-implement, plug-and-play environment.' WSRP allows remote portlet Web services to be implemented in a variety of ways, including Java/J2EE and Microsoft's .NET platform. WSRP is the result of a collaboration of 25 OASIS member companies..." See details in the news story: "Web Services for Remote Portlets Specification Approved as OASIS Standard."
[September 9, 2003] "Advent 3B2 Launches 3B2-FO, A New XSL-FO Rendering Tool, At Seybold San Francisco 2003." - "Advent 3B2, a leading supplier of standards-based publishing software, is announcing a new, quality-oriented, Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Object (XSL-FO) rendering engine called 3B2-FO at Seybold San Francisco 2003. Advent 3B2-FO software has been singled out as a Hot Pick by the editorial staff of The Seybold Report: Analyzing Publishing Technologies, as a product that should not be missed on the show floor... Advent 3B2-FO software supports both simplified yet flexible document production workflows for adding composition and page formatting information to XML documents so they can be printed. In operation 3B2-FO takes either ready-made XSL-FO files containing layout and formatting data, or files containing raw XML content plus an XSLT transformation script, and converts them into printable Postscript or PDF files. Advent 3B2-FO software was developed in accordance with the W3C XSL 1.0 recommendation of October 15, 2001. In addition to providing compliance with the W3C XSL-FO specification, the software engine includes a number of additional functions that provide extended composition and page layout controls. These will give users more versatile document formatting capabilities resulting in higher quality document aesthetics. The additional capabilities in 3B2-FO include controls over vertical justification on a page, extensive hyphenation controls, and the ability to add crop marks and registration marks to a page. Hyphenation features include the ability to specify the number of characters in words that can be hyphenated, the ability to prevent hyphenation at the end of a block and to use caps to keep capitalized words together, spacing controls (plus and minus) for letter and word spacing of text. Advent intends to add additional extended functionality to 3B2-FO over time. 'We announced our intention to develop an XSL-FO rendering tool last year at our annual International Conference in Atlanta,'comments George Punton, President of Advent Publishing Systems. 'We believe that publishers of XML documents will appreciate the advantages 3B2-FO delivers in terms of expanded functionality and the ability to produce higher quality documents compared to the other engines on the market. Should they eventually require even more comprehensive composition and pagination formatting capabilities, our high-end 3B2 software which is also fully XML compliant, is a logical upgrade path.' 3B2-FO is based on the composition and pagination formatting capabilities of Advent's 3B2 professional publishing software which has been in use in high end STM journal, legal, financial, book, and technical documentation publishing environments worldwide for over 16 years. Because it is based on this mature foundation, Advent expects its 3B2-FO software will provide an unprecedented level of performance and reliability... Advents global customer base includes The European Parliament, Boeing, GlaxoSmithKline, the US Patent and Trademark Office, Bertelsmann and the Canadian House of Commons. The Advent Group consists of Advent Publishing Systems UK (the parent company), Advent 3B2 GmbH (Germany), and Advent 3B2 Inc.(USA)..." See also (1) the FAQ document; (2) "XSL/XSLT Software Support."
[September 09, 2003] "Cisco Systems Unveils Color IP Telephone, A Powerful New Platform for Network-Based Productivity Applications. XML Developers at Cisco ITC Expo Demonstrate Advanced Business Applications on Cisco IP Phones." - "Cisco Systems today announced a new Internet Protocol (IP) telephone with a high resolution, color touch screen, as well as enhancements to two of its entry-level IP phones, which enable a host of compelling new productivity applications that have the potential to greatly improve business processes. The new Cisco color IP Phone 7970G, and XML support on the Cisco IP Phones 7905G and 7912G will be unveiled at the third annual Cisco Innovation Through Convergence Expo (ITC) September 10-12, 2003 at the Westin Santa Clara Hotel in Santa Clara, California. The Cisco ITC Expo provides Cisco's growing community of Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) partners the opportunity to showcase their innovative Extensible Markup Language (XML) applications running on Cisco AVVID networks. Cisco has introduced five new IP phones in the last year, extending the company's industry-leading portfolio of IP phones, to meet the wide range of business user requirements. Building on the success of Cisco's existing IP Phone 7940G and 7960G with grey scale pixel-based displays, the Cisco IP Phone 7970G enables users to take advantage of a high resolution color graphics display and touch screen to gain desktop access to enhanced images and more detailed network data, improving employee productivity and customer satisfaction... The Cisco IP Phone 7970G supports a comprehensive suite of advanced applications for mobility and collaboration, especially for workers in industry segments such as retail, hospitality, education and government. The IP phone's high-resolution color touch screen delivers high impact color graphics applications that make accessing and interacting with multi-media services faster, easier and more intuitive... Cisco today also announced the availability of XML and network based application support on the entry-level Cisco IP Phones 7905G and 7912G. The added XML-support on these entry-level phones enables users to access business information using the monochrome pixel-based display, extending productivity applications to a broader range of users... Cisco's growing portfolio of XML-enabled phones, such as the new Cisco IP Phone 7970G and enhanced 7905G and 7912G, as well as the 7940G and 7960G enable customization and integration, connecting business processes and people to critical information by providing display-based access to services and applications. Users can easily access information and perform tasks including: (1) Retail: Check customer order on the inventory tracking database using an IP Phone while talking to the customer on the phone -- including a tracking number, confirmation, and delivery details; (2) Hospitality: Use the displays on the IP Phones in hotel rooms to make dining reservations, set up wake-up calls, purchase attraction tickets, get directions, and check on flight status; (3) Education: Take student attendance, locate students, issue monitor passes and daily bulletins; (4) Government: Communicate instantly with employees through instant text messaging and audio streaming to all or selected groups of IP Phones; (5) General Office: Access visual corporate directories with photo images, identify the called or calling party, and touch a section of a colored graph showing on the phone screen to gather details on a statistic..." See additional information appended to the announcement.
[September 08, 2003] "Ipedo Announces New Multi-Source Enterprise Information Integration (EII) Capabilities. Completes Industry-First Realtime Assimilation of Oracle 9i, DB2, MySQL, SQL Server and Web Services Data." - "Ipedo, a leading provider of software that integrates and delivers realtime views of information, today announced the first software platform to complete concurrent assimilation of complex information sets from Oracle 9i, DB2, MySQL, SQL Server and Web Services. The information integration was done using Ipedo's powerful XML-based views and query technologies. With this new capability, Ipedo allows enterprises to create custom information views on demand. Organizations can use these capabilities in a range of corporate initiatives that require composites of disparate information, including employee or partner portals, executive dashboards, and reporting applications. Unlike previous integration technologies, the powerful XML-driven EII capabilities of the Ipedo XML Information Hub go beyond integration and allow custom assembly and persistence of information, in the variety of industry standard formats. The testing was done using the Ipedo XML Information Hub 3.3 with Oracle 9iR2, DB2 Universal Database v3.1, MySQL Pro v4.0, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition, and a public Web Service from Google. Information was integrated using XQuery to quickly aggregate real-time business information across multiple sources, leveraging Ipedo's XML Views, Web Services Views, Content Conversion and Universal XQuery Engine capabilities. Details of these features include: (1) XML Views: Creates 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. (2) Web Services Views: Real-time queryable views of Web Services allow applications to integrate and control feeds of information, presented in a common XML format that can be simply combined with other local and remote information sources. (3) Universal XQuery: The distributed XQuery engine searches information across any arbitrary information set using powerful query tools built on open standards. Information is indexed at a highly granular level and indexes are automatically regenerated to insure consistent search performance and quality. (4) Content Conversion: Allows users to create XML representations unstructured content or document sources, including text files, Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Converted XML content can be staged in the Ipedo XML Information Hub for subsequent integration with other business information, and delivery to multiple target systems..."
[September 8, 2003] "PureEdge, ACORD Work Together to Provide Insurance Brokers and Companies with Greater Efficiency in Data Collection and Management. Development of ACORD XML Forms to Cut Processing Time and Operational Costs, Improve Data Accuracy." - "PureEdge Solutions Inc., the leader in secure, XML forms-based business process automation, today announced it is working with the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) to develop ACORD XML forms using PureEdge XML technology for use by ACORD's customers. ACORD, a non-profit membership organization aimed at developing data standards for the insurance industry, is leveraging its XML standards to enhance the functionality of the ACORD forms. The new smart e-forms will create opportunities for vendors to develop a broad array of applications that can integrate with agents and brokers' systems and streamline the workflow for carriers. Recently, Microsoft announced it was making ACORD Forms accessible to ACORD Advantage participants through the InfoPath application, which is part of its new Office 11 suite of products. These strategic partnerships between PureEdge, Microsoft and ACORD will cut processing time and operational costs while improving the accuracy of data. Forms will be accessible to insurance providers via point-to-point services, Web services, fax, print and email. Most insurance providers acknowledge the way they gather information via paper forms is both inefficient and cumbersome. In the past, while some custom solutions have been developed to help insurance workers enter data electronically, to date there has been no standardization of the workflow surrounding insurance industry e-forms. For insurance companies, the use of XML-based forms will streamline the collection of data, and then that data can be seamlessly transferred between applications as needed, providing real-time data processing... 'Our work with ACORD reinforces XML as a key standard in insurance transaction processing,' said Mark Upson, President and CEO, PureEdge Solutions. 'By combining business standards with XML data standards the insurance industry will be able to significantly improve on their current means of doing business which ultimately benefits customers. This announcement is evidence of PureEdge's continued commitment to its core vertical markets, and vision of delivering solutions that address the specific pain points within these industries.' By converting the forms into XML e-forms using PureEdge technology, ACORD's standardized forms will become much more dynamic and offer more intelligence in order to seamlessly manage and automate the business process associated with the form. The delivery of this new offering comes as part of PureEdge's business process automation framework, composed of products, partnerships and services to create, manage and deploy XML forms-based processes. With PureEdge, users have the ability to digitally sign documents, use both adhoc and structured routing, work remotely, move data in and out of corporate systems and store all elements of a process in one secure file..."
[September 04, 2003] "Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC and Oracle Showcase Reliable Web Services. OASIS Members Demonstrate Successful Interoperability of Reliable Messaging for Web Services at Technical Committee Meeting." - "Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, Ltd., NEC Corp. and Oracle Corp. today announced that they have successfully demonstrated interoperability between four independent implementations of reliable Web services based on the Web Services-Reliability (WS-Reliability) specification, which the companies jointly submitted to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) in January. The WS-Reliability specification defines an open reliable messaging infrastructure that enables companies to conduct reliable business-to-business trading or collaboration using Web services. This demonstration is the first deliverable of an ongoing Proof-of-Concept activity for the Web Services-Reliability specification. The OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-RM) Technical Committee members plan to update their implementations to accommodate the upcoming release of the next version of the specification, already under development by the committee. The interoperability demonstration will be conducted today during the latest WS-RM Technical Committee meeting in Bedford, Massachusetts. The WS-Reliability specification enabled the four Web service applications used in the Proof-of-Concept demonstration to reliably exchange messages over an unreliable network test bed that simulates message loss, duplication and delays. The network test bed will be used by the group for future WS-Reliability interoperability tests. Additional supporters of WS-Reliability are expected to participate in future Proof-of-Concept demonstrations. The demonstration highlights two functions of the WS-Reliability specification. The first one is 'Guaranteed Delivery' in which the sender will automatically resend the same message if no positive acknowledgement was received, and the other is 'Duplicate Elimination' in which the receiving application eliminates duplicates of the same message. These two functions greatly improve the reliability and efficiency of business applications, by preventing message loss and duplication. This will allow, for example, buyers to ensure that Purchase Order messages are successfully delivered to their suppliers, and prevent suppliers from receiving duplicate orders due to network routing problems. In addition to guaranteed delivery and duplicate elimination, the OASIS WS-Reliability specification also addresses message delivery management, including message persistence, ordered delivery, and delivery status notifications for sending and receiving applications..." See also: (1) "Reliable Messaging"; (2) "OASIS Members Form Technical Committee for Web Services Reliable Messaging"; (3) OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging TC website.
[September 04, 2003] "HP Advances Grid Strategy for the Adaptive Enterprise. HP Systems to be Grid-enabled. Grid Services to Simplify Use, Management of Infrastructure Resources." - "HP today announced plans to further enable its enterprise infrastructure technologies for grid computing. By leveraging open grid standards, HP plans to help customers simplify the use and management of distributed IT (information technology) resources. The initiative will integrate industry grid standards, including the Globus Toolkit and Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA), across HP's enterprise product lines. HP also announced enterprise consulting within HP Services for grid-based platforms. HP Services will provide management, deployment and lifecycle support of grid architectures. HP's product and service plans extend the company's Adaptive Enterprise strategy to perfectly synchronize business and IT. Grid computing will enable enterprises to draw on IT resources anywhere in the world to meet their dynamic needs for computing resources. Analysts have estimated grid software and services will become a $4 billion market by 2008, but HP expects the opportunity to be significantly larger as corporate IT departments embrace the grid. 'HP started developing grid-like infrastructures more than five years ago. Grid is an important piece of the HP Adaptive Enterprise strategy, where today, we see the shared computing vision soon turning into reality as commercial enterprises more aggressively seek the agility and cost benefits the grid affords,' said Shane Robison, chief strategy and technology officer, HP. 'The grid has the potential to solve real business problems by simplifying global access to enterprise computing services. 'For CIOs, the grid can help better synchronize business and technology demands in real time. To help realize that potential, HP has committed to grid-enable our IT systems. Over the next few years, this means products ranging from HP's smallest handhelds, printers and PCs to our most powerful storage arrays and supercomputers, will be able to connect with and serve as resources on the grid.' The 'grid' concept was formally developed in the mid-1990s as a shared computing approach that coordinates decentralized resources and uses open, general-purpose protocols and interfaces to deliver high-quality service levels. The grid is designed to render almost anything in IT -- computers, processing power, data, Web services, storage space, software applications, data files or devices -- as a 'grid service.' Today, HP delivers grid-enabled services, solutions and products to help enterprises better manage and capitalize on change..." See details and references in the news story "HP Integrates Industry Grid Standards Across All Enterprise Product Lines."
[September 03, 2003] "Systinet WASP Developer, 4.6 Extends Popular Java IDEs for Web Services Creation, Supports SOAP 1.2, WS-Security." - "Systinet, the leading independent provider of Web services infrastructure software, today [August 25, 2003] announced the availability of WASP Developer, 4.6, which seamlessly extends the industry's most popular Java IDEs to support Web services creation, debugging and deployment. The new release includes unique support for OASIS Web Services Security (WS-S), providing standards-based message-level security. WASP Developer also offers full support for SOAP 1.2, SOAP with attachments, and the industry's most comprehensive support for Java Web services APIs, including JAX-RPC, JAXM, and SAAJ. WASP Developer, 4.6 is available for the latest editions of Sun ONE Studio/NetBeans, Eclipse, IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer, and Borland JBuilder. WASP Developer is offered free. WASP Developer, 4.6 provides a point-and-click experience that quickly turns any existing Java application into a Web service in minutes, allowing customers to leverage the benefits of Web services quickly and efficiently. New features in the 4.6 release include: (1) SOAP 1.2 Support WASP Server for Java, 4.6 was used as a reference implementation by the W3C for the latest SOAP 1.2 specification. The standard offers a much clearer framework for extensibility, which ensures interoperability between different SOAP implementations. (2) Support for Web Services Security (WS-Security): In addition to the many security capabilities already in WASP Developer, version 4.6 now includes WS-S message-level security. WASP supports both the OASIS WS-Security standard currently and the earlier, Microsoft-IBM WS-Security specifications. This ensures that WASP is compatible with all WS-Security implementations. (3) SOAP with Attachments: WASP Developer supports MIME and DIME encoding of SOAP attachments. Most vendors have standardized on the newer DIME mechanism for handling SOAP attachments. WASP Developer can automatically generate client-side code for an existing Web service, regardless of where it is running, what programming language it used for development, or what SOAP implementation it is running on. WASP Developer also automates the conversion of Java to WSDL, or WSDL to Java. WASP Developers can browse UDDI registries, select a Web service, import its WSDL file, and generate client code. WASP Developer 4.6 also publishes to a UDDI directory, greatly simplifying the discovery process. Integrated debugging supports client- and server-side debugging - there's no need for an external debugging tool. SOAP Spy is an interactive message-tracking console that traces SOAP messages and allows arbitrary modification of any SOAP request. WASP Developer, 4.6 is designed to make developers quickly productive: it leverages popular and familiar IDEs, automates the creation process, and provides integrated tools for debugging and message tracking..."
[September 03, 2003] "Plumtree Ships Products to Fully Support WSRP and Proposed JSR 168 Portlet Standards. Plumtree's Standards Implementation Consumes Portlets from BEA, Citrix, IBM, and Oracle." - "Enterprise Web leader Plumtree Software today released new software to support Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) from OASIS and the proposed final draft of the Java Specification Request 168 (JSR 168) portlet standard. Plumtree is one of the first software vendors to release products for supporting the new WSRP and the proposed JSR 168 portlet standards, and one of the only vendors to build and test those products for use on application servers from several different vendors. For both standards implementations, Plumtree's support extends to versions 4.5, 4.5WS and 5.0 of the Plumtree Corporate Portal. The standards are important to Plumtree because they free customers from basing technology decisions on whether a vendor's proprietary conventions will prevail in the market: a customer investing in Plumtree's industry-leading Enterprise Web software can now develop industry-standard portlets, and ensure that the investment can be put to work within virtually any portal... Plumtree's implementations of WSRP and of the proposed JSR 168 standard are based on its Web Services Architecture, which allows portlets to run remotely from the application server hosting the portal. This architecture helps ensure that the portal remains open to resources hosted on a wide range of application servers, and unaffected by faults in any one portlet. This architecture also supports a wide range of other integration components that run as Web services, for indexing content, importing security information, federating searches and profiling users. Plumtree is one of the only vendors that has published performance and scale-test data for a Web services-oriented architecture, and has successfully deployed hundreds of portals based on that architecture... To support JSR 168, Plumtree participated in the Java Community Process review of the draft standard, developed the Plumtree JSR 168 Portlet Container based on the proposed final draft, and pre-tested the Plumtree Container against the current version of the JSR 168 Technology Compatibility Kit to prepare for full compatibility. Plumtree plans to update its container with any changes made in the final release of the JSR 168 standard. In any implementation of JSR 168, the portal communicates with a container, which contains the actual JSR 168 portlet. Unlike implementations planned by some other vendors for JSR 168, the Plumtree Container was designed to run on many application servers and Web servers including Apache Tomcat, BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere... As a major participant in the OASIS WSRP Technical Committee, Plumtree is now releasing its WSRP Portlet Consumer to allow customers to embed WSRP-portlets in Plumtree-powered Web applications. Plumtree's WSRP Portlet Consumer is a software component that acts as the intermediary between the portal and the raw WSRP portlet, which is known as the WSRP producer. The Plumtree WSRP Portlet Consumer can run on the same platform as the producer, on the portal, or on a middle tier between the portal and the WSRP producer, offering customers flexibility in scaling the portal deployment to many business units, each with their own portlets..." See: (1) Plumtree Corporate Portal; (2) "JSR 168 Portlet API Specification 1.0 Released for Public Review"; (3) OASIS Web Services for Remote Portlets TC website; (4) "Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP)."
[September 02, 2003] "Uniform Code Council's U Connect Conference to Connect People, Process and Technology. Expanded Conference May 25-27, 2004 to Feature over 90 Sessions." - "The Uniform Code Council (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, announced today that the organization will hold its annual U Connect Conference May 25-27, 2004, at the Hilton Anaheim Resort in Anaheim, California. The three-day education and networking event will bring together a global audience of supply chain technology users from a variety of industries for educational sessions, networking opportunities, and an exhibition by technology vendors. In 2003, the conference accounted for nearly 1,200 supply chain professionals, including consultants, solution providers and technology executives. 'There is no greater need in our knowledge-based economy than to be connected with the people, process and technology that drive business. The 2004 U Connect Conference is planned around this concept,' said Tom Rittenhouse, President and Chief Executive Officer of the UCC. 'U Connect will deliver a comprehensive educational and business-building experience for attendees.' The conference focuses on how companies can employ the latest standards-based solutions, technologies, and business processes to manage their supply chain more efficiently. Sessions will deliver insight from industry professionals about practical applications and case studies on improving business practices and solving supply chain challenges. 'Year after year, U Connect proves itself as a unique conference that truly is developed by supply chain technology users to benefit supply chain technology users,' said Becky Pickett, Development Manager, eBusiness, Ahold Information Services. 'Whether you are a new attendee or have been to U Connect in the past, you will walk away with the knowledge and tools to bring more efficiency to your business.' The 2004 U Connect Conference will offer more than 90 informative sessions that cover business-critical topics... Tracks include: (1) Implementing Foundational Data will offer 'how-to' basics and case studies on implementing UCC keys, including Global Trade Item Identification Numbers (GTIN), Serial Shipping Container Codes (SSCC), Global Location Numbers (GLN), and Global Individual Asset Identifiers (GIAI). (2) Electronic Product Code (EPC): Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) To 'E'Volutionize The Supply Chain will cover the commercialization of the electronic product code (EPC), which has begun through a joint venture of the UCC and EAN International. This global industry initiative has the potential to transform the supply chain and deliver unprecedented benefits. The track will focus on how the EPC is moving from the laboratory to the real world and give attendees the roadmap they will need to get started. (3) Data Synchronization will offer information on UCCnet foundational services, comprehensive sessions on the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN), and case studies on implementations of GDSN. (4) Technologies and Standards in Trading Partnerships will include business case examples and discussions on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Extensible Markup Language (XML), EDI over the Internet (AS2), and Business to Business (B2B) integration. (5) Collaborative Commerce Standards Development and Implementation will provide information about the Global Standards Management Process (GSMP), current and future initiatives of the process, and the global standards of foundational data. (6) Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) will provide an understanding of CPFR, the value it can bring to a company, and the barriers that companies have encountered when implementing CPFR..."
[September 02, 2003] "Webswell Connect 1.1 Beta Provides Open Source ebXML Integration Framework." - "The Webswell company has launched a new release of its open source ebXML integration framework Webswell Connect, version 1.1 Beta. The 1.1. Beta version contains: (1) E-business registry server and client. The server stores and allows to find and process information about partners participating (or willing to participate) in e-business integration. The information includes partner profiles, technical descriptions of services, business processes and technical agreements. This component is based on ebxmlrr registry and repository implementation. (2) Messaging system, a component responsible for secure and reliable messaging between communicating parties. It is used for transmitting business documents during business transactions (which can be conducted by special agreements between business partners). (3) Simple user interface for sending/handling messages. It allows end users to participate in e-business transactions without having full framework with business processes implementations installed. Additional software necessary for installation, configuration and running of the framework (database server, Tomcat, etc.) All components are preconfigured and ready to use. Webswell Connect allows easy, interactive and user-friendly installation. It is entirely open source, free and available for download..." General references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[August 28, 2003] "First Opera for Bidirectional Languages. Opera 7.20 for Windows Fine-Tunes Speed and Performance." - "Opera Software today released Opera 7.20 for Windows Beta. The new release makes it truer than ever that Opera adheres to the its popular tagline 'The Fastest Browser on Earth,' with Opera's engineers having fine-tuned version 7's development branch for maximum performance. Opera 7 for Windows is Opera's most successful version ever, with over 10 million copies downloaded so far just from www.opera.com. In addition to the copies downloaded from Opera's homepage are the many millions more downloaded from other sites around the world. With Opera 7.20's added support for bidirectional languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, Opera is now a true global browser. At the same time, recent press reports indicate that IE is slowing down browser development and that development of Netscape has been largely abandoned. Microsoft will not develop the stand-alone version of Internet Explorer further, instead going for full integration in the upcoming 'Longhorn' operating system to be released in a few years time. Internet Explorer users thus need to buy a new operating system to get a new browser. This leaves Opera as the only major commercial player continuing to push browser development, offering a vast number of new users a continually up-to-date and enhanced Internet experience. 'Opera 7 has been greeted with cheers from users and press all over the world. By continuously listening closely to our users throughout Opera's development cycle over the years, we have succeeded in creating the very best browser there is,' says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software ASA. 'This technological lead is further expanded with today's release. The feedback from our testers has been unison: Opera 7.20 significantly boosts speed and performance.' Opera 7.20 for Windows has already been released in pre-beta versions not announced to the wider public. Opera's Elektrans, the volunteer group that helps millions of Opera users get the very best Internet experience available in every release, has joined forces with a select group of power users that frequent Opera's newsgroups and forums. This elite group has run Opera 7.20 through intensive stress-testing over the last few weeks to ensure that all critical bugs are found and fixed before the final release. The final Opera 7.20 for Windows will be released sometime later this summer." See the changelog for a list of V 7.20 features.
[August 25, 2003] "Waveset Offers SPML Toolkit to Promote Open Standards for Provisioning Across Diverse Identity Infrastructures." - "Waveset Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of innovative identity management solutions, today announced it has developed the industry's first open source SPML (Service Provisioning Markup Language) toolkit that allows third parties to SPML-enable their applications and management platforms. The toolkit offers an easy-to-use interface for configuring, issuing and interpreting standards-compliant provisioning requests across diverse identity infrastructures. This functionality helps organizations extend secure user access privileges and profile information to dynamic user populations, particularly in Web services environments. It is based on SPML version 1.0 which is in the final stages of ratification as an OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) worldwide standard. It is publicly available for download at no cost or restriction at www.openspml.org According to Phil Schacter, vice president of directory and security strategies at Burton Group, 'The availability of an open source implementation of SPML is a critical step in gaining broad industry adoption of this important emerging standard. Standards play a key role in an enterprise identity management architecture by solving difficult integration and interoperability problems and enabling applications to leverage the identity infrastructure independent of any specific vendor's implementation. Waveset's release of its open SPML toolkit will make it easier for both commercial application software providers and enterprise application developers to take advantage of SPML, and should lead to earlier deployment of identity management systems that incorporate support for SPML.' Platforms and software solutions that conform to the SPML specification facilitate the automation of user or system access and entitlement rights to electronic services across diverse IT infrastructures. Waveset's SPML toolkit reduces the time and technical proficiency required of programmers to build this framework by providing a simple to use and easy to understand graphical environment for SPML message generation and analysis. The toolkit also offers a unique browser capability that scans SPML-enabled provisioning systems to provide a graphical view of services offered -- much like a standard Web services UDDI browser -- as well as to generate and de-bug test requests. 'The industry has spent two years working to establish SPML as a key standard for enabling provisioning services across diverse identity infrastructures,' said Darran Rolls, directory of technology at Waveset and chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee. 'As such, it's important that tools like these be made publicly available to drive the adoption of open, standard protocols and ensure continued industry support for a Web services-based, identity-centric business process model..." General references in "XML-Based Provisioning Services."
[August 25, 2003] "Macromedia Announces Dreamweaver MX 2004. New Version Builds Foundation for Widespread Adoption of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)." - "Macromedia, Inc. today announced Dreamweaver MX 2004, the professional choice for building web sites and applications. Dreamweaver MX 2004 continues the product's tradition of innovation by providing a solid foundation for widespread adoption of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a well respected, but previously difficult to implement web standard. Because CSS helps developers separate presentation and style from content, websites built with CSS require less bandwidth, are easier to maintain, and give developers and end users precise design control. Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the only comprehensive tool to deliver deep CSS support in a visual development environment, removing the learning curve and enabling developers to use this standard to cost-effectively deliver great experiences on their web sites and applications. Dreamweaver MX 2004 builds on the success of Dreamweaver MX by further integrating visual layout tools, application development features, and code editing support within a technology-agnostic, platform-independent environment. By supporting all major HTML and server technologies, Dreamweaver MX 2004 unlocks the power of open, standards-based development for the web community while enhancing the basic tools that professionals need. Dreamweaver MX 2004 also includes SecureFTP, dynamic cross-browser validation functionality, built-in graphics editing, seamless integration with Microsoft Word and Excel, and updated support for ASP.NET, PHP, and ColdFusion server technologies... Dreamweaver MX 2004 includes state of the art, standards-based design controls to ensure high-quality design. The entire design environment is built around CSS to enable fast, more efficient development of clean-coded, professional sites with sophisticated designs. Dynamic multi-browser validation automatically checks tags and CSS rules for design compatibility across leading browsers, the most common headache for developers. A built-in graphics editor using Macromedia Fireworks technology enables users to crop, resize, and edit graphics without leaving the Dreamweaver environment... The open, technology-agnostic nature of Dreamweaver MX 2004 allows developers to work with their technologies of choice. Its platform-independent development environment supports all major server technologies, including Macromedia ColdFusion, ASP.NET, JSP, and PHP. SecureFTP encrypts all file transfers and prevents unauthorized access to data, file contents, user names, and passwords. Seamless integration with Microsoft Word and Excel enables users to preserve formatting as CSS when cutting and pasting into Dreamweaver. The product also includes tighter integration with Macromedia Flash, Fireworks, and other design and development tools in Macromedia Studio MX 2004..." See related references in "W3C Cascading Style Sheets."
[August 21, 2003] "The Uniform Code Council Solution Partner Program Launched. Solution Partners Drive Business Opportunities by Providing Integrated Solutions for UCC Member Companies." - "The Uniform Code Council, Inc. (UCC), leaders in facilitating efficient international business, recently announced the official launch of its UCC Solution Partner Program. The UCC Solution Partner Program increases awareness, adoption, and implementation of UCC standards by facilitating a partnership between the UCC and solution providers to produce standards-compliant, 'off-the-shelf' implementation solutions for the expanding UCC community. The program benefits the UCC community by providing member companies with UCC-certified resources where they can find software, hardware, and consultants for implementation services. By utilizing standardized and compliant solutions, companies will be able to minimize implementation costs, maximize supply chain cost savings, and raise productivity. UCC standards include the EAN.UCC System and RosettaNet standards. EAN.UCC System standards provide companies in 23 major industry verticals with a global language of business to uniquely identify products, assets, locations and logistics units across the global supply chain, as well as enable corresponding electronic information to be communicated in a consistent fashion. RosettaNet uses open Internet-based business standards that align processes within the global high technology and telecommunications trading networks. The new UCC Solution Partner Program serves as an umbrella program for all of the divisions of the UCC. It will support implementation of Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) and Electronic Commerce standards of the EAN.UCC System as well as UCCnet, RosettaNet, and the newly formed AutoID U.S., LLC. The UCC is currently migrating UCCnet Alliance Partners to the new UCC Solution Partner Program. The UCC Solution Partner Program will then be expanded to embrace AIDC and Electronic Commerce certification programs later in 2003, with support for the RosettaNet and AutoID U.S., LLC communities in 2004. According to UCC Senior Vice President and President of EAN.UCC Dennis Harrison, the UCC Solution Partner Program has generated significant interest from companies around the world eager to become certified UCC Solution Partners. 'This is a tremendous program that delivers cost effective solutions for our member companies and their trading partners, while driving correct implementation of Uniform Code Council standards,' said Mr. Harrison. Since the program's inception in early July 2003, the following companies have signed as UCC Solution Partners: bTrade, EDS, FullTilt Solutions, HAHT Commerce, Integrated Software Systems (ISS), iWay Software, Inc., LANSA, Ontuet Technologies, Sterling Commerce, TR2 Consulting, Thomas Smith (AGSA.US), Trigo Technologies, Inc., Velosel Corporation, and webMethods..." General references in "Uniform Code Council (UCC) XML Program."
[August 21, 2003] "ebXML Asia Committee Starts New ebXML Interoperability Certification Program. Twelve Organizations Receive Certifications on ebXML Message Service specification 2.0." - On August 8, 2003 the ebXML Asia Committee "announced the start of a new ebXML interoperability certification program and issued ebXML interoperability certification on ebXML Message Service specification 2.0, including basic functions and reliable messaging, for twelve (12) companies and organizations passed the interoperability test. Interoperability is one of key issues to realize Internet based B2B eBusiness using multi-vendor implementations,even across countries. ebXML Message Service is designed for B2B communication and its reliable messaging function is to guarantee message delivery such as arrival of a business message sent from one company to another,preservation of message order and elimination of duplicated arrival of business messages. The goal of the ebXML ASIA Committee interoperability certification is to promote ebXML through the certification of interoperability among ebXML Asia Committee members' products. The certificate includes such information as 'Class' which specifies the ebXML specification to be covered and 'Level' which specifies the test categories. ebXML Asia Committee interoperability test is performed by the Interoperability Task Group (ITG) and the interoperability certification is issued by ebXML ASIA committee... ITG will soon initiate the third round of ebXML Interoperability test, which will cover security related test items of ebXML Message Service Specification... ebXML Asia Committee is a regional committee jointly initiated by the Electronic Commerce Promotion Council of Japan (ECOM) of Japan, the Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce (KIEC) of Korea and the Taipei Computer Association of Chinese Taipei. The Committee was established in December 2000 to promote ebXML in Asia, to jointly deal with ebXML work through the cooperation among Asian countries and to facilitate electronic commerce in the Asian region. With the gradual increase of membership, there are currently more than 24 organizational members from 11 regions of Asia Pacific (Australia, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, and Thailand)..." See: (1) ebXML.org website; (2) UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Group (TMG); (3) general references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[August 21, 2003] "UDDI Operators Council Releases Version 3 of the UDDI Business Registry. Beta Version to Include Enhanced Functionality for Companies to Build Secure Web Services Registries. UDDI Operators SAP, IBM and Microsoft to Provide Beta APIs for Public Usage of UDDI Version 3 Free of Charge." - "The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Business Registry (UBR) Operators Council announced today the availability of UDDI Version 3 (V.3) beta nodes. The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration protocol is one of the major building blocks that enable successful Web service deployments. UDDI creates a standard interoperable platform that enables companies and applications to quickly, easily and dynamically find and use Web services. 'The beta release of UBR V.3 takes a further step in bringing this important specification closer to successful real-world implementations,' said Charles Abrams, research director, Gartner Research. 'The UDDI Operators Council is providing companies with an early opportunity to explore new functionality when considering extended Web service implementations.' The UDDI V.3 Specification brings the following important capabilities to the UBR: (1) User-Defined Keys: This allows users to create human readable values for keys based on the known concept of domain names. (2) UDDI Business Registry (UBR) as a Root Registry: Once the UBR migrates to V.3, the UBR will serve as the recognized root registry for globally unique keys, where affiliate registries will be able to reserve UDDI keys. (3) Portable Keys: V.3 introduces the ability to copy keys between registries without being altered, enabling public and private registries to import information from others. (4) Digital Signatures: The addition of digital signature support for entities in UDDI enables clients to establish the veracity of data registered in the UBR. UDDI is a cross-industry effort driven by major platform and software providers, as well as marketplace operators and e-business leaders within the OASIS standards consortium. IBM, Microsoft and SAP will provide UDDI V.3 beta nodes. With this beta, the UBR operators continue to provide validation of the UDDI specification through early reference implementations. Early availability of new V.3 features affords tool providers and early adopters publicly available access to this technology. The UDDI Operators Council, which consists of IBM, Microsoft, NTT Communications and SAP, continues to provide support for the momentum in the developer community to harness real-world implementations of the advanced specification. The Operators Council documents and submits their experience with the beta implementation to the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee to help refine and improve the UDDI V.3 Specification..." Further details are given in the news story: "UBR Operators Council Announces Beta Release of UDDI Business Registry for UDDI Version 3.0." See also: (1) "UDDI Version 3.0: UDDI Spec Technical Committee Specification; (2) OASIS UDDI Member Section; (3) general references in "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."
[August 2003] "OASIS ebXML Update: Completion of ebXML Second Phase." [Memo of August 27, 2003 from Patrick Gannon, President & CEO, OASIS.] "OASIS and UN/CEFACT have completed the second phase of ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), our joint initiative that began in 1999. In the first 18-month phase, joint teams completed a set of substantive technical specifications which provided an interoperable, vendor-neutral, openly available stack of XML standards for B2B e-commerce. In a second transitional phase, OASIS and UN/CEFACT split the substantive work, each housing several of the ongoing project teams while maintaining linkage through a Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC). After two years, the ebXML JCC has completed its mission. The two organizations will continue to support and promote the ebXML standards under respective separate procedures. The transitional second phase saw many successes for ebXML, including: (1) the issuance of updated versions 2.0 of the ebXML Message Service (MSG), Registry Information Model (RIM), Registry Services (RS) and Collaboration Protocol Profile & Agreement (CPPA) specifications as OASIS Standards (2) approval by the UN/CEFACT plenary of all the ebXML OASIS Standards (3) widespread implementations and tools based on ebXML, particularly by government agencies and vertical industry supply-chain consortia In its third phase, OASIS will continue to support the OASIS ebXML specifications and serve as a focal point for users and vendors interested in the maintenance, implementation and advancement of our ebXML Standards. This ongoing work includes the following: [a] OASIS Technical Committees for ebXML Messaging, CPPA, Registry/Repository, and Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) each will continue to actively develop and refine ebXML specifications in use today... [b] Additional efforts, including the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) TC, the OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging TC, and the OASIS Web Services for Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL) TC, also will have the opportunity to liaise and define interoperability with the ebXML stack. [c] OASIS will continue to maintain the www.ebxml.org informational web site that we have hosted since the project's launch... OASIS expresses its thanks to the representatives from Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Sterling Commerce, Global Exchange Services, and other organizations who served as our representatives to the ebXML Joint Coordinating Committee and the Joint Marketing Committee during the project's transitional phase. We expect to continue to promote and support various ebXML activities, directed by our four existing OASIS ebXML TCs, the OASIS ebXML Joint Committee, and such other projects as may be initiated under OASIS rules. Indeed, there are many reasons to celebrate our ebXML accomplishments, many exciting opportunities ahead, and many ways for members to drive our continued success..." See also: (1) OASIS ebXML.org website; (2) UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Group (TMG) website; (3) general references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[August 21, 2003] "UN/CEFACT Announces Successful Completion of ebXML Technical Standards Work Programme with OASIS. UN/CEFACT Continues Development of Technology- and Implementation-Neutral E-Business Standards." - "The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) announces the successful completion of the ebXML technical standards work with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). UN/CEFACT continues to capitalize on the gains made from ebXML in the further development of technology-neutral and implementation-neutral global e-Business standards for government, industry and commerce. UN/CEFACT and OASIS have since 1999 been working on a joint initiative to expand the use and growth of the Internet by developing the next generation of electronic business standards based on XML (Extensible Markup Language). The ebXML (electronic Business with XML) initiative called for an 18-month worldwide open development project to create a technical framework enabling the use of XML as a consistent means for the exchange of electronic business data. The original ebXML initiative concluded in May 2001 with full community approval of a framework of technical specifications. For the past two years, UN/CEFACT and OASIS have enjoyed a close working relationship to finalize the set of ebXML specifications, and in May 2003 the UN/CEFACT Plenary adopted these as UN/CEFACT Technical Specifications. 'Working closely with our colleagues at OASIS has been a unique opportunity for UN/CEFACT to lead the development of global technology standards and help drive awareness of how XML and Internet technology support government, industry and commerce' says Ray Walker, Chair of the UN/CEFACT Steering Group. 'We are extremely proud of our OASIS working relationship and we remain open to working with OASIS in the future.' UN/CEFACT, which is based at UNECE in Geneva and has a global remit, has led the development of international standards for electronic transactions. Its experience and its ability to bring together world-class experts and match trends in information technology with business requirements, in an open and transparent way, gives it a unique viewpoint. 'Recognition that the next technology trend is just around the corner resulted in the recent UN/CEFACT Plenary meeting directing a new work programme to move UN/CEFACT closer to web services' said Dr Christian Fruhwald, Chair of UN/CEFACT. 'This new work, known as UN/CEFACT Business Collaboration Framework (BCF), will allow UN/CEFACT to identify the growing needs of government, commercial and industrial organizations as they approach their global information exchange requirements.' 'Going forward we expect to make use of much of our ebXML technical work as we continue to develop UN/CEFACT's technology neutral and implementation neutral global e-framework. We hope to use the newly established liaisons with the OASIS Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Technical Committee (TC), plus the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and our UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Business Process Working Group to align our efforts, and eliminate duplication of work', says Klaus-Dieter Naujok Chair of UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Group and former Chair of the ebXML Project..." See also: (1) OASIS ebXML.org website; (2) UN/CEFACT Techniques and Methodologies Group (TMG) website; (3) general references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."
[August 20, 2003] "Siebel Systems and webMethods Announce Expanded Offering for Universal Application Network. Siebel Integration Applications for Communications, Media and Energy Industries Now Available on webMethods Integration Platform." - "webMethods, Inc., the leading provider of integration software enabling Global Business Visibility, and Siebel Systems, Inc., a leading provider of multichannel eBusiness application software, today announced the general availability of Universal Application Network (UAN) integration applications for the communications, media and energy (CME) industries on the webMethods Integration Platform. Developed by Siebel Systems in collaboration with leading technology companies, Universal Application Network (UAN) is a standards-based architecture for business integration. UAN includes packaged applications and industry-specific business processes that run on industry-leading integration servers, eliminating the cost and complexity associated with traditional integration methods. With UAN, companies can leverage their existing IT investments, deploy best-in-class applications, and optimize their cross-application business processes, resulting in greater organizational agility and a lower total cost of ownership. With this product release, webMethods expands support for UAN by making Siebel integration applications for the CME industries available on the webMethods Integration Platform. UAN CME is available today on webMethods 6 and includes prebuilt objects, transformations, and business process logic to enable rapid, cost-effective delivery of integration solutions. The combination of prebuilt Siebel integration applications and the webMethods Integration Platform provides customers with an optimal architecture and solution for automating critical business processes and eliminating manual data entry steps across multiple IT systems..." Note on UAN from the Siebel white paper on UAN, Universal Application Network: The Industry's First Standards-Based, Vendor-Independent Application Integration Solution: "Universal Application Network is based on Web Services and Extensible Markup Language (XML), which provide the standards for specifying Universal Application Network business processes... At the highest level, Universal Application Network consists of three components: business process library, business process design tool, and integration server. The business process library is a collection of prepackaged end-to-end industry-specific business processes -- such as Customer Creation or Quote to Order -- which can be configured and executed across multiple systems of record and business logic. These business processes are based on XML and Web Services standards and thus are independent of both the underlying applications and integration server... The Business Process Design Tool is an intuitive graphical tool for developing and configuring business process solutions -- including business process flows, common objects, and transformation maps. The design tool has import and export capabilities to accept and emit definitions of the business process solutions in XML standards. The design tool consists of two components: Business Process Flow Modeler and Transformation Modeler. The Business Process Flow Modeler enables the user to describe business processes at various levels of abstraction. A business analyst uses the modeler to describe the business process independent of the underlying applications. A developer can then define further details by providing process flows that indicate how a specific application accomplishes those steps. The Business Process Flow Modeler also provides visual representation of error conditions, transactional boundaries, and compensating transactions. The modeler accepts and emits Web Services-based XML representations of the defined processes... The Transformation Modeler is used to define common objects and transformation maps. The user can visually drag and drop fields and choose available functions libraries to define transformations. The Transformation Modeler also can be used to define custom transformations. It accepts and emits XSD schemas and XSLT-based transformations... The integration server coordinates interapplication communication. Examples of commercially available integration servers include IBM CrossWorlds InterChange Server, Mercator Integration Broker, SeeBeyond Business Integration Suite, TIBCO BusinessWorks, Vitria BusinessWare, and webMethods Platform..."
[August 19, 2003] "World Wide Web Consortium Issues Web Ontology Language Candidate Recommendations. Emerging Ontology Standard, OWL, Strengthens Semantic Web Foundations." - "Today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) issued Web Ontology Language (OWL) as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. Candidate Recommendation is an explicit call for implementations, indicating that the document has been reviewed by all other W3C Working Groups, that the specification is stable, and appropriate for implementation. OWL is a language for defining structured, Web-based ontologies which enable richer integration and interoperability of data across application boundaries. Early adopters of these standards include bioinformatics and medical communities, corporate enterprise and governments. OWL enables a range of descriptive applications including managing web portals, collections management, content-based searches, enabling intelligent agents, web services and ubiquitous computing. 'OWL is an important step for making data on the Web more machine processable and reusable across applications, ' said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. 'We're encouraged to see OWL already being used as an open standard for deploying large scale ontologies on the Web.' OWL is specified in 6 documents: The OWL Overview; OWL Semantics and Abstract Syntax; OWL Use Cases and Requirements; OWL Test Cases, OWL Guide, and the OWL Reference... OWL is a Web Ontology language. Where earlier languages have been used to develop tools and ontologies for specific user communities (particularly in the sciences and in company-specific e-commerce applications), they were not defined to be compatible with the architecture of the World Wide Web in general, and the Semantic Web in particular. OWL rectifies this by using both URIs for naming and the linking provided by RDF to add the following capabilities to ontologies: (1) Ability to be distributed across many systems; (2) Scalable to Web needs; (3) Compatible with Web standards for accessibility and internationalization; (4) Open and extensible. OWL provides a language for defining structured, Web-based ontologies which delivers richer integration and interoperability of data among descriptive communities. OWL builds on RDF Model and Schema and adds more vocabulary for describing properties and classes: among others, relations between classes (e.g., disjointness), cardinality (e.g., 'exactly one'), equality, richer typing of properties, characteristics of properties (e.g., symmetry), and enumerated classes. Already there are multiple implementations and demonstrations of OWL, which are available to the public..." See: (1) "W3C Releases Candidate Recommendations for Web Ontology Language (OWL)"; (2) "OWL Web Ontology Language"; (3) general references in "Markup Languages and Semantics."
[August 15, 2003] "Oracle Helps Developers Build Interoperable Web Services." - "Oracle Corp., the world's largest enterprise software company, today announced the availability of a new sample application to help developers test the interoperability of software and Web services, based on the latest recommendations from the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization. The sample application -- an early release of WS-I supply chain application for Oracle9i Application Server --implements a real world supply chain scenario by modeling the interactions between multiple Web storefronts, retail warehouses and manufacturers. The sample is based on WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, and demonstrates how Web services can connect heterogeneous systems and autonomous organizations. As a result, developers will be able to test the interoperability of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based Web services deployed on Oracle9i Application Server with Web services deployed on other platforms such as .NET and J2EE application servers from other vendors. The sample application can be downloaded free-of-charge from Oracle Technology Network (OTN)... The sample application utilizes many of the features of the WS-I Basic Profile, including a variety of XML schema naming conventions, SOAP message formats, SOAP message styles, and WSDL design practices. The upcoming release of Oracle JDeveloper, recently announced at JavaOne 2003, is scheduled to feature integrated support for WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 Conformance Testing, enhancing the existing Web services capabilities of the tool, which include instant deployment and testing with the embedded Oracle9i Application Server, local and remote debugging, profiling and integrated SOAP message monitoring. The new feature will enable developers to deliver WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 compatible applications and services more quickly and easily... The WS-I sample supply chain application for Oracle9i Application Server is immediately available for free download from Oracle's online developer community Web site, OTN, which also offers many additional resources for Web services developers and architects. A developer's preview of the new Oracle JDeveloper is scheduled to be available for free download and evaluation from OTN by the end of the year..." See also the news story "WS-I Releases Basic Profile 1.0a Final Specification for Interoperable Web Services."
[August 13, 2003] "SAP Announces Support for WS-I Basic Profile 1.0. SAP NetWeaver to Align with the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, Enabling Greater Industry Adoption of Web Services for Enterprise Customers." - "SAP AG today announced its support for the first release of the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 (BP 1.0), a set of implementation guidelines for companies to utilize a set of core Web services specifications to develop interoperable Web services. The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) brings the work of multiple standards organizations (such as W3C and OASIS) together for the purpose of providing clarity and guidance around Web services interoperability. As a founding WS-I Board member, SAP actively participated in the development of the BP 1.0 and will support the new guidelines throughout their implementation and industry adoption. The SAP NetWeaver technology platform, which drives lower cost of ownership across heterogeneous IT landscapes, corresponds to the BP 1.0 and allows SAP customers to develop, deploy and integrate enterprise applications in alignment with the new implementation guidelines. Through SAP's support of the BP 1.0, customers can operate directly with the new implementation guidelines, rather than dealing with the individual Web services specifications, such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration). SAP's support for the BP 1.0 will allow companies to easily implement and continue using Web services while leveraging their existing technology investments, saving considerable time and expense. WS-I is an open industry organization committed to promoting Web services interoperability across platforms, applications and programming languages. The organization unites a diverse community of Web services companies, including SAP, to provide guidance, recommended practices and supporting resources for developing interoperable Web services. WS-I BP 1.0 has the potential to become the industry's common denominator for developing and deploying interoperable Web services based on industry-wide standards like XML, SOAP and WSDL. 'As a founding WS-I member, SAP AG is pleased to welcome the release of the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0,' said Sinisa Zimek, director of technology strategy and standards, SAP. 'WS-I participants like SAP have taken a great step in developing and promoting interoperability between applications. The BP 1.0 is significant for SAP customers who want to pursue business beyond what traditional integration strategies can provide'..." See "WS-I Releases Basic Profile 1.0a Final Specification for Interoperable Web Services."
[August 13, 2003] "Southwest Airlines Deploys Industry Leading SAML Implementation On Oblix NetPoint. NetPoint SAML Solution Enables User Authentication and Authorization Across Corporate Extranets." - "Oblix, a leading developer of identity-based security solutions, today announced that Southwest Airlines has successfully deployed the Oblix NetPoint Identity Management and Access Control Solution with comprehensive support for SAML. As a result of the deployment, Southwest has reduced administration costs associated with password resets and account expirations, while simultaneously promoting its 'family' corporate culture by helping more employees feel connected via easy access to business-critical information when they need it. Hundreds of Southwest engineers and mechanics can now access technical documentation and other proprietary content housed on its aircraft supplier's secure Web site by using SAML-enabled single sign-on. Oblix NetPoint facilitates a seamless and secure Southwest user experience by exchanging SAML assertions between Southwest and supplier's security systems, in effect forwarding a SAML security assertion that automatically logs the employee into the supplier's remote system. 'Southwest Airlines' history of success is built on giving our Customers a 'positively outrageous' level of service. Consistently getting them to their destination on-time is a big part of that,' said Brian Buege, manager of Application Frameworks, Southwest Airlines. 'By deploying Oblix NetPoint integrated with SAML, our mechanics can spend more time keeping our fleet airborne and our flights on-time rather than searching for lost passwords or related information. A SAML-integrated identity and access management infrastructure delivers significant business benefits, including reduced administrative costs and increased productivity.' SAML, Security Assertion Markup Language, is an XML-based security standard for exchanging user authentication and authorization information. By combining SAML with Oblix NetPoint's identity management functionality, Southwest now securely and cost-effectively manages its employee identity information across disparate corporate boundaries, and can also integrate with partner/supplier security systems..." See general references in "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."
[August 12, 2003] "Mindreef Announces Availability of SOAPscope 2.0. Features First WSDL Interoperability Checker, Including Rules for WS-I Basic Profile 1.0." - "Mindreef, Inc. announced today the availability of Mindreef SOAPscope 2.0, the second offering in the company's flagship product family and the industry's first Web Services Diagnostics System. This emerging category of products addresses the challenges of isolating and solving problems of applications built with Web services throughout the development, testing and management process. With over 1000 copies now in use, SOAPscope is gaining broad adoption by developers, testers and application support technicians as an easy-to-use, platform-independent tool. Released in November 2002, SOAPscope 1.0 focused on SOAP visibility for development organizations 'getting their feet wet' with Web services. These early adopters needed a tool to see and understand the content of their SOAP messages. At this point in the maturity of Web services, many organizations are now connecting real-world applications and data. SOAPscope 2.0 focuses on the interfaces between Web services. These interfaces are described in a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) document. Errant WSDL results in Web services that are not interoperable, or do not function properly. The design of interfaces using WSDL is a complex specialty, but almost every Web service developer, tester or troubleshooter will have to know WSDL as it is the key to Web services interoperability. SOAPscope 2.0 makes WSDL approachable by automating the four steps people use when solving Web services problems: Visualizing, Analyzing, Experimenting, and Comparing... SOAPscope 2.0 builds upon the SOAP diagnostic capabilities of SOAPscope 1.0. The system introduces a collection of tools that allow a broad audience to better understand and solve WSDL-related problems. With SOAPscope 2.0 Mindreef introduces four ways to 'know your WSDL.' (1) See It: Quickly view and understand the contents of a WSDL document without wading through the XML. SOAPscope provides pseudocode, tree, syntax-colored XML and raw views of the WSDL document. (2) Check It: Automatically checks a WSDL against WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, as well as the WSDL 1.1 specification and Mindreef's own knowledge base of 'best practices.' (3) Try It: Allows users to call and test a Web service with an easy-to-use form. Designed to be a troubleshooting aid that allow users to quickly test many different conditions when determining the cause of problem, it offers the opportunity of 'trying out' Web services before writing any code. (4) Diff It: Provides a view of what has changed since the last time a WSDL was modified. A small change in a WSDL can create many errors. 'DIFFing' a WSDL against a previous version clarifies the change that may have been the root of the errors..."
[August 12, 2003] "WS-I Announces General Availability of the Basic Profile 1.0. WS-I Member Community Delivers Guidelines to Ensure Interoperability, Reduce Cost and Lower Complexity of Implementing Web Services Solutions." - "At XML Web Services One the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced the general availability of the Basic Profile 1.0. The Basic Profile 1.0, which has been formally approved by the WS-I member community, consists of implementation guidelines on how core Web services specifications should be used together to develop interoperable Web services. The specifications covered by the Basic Profile include SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0 and XML Schema. 'Starting today, every Web service developer and provider will have a common framework for implementing interoperable solutions, and buyers will have a common reference point for purchasing decisions,' said Tom Glover, chairman of WS-I. 'WS-I has resolved more than 200 interoperability issues associated with using the core Web services specifications together. The Basic Profile 1.0 will significantly simplify the task of implementing interoperable Web services solutions within and across enterprise boundaries.' 'Support for the Basic Profile is the baseline for interoperable Web services,' said Dan Sholler, vice president of Technology Research Services at the META Group. 'Customers should demand that all of their Web services-enabled technology be compliant with the Basic Profile, and that in turn will lay the foundation for Web services to fulfill their promise and provide technology independent interoperability.' Later this Fall, WS-I will release Test Tools and Sample Applications supporting the Basic Profile 1.0. The Test Tools, available in both C# and Java(TM) implementations, are designed to inspect and validate that a Web service meets the interoperability requirements of the Basic Profile. The Sample Applications demonstrate the Basic Profile at work, including the design, implementation, test and deployment of Web services, based upon selected business scenarios and implemented on 10 different platforms. In parallel with the release of the Test Tools, WS-I will announce how Web services software vendors, hardware vendors, and services providers will be able to claim conformance of their products to the Basic Profile 1.0..." General references in "Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)."
[July 31, 2003] "UCCnet Deploys Data Synchronization Services Release 2.2. New Version Complies to EAN.UCC System Standards by introducing XML Schemas as Standard Messaging for the Global Data Synchronization Network." - "UCCnet, a not-for-profit organization that provides product registry, validation and synchronization services, today announced the recent deployment of its Data Synchronization Services release 2.2. This new version incorporates technology which will allow UCCnet subscribers to exchange and synchronize data with their trading partners on a global scale, and across many new industry vertical markets. UCCnet Data Synchronization Services now uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas for standard messaging. The new schema-based technology complies with the new Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) standards, which govern the communication and data synchronization between the UCCnet GLOBALregistry service (a global registry or index of product and company information) and individual company catalogs of product information. This technology standard establishes a common electronic communication architecture for companies around the world to do business with each other more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, this new release introduces several of the EAN.UCC System (a global standards system co-managed and administered by the Uniform Code Council) schemas used to achieve data synchronization in, and between, industry verticals such as hardlines, apparel, and fast moving consumer goods. The standards of the EAN.UCC System provide companies in 23 major industry verticals with a global language of business to uniquely identify products, assets, locations and logistics units, and the corresponding electronic information, across the global supply chain. The EAN.UCC System is currently used by nearly one million member companies worldwide. 'With the deployment of UCCnet Data Synchronization Services release 2.2, UCCnet positions its synchronization service to support the EAN.UCC System and GDSN standards,: said Fred Geiger, Senior Vice President for UCCnet. 'This means that more companies in more industries can do business on a global scale, seamlessly exchanging data between multiple partners, while maintaining data integrity. Also, our new architecture is scalable and extensible which will facilitate the fast integration of new business solutions and new functionality as standards evolve in the coming years. UCCnet Data Synchronization Services offer true interoperability, without having to sacrifice the industry specific nuances that have made data synchronization problematic in the past.' UCCnet delivered Data Synchronization Services release 2.2 for beta testing in mid May 2003 to select UCCnet solution partners certified on the previous 2.1 release. Solution partners who have completed beta testing are eligible to participate in a six-month FASTstart Early Adopter Program that allows them to build and test their partners' applications using the new 2.2 release prior to moving to final production. The beta test included a hardlines industry vertical component that used the EAN.UCC hardlines XML schema to test the system. Several new key business processes, such as tiered Distributor/Broker/DSD, wholesaler, and multi-sourced private label, were also tested. These business processes are supported through the GDSN model. The UCCnet GLOBALregistry service has earned strong global support, with endorsements by EAN International, the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards Association (VICS), the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI), The Food Marketing Institute (FMI), the American Hardware Manufacturers Association (AHMA), the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA), and other industry user groups and trade associations. It is acknowledged worldwide as the multi-industry source where trading partners can locate product, location, and partner information regardless of where subscribing manufacturers have published it..." General references in "Uniform Code Council (UCC) XML Program."
[July 30, 2003] "NetContinuum and SPI Dynamics Integrate Attack Prevention And Application Vulnerability Assessment Technologies. First Integration Between Independent Solutions Demonstrates Real-World Benefits of Emerging AVDL Standard for Application Security Interoperability." - "NetContinuum, a leading provider of web and application security solutions, and SPI Dynamics, the expert in web application security assessment, today announced they have completed initial integration between NetContinuum's NC-1000 web security gateway appliance and SPI Dynamics' WebInspect Enterprise Edition application vulnerability assessment software. Integration between the two technologies automates the ongoing security assessment and protection cycle required to fully defend against the growing risk of application-layer security threats, which now comprise up to 70 percent of all new attacks. This interoperability allows organizations to respond more quickly to new threats and dramatically decrease their exposure to attacks and potential downtime. The new integration is based on an expanded XML schema that allows application assessment information discovered by WebInspect to be reported and organized in a way that can be easily read and interpreted by the NC-1000 web security gateway. SPI Dynamics and NetContinuum have submitted the knowledge gained from this integration to the OASIS Application Vulnerability Description Language (AVDL) technical committee for consideration as part of the AVDL 1.0 specification, scheduled for release later this year... With new security patches and vulnerabilities appearing at a rate of nearly 50 per week, most experts agree that complex web applications can only be secured through an ongoing process that incorporates both vulnerability assessment and attack prevention solutions. With no standard way for such products to share information, however, security managers are often left to manually translate the results of security assessments into policies that ensure optimal security settings for each unique web application. In the constantly changing world of web applications, this can be time consuming, complicated and costly. Delays and mistakes in this process can also increase a company's risk of penalties for non-compliance with legislation such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the US Government Information Security Reform Act and California Senate Bill 1386. SPI Dynamics and NetContinuum have addressed this problem by delivering the following: (1) SPI Dynamics' WebInspect Enterprise Edition now exports the results of an application assessment in a substantially expanded XML format that depicts both the legitimate architecture of an application as well as a detailed description of all vulnerabilities. This output highlights important details of the application environment that are of critical value to other products responsible for protecting the target application. (2) NetContinuum's NC-1000 now directly reads and interprets the results of a WebInspect assessment via the new expanded XML format. This information is then used to automatically generate a recommended security policy specifically customized to the exact security needs of the target application. Recommended configuration changes can then be directly imported into the NC-1000 to immediately improve the security profile of the application..." See: (1) OASIS Application Vulnerability Description Language TC website; (2) "OASIS Forms TC for Application Vulnerability Description Language (AVDL)"; (3) general references in "Application Security."
[July 29, 2003] "MPEG Approves Another MPEG-21 Technology." - "The vision of a multimedia framework took another giant leap forward with completion of Parts 5 and 6 of MPEG-21, the Rights Expression Language (REL) and its associated Rights Data Dictionary (RDD). The REL and the RDD, together form a powerful tool for managing the consumption rights of all forms of content. The REL can also be used independently, if desired. The REL provides industry with the means to create expressions that can then be associated with audio/video and other content to express what the consumer can do with that content. REL expressions can be as simple as 'play' and can also express the complex consumption models that can be devised. Along with MPEG-21 Parts 2 and 3 (Digital Item Declaration and Digital Item Identification) that are already completed, the addition of the REL/RDD moves the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework one step closer to fruition. Progress was also made on other MPEG-21 technology this week. The Digital Item Adaptation work advanced to the penultimate stage in Trondheim. DIA, as it is known, is important for being making it possible to successfully render multimedia content on a myriad of multifunction devices by taking into account the network and terminal characteristics of the multimedia consumption infrastructure..." [The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)working group of ISO/IEC is in charge of the development of standards for coded representation of digital audio and video.] References: (1) "MPEG Rights Expression Language"; (2) "Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML)"; (3) "XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)."
[July 29, 2003] "Global eXchange Services Announces the First Generation of Supply Chain Analytics and Visibility Services. Value-added Solutions Extend the Capabilities of the GXS Transaction Delivery Network." - "Global eXchange Services, Inc. (GXS) announced today the availability of a new set of services that give customers visibility, event management, and supply chain collaboration capabilities. The solutions are designed to offer proactive alerts, order status tracking and reporting functionality. In addition to providing the connectivity platform for the exchange of business documents, GXS can now provide critical information about the status of those documents, thereby maximizing the efficiency of the various applications. Solution benefits include: (1) Functional acknowledgement (FA) management services facilitates tracking, reporting, and event notification which maximizes operational efficiency by providing visibility and analysis of critical transaction information; (2) Intelligent collaboration and event management helps achieve a streamlined management of supply chain processes through improved inventory planning, lowered transportation costs and increased internal productivity; (3) Aggregated supply chain data and shared visibility spanning multiple trading partners, back-office systems and various data formats; (4) End-to-end order lifecycle management expedites document turnaround, allows for self-service status inquiries and the ability to manage by exception... Global eXchange Services (GXS) combines innovative Internet commerce technologies with Six Sigma process disciplines to create intelligence for business supply chains around the globe. The company enables global business-to-business Internet commerce by offering Interchange Solutions, including data formats such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Extensible Markup Language (XML); Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software; catalog and content management services; and trading-partner ramping and exchanges. Global eXchange Services, Inc. (GXS) operates one of the largest B2B e-commerce networks in the world, with more than 100,000 trading partners. The network's 1 billion annual transactions account for $500 billion in goods and services. With more than 35 years experience, GXS provides supply chain services and software to 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies..."
[July 29, 2003] "Nortel Networks Announces New Security Products and Security Partner Program. Enhanced Portfolio Offers Customers More Choices in Network Security." - "Nortel Networks today announced new products, product enhancements and a security partner program to provide enterprise customers more capability and choice in network security. Supporting Nortel Networks 'One network. A world of choice' enterprise vision, these product enhancements enable businesses of all sizes to better engage their customers, partners, suppliers and employees in a secure environment, regardless of how or where they access the network. "Nortel Networks continues to demonstrate expertise in identifying and protecting against security breaches and network abuse. We are providing new, high-performance products with inherent security -- what we call 'Security in the DNA' -- that allow businesses to manage applications securely and free up the network to serve the business as intended," said Oscar Rodriguez, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel Networks. Nortel Networks new Alteon Operating System (AOS) 21.0 software release, currently available for Alteon Application Switch products, provides a number of features to identify and protect against network abuse and attacks. These innovative application layer security features include: Advanced Denial of Service (DoS) Protection that employs sophisticated pattern matching techniques to block a wide variety of attacks; Secure, fault-tolerant Web Services enabled by Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) inspection functionality making Alteon Application Switches the first to provide a specialized Web Services-aware traffic management feature that inspects, classifies and directs Web Services traffic; and intelligent peer-to-peer application management enabling companies to proactively control this traffic... In addition to the new AOS 21.0 and SSL VPN releases are enhancements to the Nortel Networks Alteon Application Switch portfolio. The Alteon Application Switch 2208 and 2216 provide the same broad feature set as the industry-proven Alteon Application Switch 2424, but do so with a lower port density, performance/capacity and price that makes this exceptional feature set available to small and medium sized businesses. These new products are optimized for critical and emerging business applications such as IP Telephony, streaming media, video teleconferencing, resource planning, e-mail, file transfer and financial activities." On Nortel's CCXML/SIP/VoiceXML support, see the white paper "Engage Your Customers: Move Beyond Loyalty"; this paper "discusses how Engaged Business provides exceptional levels of personalized service, and outlines the four key technologies that make it possible to build an engaged application: IP, SIP, Web applications middleware, and XML."
[July 28, 2003] "Arjuna Enables Reliable Web Services-Based Business Applications with Arjuna XTS. Technology to Address the Reliable Coordination Issues Preventing the Early Adoption of Serious E-Business Solutions Through Web Services." - "Arjuna Technologies, one of the world's leading centers of expertise in standards-based distributed transactioning software, today announced the early-access availability of the Arjuna XML Transaction Service (XTS). XTS provides coordination infrastructure to support business transactions that span multiple Web services, ensuring that the consistency of the overall business transaction is maintained even in the event of occasional component failures. XTS is fully standards compliant -- the programming interfaces are based on the emerging Java API for XML Transactioning (JAXTX) and the architecture is based on the recently released WS Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF). XTS future-proofs transactional applications through an innovative pluggable coordination protocol architecture. Version 1.0 includes protocol support for WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction. 'Providing reliable transaction management is critical for Web Services based application integration,' says Patrick Vallaeys, VP of Marketing and Product Management at Infravio. 'We're excited about integrating ArjunaXTS as the transaction management plug-in function for our Ensemble product suite. This will allow our customers to build, deploy and manage Web Services for critical business processes, both within their company and for B2B solutions.' Transaction processing is at the core of commerce and classic ACID transactions are not suitable for loosely coupled environments such as Web services. Steve Caughey, CEO at Arjuna, said, 'Take, for example, a manufacturer that uses Web services to automate the ordering and delivery processes with their suppliers. The transaction between the manufacturer and its suppliers might only be considered completed once all parts are delivered to their final destination, which could be days or even weeks after an order is placed. Participants in a business-to-business transaction will likely be unwilling or unable to reserve any underlying resources exclusively for the duration as they'd have to do with traditional TP technologies. ArjunaXTS solves these overriding problems by providing a new type of extended transaction infrastructure designed to support the loosely-coupled Web services environment.' Dave Ingham, Arjuna's CTO said, 'XTS is constructed as a generic extended transaction framework that can support a variety of protocols. As a result, applications built using the standards-based programming interfaces can be isolated from the underlying protocol evolution. Implementers, therefore have the advantage of being able to migrate to the latest protocol specification as it becomes adopted by the industry without affecting their application development.' 'Arjuna has cut to the core of what is holding Web Services back from being adopted for mission critical applications,' said Bob Bickel, former General Manager of the HP Middleware Division and member of the Arjuna Technical Advisory Board. 'Not only have they provided a reliable mechanism to conduct business transactions, they have designed a unique architecture that allows pluggable protocols, embracing well-known standards like WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction backed by Microsoft and IBM as well as the new WS-CAF from Arjuna, Iona, Fujitsu, Sun and Oracle'..." See: (1) JSR 156: XML Transactioning API for Java (JAXTX); (2) "Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF) for Transaction Coordination."
[July 28, 2003] "Industry Leaders Drive Convergence, Publish Web Services Specifications to Coordinate Business Applications. Arjuna Technologies, Fujitsu Software, IONA, Oracle and Sun Microsystems Open Development with Imminent Standardization of Specification Framework." - "Arjuna Technologies Limited, Fujitsu Software, IONA Technologies PLC, Oracle Corp and Sun Microsystems today announced the publication of the Web Services Composite Applications Framework (WS-CAF). The Web Services Composite Application Framework is a collection of three specifications -- Web Service Context (WS-CTX), Web Service Coordination Framework (WS-CF), and Web Service Transaction Management (WS-TXM) -- designed to solve problems that arise when multiple Web services are used in combination ("composite applications") to support information sharing and transaction processing. Transaction processing (TP) is the core of commerce. Some transactions are very simple, such as purchasing a book or transferring funds, and can be processed immediately. Other transactions are more complex, such as fulfilling a purchase order or completing an insurance claim, and may take days or even years to process. All businesses rely on the concept of a transaction, but have built upon the concept through various architectures, which limits interoperability and creates multiple 'islands' of mutually incompatible TP networks. WS-CAF solves the TP information management and sharing problem by defining an open, multi-level framework for standard coordination of long-running business processes across multiple, incompatible transaction processing models and architectures. The authors plan to donate WS-CAF to a recognized industry standards organization soon under royalty-free licensing terms. This effort will lead the industry to converge on effective solutions through an open standards organization with proven development processes. Solutions developed this way are more likely to be reliable, interoperable and immediately useful to a large audience... The Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF) is comprised of three specifications: (1) Web Service Context (WS-CTX), a lightweight framework for simple context management that helps enable all Web services participating in an activity share a common context and exchange information about a common outcome. (2) Web Service Coordination Framework (WS-CF), a sharable mechanism that manages context augmentation and lifecycle and provides the notification of outcome messages to Web services participating in a particular transaction. (3) Web Services Transaction Management (WS-TXM), is comprised of three distinct, interoperable transaction protocols that can be used across multiple transaction managers. WS-TXM supports multiple transaction models to help enable participants to negotiate outcomes with each other and make a common decision about how to behave, especially in the case of failure, regardless whether the execution environment is CORBA, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), .NET, Java Message Service (JMS), or some combination..." See details in "Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF) for Transaction Coordination."
[July 28, 2003] "Orbeon Ships Version 2.0 of Its Open XML Framework (OXF). Productivity, Flexibility, Reuse, and Web Services Are Not Buzzwords Anymore." - "Orbeon, Inc. today announced version 2.0 of the Open XML Framework (OXF). OXF is the most advanced XML transformation framework built on top of proven J2EE technologies. It stands out in a crowd of existing J2EE frameworks by fully leveraging the ubiquity and the flexibility of XML. This new version boosts enterprise XML-based integration, Web application development, and delivers standard Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications which run on any application server. Version 2.0 includes major enhancements that make OXF the most productive and elegant way to integrate disparate systems and build reliable enterprise Web applications. Orbeon enables organizations to reuse their existing assets, including Java components, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), and Web services through a standard XML-based Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). OXF promotes separation of concerns and component based development by providing an MVC infrastructure as well as a rich set of components out-of-the-box such as: (1) Data access through SQL, EJB, and Web services; (2) Data transformation with XSLT, XQuery, and XUpdate; (3) Document generation/management with support for XML, HTML, text, PDF, and Excel; (4) Notification through email and instant messaging. OXF is built with industry standard J2EE and XML technologies; it supports all the popular application servers, datasources, and browsers..." See also the Open XML Framework website.
[July 28, 2003] "Sabre Travel Network Launches Web Services Capabilities for Agents. New Offering Provides Standard, Industry-Accepted, Easy-to-Use Technology to Access Sabre Global Distribution System Products and Capabilities." - "Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings company, today announced the roll out of its Sabre Web Services offering. This new offering provides travel agents easier, faster and more flexible access to the Sabre Global Distribution System (GDS) using industry-accepted OpenTravel Alliance (OTA) standards. It enables agencies to reduce development time for new and enhanced offerings, thereby cutting costs, speeding time to market for new sources of revenue, improving customer loyalty and assuring competitive advantage. In the past, customers gained access to the Sabre GDS and those of other travel providers in a variety of ways using multiple languages and forms of connectivity. Now Sabre Web Services (making use of leading-edge XML and SOAP technologies) streamlines that process, offering developers a single standards-based access to the GDS. This eliminates the need for agents and Web developers to understand proprietary codes and programming languages to connect their systems to the disparate data sources needed to create bookable Web-based travel offerings. 'We were able to link our dynamic packaging engine to the Sabre Web Services platform with ease,' said Rakesh Mishra, president of HyperTech Solutions, a Sabre Travel Network customer which provides dynamic packaging and remote connectivity technology to the travel industry. 'Sabre Web Services' features are fantastic, and the rapid development cycle brought our revised product to market 30 percent faster, while allowing us to price our products even more competitively. It's been 'win-win-win' -- for Sabre Travel Network, for HyperTech and for our tour operator customers!' HyperTech develops Internet booking engines and Web-based solutions for tour operators and air consolidators... An agency planning to build a Web site with travel booking capabilities can easily access the Sabre GDS via Sabre Web Services and select specific services to meet their individual business needs. For example, one agency may use geographic displays of available hotels, while another may opt for a more streamlined text view of available hotels. By selecting Sabre Web Services, rather than off-the-shelf booking tools, agencies gain maximum control over the creation of their customer-facing booking tools... Sabre Travel Network, a Sabre Holdings company, provides access to the world's leading global distribution system (GDS) and products and services enabling agents at more than 56,000 locations worldwide to be travel experts. About 35 percent of the world's travel is booked through the Sabre GDS. Originally developed in 1960, it was the first system to connect the buyers and sellers of travel. Today the system includes more than 400 airlines, approximately 60,000 hotels, 53 car rental companies, nine cruise lines, 36 railroads and 232 tour operators..." See also "OpenTravel Alliance (OTA)."
[July 24, 2003] "Seybold San Francisco Transformed: Ten Key Conferences Include Enterprise Publishing and Digital Media. New Look, Vision for 22-Year-Old Gathering of 'All Things Publishing' Set for Sept. 8-12, 2003, at Moscone West." - "With a new look, new vision and year-round identity, Seybold Seminars, Publications & Consulting is reinventing itself as well as its flagship event, Seybold San Francisco 2003. Since 1981, the yearly summit of 'all things publishing' has grown beyond being just an annual conference. Seybold San Francisco -- and its sister events in New York and Amsterdam -- are widely recognized for providing the industry with a vibrant, creative community 365 days a year... To support such a vision, Seybold Seminars created www.Seybold365.com to serve as an online 'community center,' where anyone can find the latest on publishing, from news and trends to developments in publishing technology. The site also is meant to be a forum in which professionals can meet peers and discuss what matters in their particular arenas. 'We see Seybold365.com as a catalyst,' Smith said. 'It offers opportunities to work and play with creative tools and technologies to create compelling content for all technology-based media, including the Web, print, digital imaging and graphics.' Seybold San Francisco -- the 22-year-old annual technology conference of the professional publishing world -- will have a new format and focus when its latest edition opens Sept. 8 at Moscone West. To better support up-and-coming technologies, Seybold San Francisco 2003 has 10 new educational conferences to better equip attendees with the skills they need to 'Get to Work Creatively..." See also "Seybold Seminars, Publications and Consulting Announces New Mega-Event in San Francisco."
[July 23, 2003] "HP Acquires PipeBeach to Strengthen Leadership in Growing VoiceXML Interactive Voice Market. Standards-based Products from PipeBeach Bolster HP OpenCall Portfolio and Enhance HP's Ability to Deliver Speech-based Solutions." - "HP today announced the acquisition of PipeBeach AB, a Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of speech-based products and technology that enable the delivery of interactive voice solutions. HP plans to integrate PipeBeach's VoiceXML-based products into its OpenCall suite of enhanced telecommunications software. This acquisition significantly enhances HP's ability to help telecom service providers, network equipment providers and independent software vendors simplify the creation and deployment of VoiceXML-based applications. HP will be better able to provide these customers with the flexibility and agility they need to get to market faster, reduce costs and improve customer loyalty. PipeBeach's VoiceXML-based products and technology enable users to speak into their mobile phones and devices to obtain Web-based information such as news, stock prices and e-mail, as well as conduct transactions, such as online banking. The information and options are conveyed to the user through speech - instead of text or images. 'HP is committed to the interactive voice market, and we intend to help our customers grow by providing them with a full spectrum of development tools, products and solutions,' said Jean-Rene Bouvier, vice president and general manager, HP OpenCall Business Unit. 'When we combine the advanced PipeBeach technologies - and track record in VoiceXML -- with HP's OpenCall portfolio and unique combination of telecom and IT expertise, we can establish HP as a global provider of interactive voice solutions.' HP intends to build on its strong presence in the interactive voice market by leveraging the PipeBeach acquisition to accelerate the development of open standards for voice and multimodal technologies in three primary ways: (1) By helping to deliver a complete VoiceXML development and deployment environment that will enable service providers and mobile operators to accelerate rollout of new, revenue-generating voice-enabled services (2) By accelerating the growth of voice portals, which can help reduce customer service costs. As users increasingly opt for voice browsing versus calling a live operator for basic information and assistance, the cost per call has dropped from $5 for human-assisted service to about 50 cents for voice-automated service.(3) (3) By helping increase customer loyalty through improved service. Voice portals can reduce wait times significantly because they are equipped to handle unpredictable spikes in call volume and allow users to interact directly with Web-based information and systems... HP OpenCall speechWeb interacts between the telephone network and standard Web servers that host VoiceXML applications. It enables mobile users to interact with VoiceXML Web pages, using advanced speech recognition and text-to-speech or spoken prompts. Today, speechWeb supports approximately 40 languages..." General references in "VoiceXML Forum."
[July 22, 2003] "Web Services Enable More Success for Digital Photography Printing Services. Lack of Interoperability Is Making It Difficult for Consumers to Use Digital Photo Services." - "The I3A has launched the Common Picture Exchange Environment (CPXe), which utilizes new Web services-based system architecture and interoperability specifications, and a new online directory of photo services -- Picture Services Network (PSN). The CPXe Initiative Group includes Eastman Kodak Company, Fujifilm, Hewlett-Packard, Konica, Olympus, Silverwire as well as other companies. Gartner analysts said this could lead to one of the most ambitious applications of Web services. 'The I3A's CPXe initiative can create an open environment in which imaging devices can exchange digital images or information, regardless of manufacturer, service provider or geography,' Smith said. 'This would allow consumers to get quality digital prints from their favorite retailer as conveniently as they can with film, but with the preview advantage of digital.' However, for CPXe to be successful, it must provide clear value and wide availability to the user. It also needs to get other large players that are not involved, such as Sony and Nikon, to participate, and get large retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart and CVS to commit to the program. CPXe is taking advantage of existing standards, including Web services, for service directory, description, transport and environment. One of the standards includes Universal, Description, Discovery, Integration (UDDI). The use of UDDI is one of the first actual uses of the technology, and it essentially makes a private UDDI accessible to the public for read-only access. 'Web services, such as UDDI, enable businesses to reduce the cost of integration,' Smith said. 'Companies can benefit from implementing service-oriented architectures to provide a platform for innovation and lessen their need to focus on mundane IT tasks. Companies should begin to evaluate the role UDDI may play in their businesses and should consider becoming active in relevant standards activities, which can help further business goals'..." See: (1) the news story "Systinet to Provide UDDI Solution for PSN Global Directory of Digital Photography Services"; (2) general references in "Common Picture Exchange Environment (CPXe)."
[July 21, 2003] "Intergraph Advances Open Data Exchange of Geospatial Information with New GML and WFS Interoperability Extensions. Free Desktop GeoMedia Viewer to Enable GML and WFS Query and Viewing Capabilities." - "Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions today announced that two free interoperability extensions are available for download: the OpenGIS Geographic Markup Language (GML) and the OpenGIS Web Feature Services (WFS) data servers, as well as the GML export command. These extensions are designed for any GeoMedia 5.1 product. Additionally, the OpenGIS Web Map Server (WMS) adapter kit for easy creation of a WMS server is now available for GeoMedia WebMap products. Users can query and view data accessed via the WFS interface through GeoMedia Viewer 5.1, Intergraph's free and easy-to-use GIS software application for desktop viewing and distribution of geospatial data. GeoMedia Viewer gives professionals access to geospatial vector and raster data in open formats or through open interfaces, including GML and WFS as well as previously available formats - Access, ArcView and MapInfo. By allowing data servers to be accessed simultaneously, GeoMedia Viewer offers the functionality to integrate and overlay spatial information while providing dynamic updates as the source information changes. With GeoMedia Viewer, organizations can maximize the value of their geospatial data by extending availability to novice users who otherwise would not have access... 'These free interoperability extensions further promote data sharing across different platforms, vendor brands and networks, thus increasing collaboration and communication between organizations and users,' said Fiona McKee, Global Program Manager Education and Interoperability, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions. 'Intergraph continues to drive open data exchange to put virtually any geospatial information available via the Web at the user's fingertips.' Carl Reed, executive director of the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC) specification program, commented: 'The WFS and GML extensions to the GeoMedia product line once again demonstrate Intergraph's leadership and commitment to open standards and the vision of the OGC. Intergraph's endorsement of WFS will serve to accelerate the use and adoption of this important OpenGIS interface specification in the marketplace.'... From conception, Intergraph's GeoMedia solutions have been built with open interoperability principles in mind. Therefore, the WMS, WFS and GML data servers and other open functionality are smooth and complementary additions to the products' architecture. Intergraph also has established a number of initiatives to further advocate interoperability..." General references in "Geography Markup Language (GML)."
[July 21, 2003] "Interwoven Releases TeamSite 6.0 - The New Benchmark in the Content Management Industry. New Release Empowers Enterprises to Boost Workforce Productivity and Enable Faster, Smarter Decision-Making with an All New, Easy, and Customizable User Experience." - "Interwoven, Inc., a world-leading provider of content management for the enterprise, today launches Interwoven TeamSite 6.0 Content Server, extending content management access to all business users, and enabling them to maintain control and distributed ownership of content across the enterprise. With more than 1000 customers in production with the current content management product, Interwoven introduces the latest version of its flagship product within the Interwoven 6 Platform, a new interface framework that features an intuitive, customizable user experience designed to lower the learning curve and improve user efficiency... TeamSite 6.0 now provides the FormsPublisher, an all-new templating user interface that's customizable on a per-form basis featuring in-context help capabilities, task shortcuts, content containers and enhanced XML format support. It also has a ContentServices User Interface Toolkit: an all-new toolkit that underpins ContentCenter allowing for rapid, easy and consistent user interface customizations as well as facilitating the creation of completely new customer interfaces. The Tooklit ensures that all customizations are preserved for future upgrades. The Toolkit is a core element of Interwoven's Services Oriented Architecture strategy... Validated through extensive testing and contributions from hundreds of customers, TeamSite 6.0 sets the new industry standard for ease-of-use in content management. With a unified user experience, TeamSite 6.0 ultimately extends the benefit of content management across the enterprise by enabling faster time to market, increased workforce productivity, and better decision-making. 'Creating a system that can be used by contributors at all technical skill levels has been a challenge for CMS vendors,' said Andy Warzecha, senior vice president, META Group, Inc. 'Business users in particular need an interface that's intuitive and doesn't force them to learn a new way of doing everyday business. Only by providing interfaces that serve business users can a CMS system rise to its full potential as an essential business tool that streamlines processes and ensures the rapid, accurate deployment of content to various eBusiness initiatives enterprise-wide'..."
[July 21, 2003] "HP Fuels Industry-standard Approach to Web Services Management. HP to Submit Technology to Standards Consortium, Supported by Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO Software, and webMethods." - "Working with partners to help overcome barriers to full-scale Web services adoption, HP today announced its plans to submit its Web Services Management Framework for industry review to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), a global consortium driving the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards. With support from industry leaders such as Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO Software, Inc., and webMethods, among others, HP will make the framework specification available for public download and is delivering a call to action for other Web services-reliant companies to join the effort to create an industry standards-based solution for the management of, and through, Web services. Enterprises demanding reduced information technology (IT) complexity and increased agility need to control access, track and measure service levels, collect usage data and, most importantly, ensure return on their IT investments. This can be achieved through an intelligently managed adaptive infrastructure that incorporates 'built-in' Web services management within the design and deployment of their IT infrastructures. Developed by HP, with significant input from key partners, the Web Services Management Framework is a logical architecture for the management of resources, including Web services themselves, through Web services. 'HP is leading the development of open standards for Web services management by working with its partners to establish a management interface that is domain, platform and vendor neutral,' said Mark Linesch, vice president, HP Adaptive Enterprise Program. 'We're submitting this specification to OASIS to accelerate the adoption of common standards in Web services management and to simplify Web services development for our partners and customers today, while enabling them to plug into the adaptive enterprise of tomorrow.' The framework defines how all IT resources in an adaptive enterprise can expose management information about themselves and how they can be managed. A management interface communicates immediate knowledge about changes in business processes and IT infrastructure whenever application and infrastructure events occur, and it gives companies the choice and flexibility to adopt future innovations and advance the management of their adaptive enterprise. The framework also embraces standardization -- one of the four design principles in HP's Darwin Reference Architecture -- to provide customers and partners with a step-by-step approach to creating a business process-oriented IT environment that dynamically adjusts to business changes. The Darwin Reference architecture creates a tighter linkage between critical business processes and the supporting IT infrastructure and helps provide built-in manageability. Model and platform neutral, the Web Services Management Framework is designed to be applied to many different domains with varying management requirements and allows for management of J2EE, .NET and other platforms. This allows it to better support important IT domains such as enterprise application integration, enterprise resource planning, software configuration management and Web services..." See details in the news story "HP Contributes Web Services Management Framework Specification to OASIS TC."
[July 18, 2003] "BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 Ships. New Products Offer Faster Time to Value by Converging the Development and Integration of Applications, Portals and Business Processes." - "Delivering further proof of its application infrastructure market leadership, BEA Systems, Inc. announced the general availability of BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1, BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1, BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 and BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1. BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 and each individual product, including the previously available BEA WebLogic Server 8.1 and BEA WebLogic JRockit 8.1, can be downloaded now from http://www.bea.com or customers can receive the development versions of the products at no charge for one year as part of the BEA dev2dev subscription program. BEA's new products are based on a unique software architecture developed by BEA, all based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), extensible mark-up language (XML) and emerging Web services standards. This architecture offers faster time to value by converging application development and application integration into a unified, simplified and extensible application infrastructure platform... BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 is based on a unified architecture that includes new versions of BEA's industry-leading application server and Java virtual machine, BEA's award-winning enterprise portal and application development framework, and BEA's innovative integration solution. BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 includes application infrastructure technology from proven BEA products that are used by thousands of customers worldwide and combined to offer a single, unified, easy-to-use infrastructure platform for application development, integration, deployment, and management. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 heralds a new era of business integration by changing the traditional approach to application integration and business process management. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 is a single solution delivering application server, application integration, business process management, and trading partner integration functionality for the enterprise. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 provides customers with a unified framework for business integration, simplified production and management, as well as a new architecture for the rapid assembly and integration of applications, business processes and partner trading networks. BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 provides a seamless production environment for integration specialists and application developers alike by leveraging BEA WebLogic Workshop development environment and a catalog of standards-based application integration adapters... BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1 can simplify the production and management of custom-fit portals and will be one of the first portals to support the new Java portlet standard, JSR 168, for portlet-level development, and the new Java content repository standard, JSR 170, for content management system integration..." On JSR 168, see "JSR 168 Portlet API Specification 1.0 Released for Public Review."
[July 15, 2003] "Corel Smart Graphics Studio 1.1 Update Now Available." - "Corel Corporation announced that it has released an update to Corel Smart Graphics Studio, a development platform designed to speed and simplify the creation of SVG-based smart graphics. The new update was demonstrated at the Corel booth for the duration of the SVG Open conference. Corel Smart Graphics Studio 1.1 provides several enhancements to both the development and serving of SVG applications connected to databases and Web services including: (1) More control over assets and objects within Corel Developer SG; (2) Advanced debugging capabilities to simplify the development process; (3) Support for Oracle stored procedures improves Oracle interoperability and reduces development time; (4) More advanced caching capabilities on the server. Smart graphics are a new form of enterprise-class, graphically-rich application built using open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to transform XML and legacy data into powerful and compelling intranet and extranet applications... The Version 1.1 download enables all the developers who tried version 1.0 to test the new features of Corel Smart Graphics Studio with a new 30 day trial period..." See also: (1) the 2003-04-30 news story "Corel Smart Graphics Studio Uses SVG for Graphical Applications Development"; (2) SVG Open 2003 event notice [July 13 - 18, 2003, Second Annual Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics Vancouver, BC, Canada]; (3) SVG Open 2003 Online Proceedings; (4) general references in "W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)."
[July 15, 2003] "Adobe Advances Intelligent Documents with New XML/PDF Form Design Software. New Software Takes Advantage of Adobe's XML Architecture to Enable Easy Creation and Deployment of Intelligent Electronic Documents in PDF and XDP." - "Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced new graphical design software for creating intelligent electronic documents. Leveraging the power of PDF for presenting information and XML for processing data, the new form design software will enable organizations to easily design and deploy intelligent forms in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) or in an XML Data Package (XDP). Combined with Adobe's server solutions, now customers in industries such as financial services, manufacturing and governments worldwide can leverage their current infrastructure, knowledge and investment in applications to connect people and processes across the extended enterprise. The new XML/PDF form designer software builds on Adobe's XML architecture that supports end-to-end document processes. It provides all the capabilities needed to design forms with precision, including the ability to easily define business logic and incorporate existing or user-defined XML schemas. By enabling form designers to include user-defined XML schemas they can use XML vocabularies specific to particular verticals or cross-industry standards. Forms can be deployed in PDF and then processed as PDF is today, or delivered as an XML Data Package (XDP) to be processed as XML. XDP files are simply XML files that contain XML form data, XML form templates, PDF documents and other XML information. They can be easily integrated with enterprise applications via commonly available XML tools and web services... The new form designer, combined with the Adobe Form Server, Adobe Workflow Server, Adobe Document Server and the free Adobe Reader, will enable organizations to integrate enterprise applications with document workflows throughout an organization, improving document generation, collaboration and process management. For example, a financial institution can make loan applications available online. Anyone with the free Reader software can download the form, fill it in offline, and electronically submit the application back to the institution. Because the data in the application is submitted as XML, it can be integrated directly into the existing loan processing system. With more than half-a-billion copies of the Adobe Reader distributed to date, companies can more easily enable virtually anyone to participate in business processes across a wide variety of platforms, applications and devices... The new form designer will be available for beta testing during Q4 2003..." See details in the news story "Enhanced Adobe XML Architecture Supports XML/PDF Form Designer and XML Data Package (XDP)."
[July 15, 2003] "Microsoft Releases Technology Preview of Web Services Enhancements Version 2.0. Company Adds New Security Capabilities for Developers Building Advanced Web Services." - "Continuing its commitment to providing developers with the latest Web services capabilities, Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the technology preview for the next version of Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE), which gives Visual Studio .NET developers support for designing and building advanced Web services. Available as a download on the MSDN Web site, WSE version 2.0 offers new security features that greatly simplify development of secure Web services which span company boundaries and trust domains, connecting and exchanging information with customer and partner systems. WSE 2.0 provides a messaging-based object model that supports multiple transports, including TCP and HTTP, and synchronous and asynchronous communications. Synchronous communications consist of messages in which the sender must wait for a reply. In contrast, with asynchronous messages, the sender can submit a request and can retrieve it at any time without having to wait for a reply. This asynchronous capability is particularly useful for long-running operations that may take hours to complete. WSE 2.0 builds on the security, routing and attachment capabilities of version 1.0 and adds a foundation for building applications based on Web services specifications published by Microsoft and industry partners including WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-SecurityPolicy, WS-Trust, WS-SecureConversation and WS-Addressing. 'The new version of WSE takes Web services to the next level by expanding the experience for developers and enabling enterprises to quickly and easily connect their systems with partners, customers and suppliers using advanced Web services,' said Rebecca Dias, product manager for advanced Web services at Microsoft. 'Developers are now able to apply a set of security policies to Web services with minimal lines of code in a way that is interoperable across heterogeneous systems'..." See other details and references in the news story "Security Featured in Microsoft Web Services Enhancements Version 2.0 Technology Preview."
[July 14, 2003] "CA Ensures Performance, Reliability and Security of Web Services With New Unicenter and eTrust Solutions. Five Advanced Management and Security Offerings Enable IT Organizations To Optimize Service Levels for Enterprise and Customer-Facing Systems." - "Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced five new Unicenter and eTrust solutions that enable customers to ensure the performance, reliability and security of enterprise and customer-facing Web services. These advanced solutions provide the intelligent, automated management and security functionality necessary to optimize service levels for the growing number of enterprise and customer-facing systems being built using Web services technologies. CA is also utilizing Web services technologies to enhance the synergies between its other Unicenter solutions and to enable tighter integration with third-party management applications. By taking advantage of this two-pronged strategy, CA customers can better leverage existing IT resources, reduce operational costs, and capitalize on the synergies created by Web services, grid, and on-demand computing architectures. Unicenter Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM), an advanced solution for monitoring Web services across the enterprise, is the latest addition to CA's Web services portfolio. Unicenter WSDM automatically discovers and monitors Web services, enabling IT organizations to closely track a full range of performance indicators and rapidly respond to service interruptions... Unicenter WSDM version 3.0, a new product for managing Web services hosted in any environment at the Web services overlay network layer. Unicenter WSDM uses highly efficient 'observers' to discover and monitor a wide range of service characteristics of Web services transactions. Unicenter WSDM 'managers' aggregate data from the observers, and can automatically set alerting thresholds. This ensures IT's ability to pro-actively respond to technical issues before they result in service disruptions. Supporting both J2EE and .NET environments, Unicenter WSDM also provides critical service controls, including enabling/disabling and redirection of Web services. By providing centralized management with advanced reporting and predictive analysis capabilities for all Web services from a common point-of-control, Unicenter WSDM optimizes system reliability while reducing the total cost of technology ownership... Unicenter Management for WebSphere release 3.5 and Unicenter Management for WebLogic release 3.5 -- which monitor Web services deployed within the context of the J2EE application server, and facilitate the automatic discovery of both deployed Web services and their interfaces.... Unicenter Management for .NET Framework version 3.0, a new product that provides comprehensive monitoring of Web services deployed within the context of the .NET Framework with outstanding support for the specifics of ASP.NET. It provides discovery of Web services, detailed instrumentation, business relevant service level reporting, health and performance reporting, capacity utilization, and the alerting capabilities essential for Web services and applications... eTrust Directory release 4.1, which provides the first truly enterprise ready UDDI implementation suitable for large-scale deployment and support of Web services. eTrust Directory 4.1 can store, replicate and distribute more than 100 million individual entries of Web services data, making it the ideal for large Web services infrastructure projects..."
[July 14, 2003] "Sleepycat Software Launches Native XML Data Manager Built on the Proven Berkeley DB Engine. 'No-compromises' Native XML Database Attracts Thousands to Beta Program, Including BEA Systems, Boeing, EDS, Leadscope and TELOS." - "Sleepycat Software, makers of Berkeley DB -- the most widely deployed application-specific data management software in the world with over 200 million deployments -- has announced general availability of Berkeley DB XML, a native XML database built on the most advanced version of Berkeley DB ever engineered. Berkeley DB XML is designed for professional software developers who need a transactional, recoverable data manager for native XML and semi-structured data that is fast, cost-effective and flexible. The software was validated during a 12-month beta program by more than 5,000 companies, including BEA Systems, Boeing, EDS, Leadscope and TELOS. 'Berkeley DB XML helps companies get to market quicker with faster performing, lower TCO solutions for their customers. Our customers can rely on an established and profitable partner like Sleepycat to be there in the future,' said Michael Olson, CEO of Sleepycat Software and one of the original co-authors of Berkeley DB. 'Unlike many newcomers to the XML market, we have a proven track record of meeting mission-critical requirements for Global 2000 corporations. And with so many companies testing Berkeley DB XML in beta, clearly our no-compromises XML solution tapped into considerable pent up demand.' Unlike legacy relational databases with XML extensions to convert native XML data into a relational structure for storage and to re-construct the XML upon retrieval, Berkeley DB XML provides true native XML storage, eliminating the overhead of conversion and re-construction. Compared to other XML databases, Berkeley DB XML is more fully featured, including support for replication and the XA interface for distributed transactions. It is based on the proven Berkeley DB engine that first shipped in 1991 and today boasts more than 200 million deployments at some of the world's largest enterprises and service providers. 'The native XML database market has not yet fully established itself as a strong long-term niche in the database market, and therefore native XML vendors need to demonstrate a compelling value proposition to not only differentiate their offering from relational enterprise database vendors but also stimulate demand and stay in the forefront of today's Web-enabled and Web-service-oriented database technologies,' said Wayne Kernochan, vice president at industry research firm the Aberdeen Group. 'Sleepycat Software is well positioned to seize this opportunity with its new native XML offering built around the well-established Berkeley DB engine'..." See: (1) details in "Sleepycat Software Releases Berkeley DB XML Native XML Database"; (2) general references in "XML and Databases."
[July 14, 2003] "New Project Formed: OpenGroupware.org. SKYRIX Open Sources its Groupware Server." - "OpenGroupware.org ('OGo') Project [on July 10, 2003] announced its formation and the release today to the worldwide open source development community of its groupware server software. The software provides the server components necessary for full office collaboration with the OpenOffice.org suite and various other Linux and Windows groupware clients. OGo software runs on Linux and Solaris (www.OpenGroupware.org) The OGo project is a fully independent open-source project, but will inter-operate with the OpenOffice.org software and other similarly open clients via open standards... The OGo software is based initially on the contribution of the code of SKYRiX 4.1 Groupware Server, a mature product that has been in development for 7 years, and one of the earliest groupware products for the Linux operating system. The contributor, SKYRIX Software AG, is well known in Germany as a leader in Linux groupware. 'We are extremely excited to form OpenGroupware.org and to collaborate with OpenOffice.org to serve the open source community worldwide,' said Jens Enders, president and CEO of SKYRIX Software AG. 'By configuring the OpenGroupware.org server together [after install] with the OpenOffice.org office suite and other leading groupware clients, our customers will be able to implement a comprehensive and integrated collaboration environment wholly composed of free software.' The OGo software provides document sharing capabilities for OpenOffice.org documents and will enable users of MS Outlook (97/2000/XP), Ximian Evolution, Mozilla Calendar, OOo Glow (OpenOffice.org Groupware Project's client product), Apple's iCal and other standards-based groupware clients to collaborate. OGo software will enable users to share calendar, address book and e-mail information; they can communicate via instant messaging, share folders, exchange documents, track changes, share a whiteboard, and browse the Web all at the same time -- all upon open Internet standards and without paying or managing cumbersome licensing fees..." See details in the news story "OpenGroupware.org Announces Open Source Project for Groupware Server Software."
[July 09, 2003] "BEA Co-Authors WS-Federation, Demonstrating Continued Standards Leadership." - "As an industry leader in driving the adoption of Web services, BEA Systems has long worked with customers, partners and competitors to drive the development of open standards, which are critical for the robust, secure implementation of Web services. Whether authoring a standard or specification, or providing technical leadership in a standards body, BEA devotes significant resources to driving the standards that can ultimately enable customers to reduce the cost and complexity in their business initiatives. In its latest efforts, BEA is helping to bring critical security capabilities to Web services, working with IBM, Microsoft, RSA and VeriSign to introduce WS-Federation, a set of specifications designed to allow developers a standard way to build and manage Web services security across heterogeneous environments... as BEA innovates with such products as BEA WebLogic Workshop, it continues to make these innovations broadly available, offering technologies to the JCP for standardization such as the WebLogic Workshop innovations embodied in JSR 181 and JSR 207. BEA has long collaborated with industry leaders to drive new Web services standards, as in its collaborations with IBM, Microsoft and others around business processes, transactions, security and reliable messaging, along with the new WS-Federation specifications... Because BEA is dedicated to bringing customers the flexibility, lower costs and investment protection offered by open, standards-based solutions. BEA's open, standards-based BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform helps customers reduce the cost and complexity of business integration, and realize faster time to value for their critical business initiatives..." See details in the news story "Web Services Federation Language Provides Federated Identity Mapping Mechanisms."
[July 09, 2003] "Report Finds Liberty Alliance Standard Helps Financial Institutions Extend Trusted Relationships and Enable New Online Businesses. Independent Study Sponsored by Leading Banks and Industry Vendors Demonstrate SAML and Liberty Alliance Ready to Meet Banks' Business Needs." - "The Liberty Alliance specifications for federated network identity are the subject of an independent report issued today by the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) examining how financial institutions can best make use of identity management and today's leading open standards. The report concludes that the Liberty Alliance specifications and OASIS' Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) provide financial institutions with a standardized way to extend trusted relationships with customers and employees to third-parties, thus enhancing protection from fraud, network attack, and scrutiny compared to other proprietary solutions. It also concludes that the two leading open standards, SAML and Liberty Alliance, can enable new types of online businesses and streamline access to existing Web-based products and services. FSTC's Identity Management in Financial Services: An assessment of the Liberty Alliance and SAML specifications report provides an introduction to Liberty Phase 1 and SAML, and assesses their ability to meet business requirements of common financial service scenarios. The report details scenarios for employee single sign-on (for outsourced employee services), business-to-business single sign-on (for supply chain management), and account aggregation. It also provides general recommendations on the future of identity management and open standards in financial services. "Identity management is an important priority for financial institutions," said Mike McCormick, a contributor to the FSTC report and Wells Fargo systems architect. "Single sign-on is just the beginning. Deploying SSO functionality will drive additional requirements for attribute sharing in order for banks, insurance companies, brokers or others in the industry to deliver more personalized services to their users. Liberty's first set of specifications and future work is playing an important role this area." Beyond the technology discussion, the study references Liberty's work in mitigating common business problems associated with establishing circles-of-trust, such as providing guidance on bilateral business agreements, which vary extensively among companies..." See also: (1) "FSTC Evaluation Report on Identity Management in Financial Services"; (2) general references in "Liberty Alliance Specifications for Federated Network Identification and Authorization."
[July 09, 2003] "Sun and Waveset to Offer Integrated Identity Management Solution for Peoplesoft. Enterprises Gain Secure, Lifecycle Management of Workforce, Based on Industry Standards." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Waveset Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of innovative identity management solutions, today announced an expansion of the companies' strategic alliance to deliver an integrated, standards-based identity management solution for use with PeopleSoft applications. The first iteration of the solution is designed to enable business process integration between Human Capital Management and IT security/identity management, that will help drive down costs in the on-boarding and off-boarding of employees and to increase workforce productivity. Sun and Waveset are scheduled to demonstrate the integrated solution on July 10, 2003 at Burton Group's Catalyst Conference 2003, in San Francisco, Calif. The demonstration will highlight a standards-based interoperability between Sun, Waveset and PeopleSoft based on the Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) currently under review by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for acceptance as an industry-wide standard. This integrated solution is expected to provide users with the ability to initiate and manage the lifecycle of workforce identity information from a single portal interface, spanning Human Resource (HR), IT and facilities resources. It is designed to combine the functionality of the Liberty Alliance-enabled Sun ONE Identity Server, Sun ONE Directory Server, and Waveset Lighthouse to reduce the time it takes to establish or change access rights, privileges and profile data across multiple applications. This greatly improves an organization's operational efficiency and frees IT resources to focus on other areas... The joint solution developed by Sun and Waveset integrated with PeopleSoft is expected to provide administrators and end users the assurance and convenience of one interface from which to manage all identity-related data. Specifically: (1) For HR managers, PeopleSoft HCM system drives workforce add/delete processes from start to finish and acts as the authoritative source for identity information changes. (2) For IT managers, centralized, automated provisioning processes based upon SPML result in increased operational efficiencies. (3) For security professionals, an integrated HR/identity management combination increases the predictability of business processes that support the management of workforce identities. (4) For end users, single-action self-service interfaces provide faster turnaround time on access requests or profile changes..." See details in the news story "Sun and Waveset Provide Identity Management Solution for PeopleSoft Using SPML."
[July 09, 2003] "BMC Software Enhances Provisioning Solution. Marked By Industry First, Enhancements Ease Provisioning Management Challenges." - "BMC Software, Inc., a leader in enterprise management, today announced key enhancements to its user provisioning solution, CONTROL-SA. Dedicated to promoting open standards, CONTROL-SA will offer Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) based provisioning. SPML is an open standard defined by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) that allows supply chain partners to provision employees on each others' systems even when using different provisioning solutions. Additional enhancements to CONTROL-SA include the product's integration with Remedy, a leading provider of service management software, and a new interface that enables CONTROL-SA to leverage Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) connectivity... This new capability makes CONTROL-SA the only provisioning solution in the marketplace that allows multiple workflows to interact with the provisioning solution thereby providing customers with provisioning options to select the best workflow to meet their requirements. CONTROL-SA enables users today to seamlessly integrate into workflow environments from other leading vendors such as Business Layers, Oblix, PeopleSoft, and Remedy. In addition to affording customers the freedom of choosing the right workflow for their environment, CONTROL-SA's open provisioning initiative enhances the usability of their provisioning solution, and provides a foundation for ensuring secure identity management. BMC Software will be demonstrating the open provisioning capabilities of CONTROL-SA at the Catalyst Conference in San Francisco on July 9, 2003. This demo will feature integration between CONTROL-SA and PeopleSoft's human resource (HR) provisioning component using the OASIS Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) standard. The SPML standard allows technologies to securely manage the identity lifecycle of a user -- including the dynamic allocation of their associated resources -- across a trusted boundary using a common language. The demonstration will also show CONTROL-SA's ability to engage with PeopleSoft's HR provisioning component while using SPML standards. These capabilities answer the need for integration and interoperability of disparate provisioning components..." See: (1) "OASIS Member Companies Host SPML Identity Management Interoperability Event"; (2) "XML-Based Provisioning Services."
[July 08, 2003] "New Burton Group Research Provides Practical Advice to Technologists Implementing Application Platform Standardization. New Application Platform Strategies Research & Advisory Service Focuses on the Evolution of Enterprise Application Architectures." - "Burton Group, the only IT research and advisory firm focused exclusively on offering in-depth analysis of enterprise infrastructure technologies, today announced a new research and advisory service at its annual Catalyst Conference held in San Francisco. Application Platform Strategies provides in-depth analysis for IT professionals who develop, deploy, integrate, and manage enterprise application architectures. Research coverage areas for Application Platform Strategies include: (1) Application frameworks such as Java and Microsoft .NET; (2) The Web services framework and standards; (3) Application server middleware and tools; (4) EAI and B2B integration. 'Competitive pressures, the need to reduce costs, and a variety of other business factors are driving enterprises to integrate business processes and IT. Enterprises are creating both internally and externally facing systems that tie employees, customers, partners, suppliers, contractors, and other constituents into their business processes,' said Jamie Lewis, CEO of Burton Group. 'These trends are creating wholesale change in enterprise IT architectures. Application Platform Strategies provides in-depth, technical, and practical information that helps enterprises deal with these changes, accelerating the development and deployment process.' Burton Group has assembled a team of highly respected industry analysts to launch the service with plans to staff-up as demand continues. Gary Hein, research service director will lead and manage the research process working closely with Anne Thomas Manes, research director and Jim Kobielus, senior analyst. Application Platform Strategies is designed for application architects, developers, and IT managers charged with developing and maintaining a comprehensive application integration strategy and architecture for their enterprise organization..."
[July 08, 2003] "Liberty Alliance Releases Business Requirements and Guidelines for Wide Scale Identity Federation. Business Consortium to Create 'Source Library' for Business Partners to Securely and Responsibly Exchange Identity Information Beyond Company Boundaries." - "The Liberty Alliance Project today demonstrated why network identity is more than a technology problem. At this week's Burton Catalyst Conference, the Liberty Alliance published a foundational document outlining business requirements necessary for the wide scale deployment of federated network identity. This document is the first in a series of documents the Alliance is developing to offer global businesses guidance they need to deploy federated identity beyond company walls. 'The early work of Liberty Alliance focused on the technical requirements needed to create a federated identity architecture. We introduced our first set of open federated identity specifications a year ago, and our second set of specifications is already out for public review. Now that our technical work is well under way, we must help facilitate adoption of federated identity across the industry,' said Michael Barrett, president of the Liberty Alliance Management Board and vice president of Internet strategy at American Express. 'The real value in Web services will never be reached until companies can more securely and efficiently manage trusted relationship among partners, suppliers, employees and customers,' continued Barrett. 'Identity is the foundation of any trusted relationship, and there is a great deal of complexity in how businesses manage and share that identity information.' While identity federation holds much promise to advance Web services, it also requires that companies address the liability, risk and costs that arise with sharing information beyond company walls. The Liberty Alliance Business Guidelines document highlights four major business requirements to consider in the context of identity federation..." See details in the news story "Liberty Alliance Publishes Business Requirements and Guidelines for Identity Federation."
[July 08, 2003] "Novell Releases Roadmap for Secure Identity Management Success. Novell Offers New Architectural Guide to Help Customers Understand and Logically Deploy the Essential Building Blocks of Secure Identity Management." - "The prospect of implementing a secure identity management solution can be an imposing challenge for many enterprise customers. Not only are there significant technological and political considerations, but many identity management offerings are limited-purpose, addressing only provisioning or single sign-on, instead of the greater problem. Deploying these 'silos' of identity often only makes the situation worse. Realizing this challenge, Novell has released a new secure identity management architectural guide designed to help customers understand the essential building blocks of secure identity management, and how to logically design and deploy those components to solve real business problems. The document, A Superior Foundation for Secure Identity Management, also introduces Novell's Identity Automation Framework -- the company's highly flexible technical architecture underlying the future of all of its Nsure solutions. Two of the building blocks in that architecture - secure auditing and federated authentication -- are outlined in related announcements made today by Novell... Novell's architectural guide highlights an evolutionary approach to identity management, following these basic steps: (1) Integrated Identity: Identity information across an organization must first be integrated - but with respect for authoritative sources of identity. For example, it's not realistic to force HR personnel to stop using their internal applications (such as PeopleSoft or SAP) to maintain employee identity in favor of using a centralized identity repository and its associated interfaces. Many identity management vendors require just such a change in business practice. (2) Identity Management: A set of proven, advanced management techniques should then be applied to the integrated identity to automate, accelerate and simplify identity creation and maintenance. These techniques include role-based administration, workflow, self-service, triggers and others. (3) Secure Identity Management: Additional capabilities allow the infrastructure to address not only operational efficiencies, but also the confidentiality, integrity and security of business resources. These include federated authentication, account restrictions, and secure logging and auditing. (4) Secure Identity Management Solutions: Finally, with a solid foundation in place organizations can quickly and efficiently address business problems such as password management, Web access, provisioning, single sign-on and others..."
[July 08, 2003] "Novell Helps Business Partners Securely Share Identity Information on the Web. Novell Ships the SAML Extension for Novell iChain, a Federated Identity Management Service." - "Novell today announced the general availability of the SAML extension for Novell iChain, a federated identity management service that allows companies to reach across the Internet to form secure, profitable relationships with business partners and customers. The concept of federated identity - securely sharing user information across organizational or geographic boundaries - is an important part of Novell Nsure secure identity management solutions, which not only address identity management within an organization but also beyond the firewall. 'The Internet has long held the promise of better, faster collaboration among business partners or customers; but often, establishing those connections raises serious concerns about security or is simply too complex,' said Justin Taylor, Novell's chief strategist for secure identity management. 'The advent of the SAML standard, and now the SAML extension for Novell iChain, changes that,' Taylor said. 'This new service from Novell allows user identity and attribute information to be shared securely over the Web, addressing a host of business problems - from establishing single sign-on between business partner Web sites to more sophisticated business relationships requiring the secure transmission of credit card information or home phone numbers.' The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) standard has emerged as the key element in establishing trusted business relationships over the Web. According to Burton Group analyst Phil Schacter, 'SAML is becoming a universal token format for applications to leverage a prior authentication event based on an open industry-wide standard. Both Liberty Alliance and the OASIS working group on WS-Security recognize and leverage SAML as part of the infrastructure for Web security. Early adopters are already taking advantage of SAML to deliver business services to partners based on a federated identity approach. By delivering a proxy-based SAML service, Novell is enabling its customers to more rapidly gain the operational and business benefits of federation strategies.' Securing business relationships using the SAML standard also helps lower development and administration costs. Without a standard method of authenticating and authorizing users, organizations would face costly, often non-reusable custom-coding projects. And the SAML extension takes those savings even further, thanks to the proxy-based architecture of Novell iChain. With it, customers can quickly deploy SAML-enabled services without having to make any changes to the actual Web servers..." See general references in "Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)."
[July 07, 2003] "RealNetworks Releases Industry Standard SMIL Source Code to Helix Community. Helix Developers Can Now Easily Create Helix DNA Client Products Supporting Synchronized Multimedia." - "RealNetworks Inc., a global leader in network-delivered digital media, today added to the Helix Community, the source code for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced 'smile'), the standard for synchronized display of digital presentations. With the source code of SMIL 2.0 and the Helix DNA Client, Helix community developers can support display of complex presentations in their products. The Helix DNA Client is already in use by major middleware and consumer electronics companies to enable Internet media on consumer electronics devices such as DVD players, set top boxes, PDAs, and mobile devices. RealNetworks is a contributor to both the SMIL 1.0 and 2.0 specifications and is proud that SMIL 2.0 is both a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation, the highest level of authorized standard, and a key component of the 3rd Generation Partnership Product (3GPP) specification for mobile multimedia. Supported in industry leading media players, such as RealOne Player, SMIL is typically used for multimedia presentations that integrate streaming audio and video with images, text or any other media type... 'SMIL is the W3C Recommendation for multimedia that allows authors to create XML-based interactive multimedia presentations,' said Philipp Hoschka, Deputy Director for the W3C. 'We are pleased to see SMIL support expanded into the Helix Community, making the power and flexibility of SMIL available to more developers and more users, and encouraging the even broader adoption of an open multimedia format.' Developers interested in offering content providers the ability to display their content on devices, such as set top boxes, mobile and handheld devices, can implement the Helix DNA Client with SMIL functionality. This simplifies both the product development process and the creation of content -- as SMIL enables content owners to create complex media presentations without using scripting languages. RealNetworks' cross-platform SMIL source code (Windows, Mac and Linux available today) is available under a no-cost open source or a royalty-based commercial license to the registered developers of the Helix community..." General references in "Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL)."
[July 7, 2003] "Business Layers to Present SPML at Burton Catalyst North America 2003. Founding Member of Provisioning Services Technical Committee to Present SPML in Conjunction with OASIS Ratification." - "Gavenraj Sodhi, senior technology analyst of Business Layers will be presenting Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML), the industry's first XML-based specification designed to leverage the reuse of Web services to achieve secure, federated user resource allocation, at the Burton Catalyst North America 2003 conference in San Francisco, Calif. The standard is currently under review by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), and is expected to achieve official ratification in July 2003. SPML is designed to achieve secure federated user resource allocation to maximize existing IT resources, reduce administrative costs and enhance security. SPML allows businesses to provide external access to sensitive data and corporate systems while maintaining secure, federated identity management. 'The SPML standard will have a critical impact on the future security of resource provisioning between companies,' said Gavenraj Sodhi, senior technology analyst for Business Layers. 'By allowing businesses to leverage Web Services, the automation, centralization and management of provisioning access to internal and external corporate data will finally reach the level of simplicity to be effective for customers.' Mr. Sodhi, an OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee (PSTC) founding member, is scheduled to present at Burton Catalyst on July 9, 2003 at 4:00 PM Pacific Time at the Hilton San Francisco in California. Mr. Sodhi's presentation will define SPML, discuss its applicability to identity management and provisioning infrastructure, and its upcoming ratification by the OASIS PSTC..." See: (1) "OASIS Member Companies Host SPML Identity Management Interoperability Event"; (2) General references in "XML-Based Provisioning Services."
[July 02, 2003] "OpenNetwork Announces Universal Identity Platform 5.0 For Unified, End-to-End Identity Management. The Industry's Only .NET-based Solution Leverages Microsoft and Web Services as Underlying Identity Infrastructure." - "OpenNetwork Technologies, a leading provider of non-intrusive identity management security solutions, today announced the Universal Identity Platform (Universal IdP). The next generation solution was designed specifically to take advantage of the reliability, scalability and functionality of Microsoft technology, and to extend its value as an identity infrastructure to J2EE and mainframe environments. Universal IdP is the industry's only identity management solution built in the .NET Framework. It is also the only product that eliminates the need for expensive point solutions because it leverages Microsoft directory and meta-directory services, the .NET Framework and Web Services for end-to-end identity management across applications, users and locations inside and outside the enterprise. Universal IdP centralizes and unifies the management of identities and security policies, secures access to protected resources, and delivers automated workflow and provisioning into the enterprise. The solution addresses the needs of companies who have selected Microsoft as their identity infrastructure, yet require the flexibility to support heterogeneous environments. For the first time, companies with a combination of Microsoft and Java development environments can consistently manage and secure their business resources with a .NET interface. Universal IdP uniquely integrates Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) with mainframe systems such as RACF and ACF2. It also provides a provisioning connector framework that easily extends the identity infrastructure to custom applications and systems. For businesses looking to implement federation, Universal IdP can provide SSO SAML communication and DSML/SPML provisioning communication for trusted partners beyond corporate boundaries..."
[July 02, 2003] "Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 Released to Manufacturing. Advanced Capabilities Integrate Identities and Automate Provisioning Across Multiple Directories to Deliver More-Secure, Less-Expensive Identity and Access Management." - "Microsoft Corp. today delivered the Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003, a key element of its comprehensive approach to help customers build cost-effective, end-to-end identity management solutions. MIIS improves identity and access management for customers by enabling them to integrate information from multiple repositories for a single, complete view of user information. As a result, MIIS reduces the risk and complexity associated with building, deploying and maintaining a comprehensive identity and access management solution. 'Customers have told us they need an end-to-end solution for managing identity information and access rights,' said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president for the Windows Server Group at Microsoft. 'With today's delivery of MIIS, we bring provisioning and metadirectory capabilities together in a single solution that enables customers to create and manage user identities with a single consistent view across the enterprise and throughout the complete life cycle of identity management.' In addition to integrating identity information across multiple platforms, MIIS makes identity management easier by automating the process of establishing and eliminating user accounts and enabling self-service password management... As part of its developing identity management strategy, Microsoft is introducing other new offerings for Windows Server 2003 customers at no additional charge, including the following: (1) Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) enables customers to deploy Active Directory as a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for application-specific data while using their distributed Active Directory infrastructure for user sign-on. ADAM provides customers with greater flexibility in deploying an Active Directory infrastructure or a directory-enabled application. (2) Identity Integration Feature Pack for Windows Server Active Directory integrates identity information between multiple Active Directory forests or between implementations of ADAM. As a result, customers will be able to manage digital identities more easily across their Windows Server Active Directory infrastructure. (3) Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) 2.0 enables developers to represent directory structural information and directory operations as Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based documents. The result is interoperability between Active Directory and other directory services vendors that support this standard. (4) The Microsoft Identity Management Solution Accelerator, built with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, provides planning and implantation guidance, which helps customers effectively plan and build an identity management infrastructure..." See details and references in "Microsoft Announces Release of Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003."
[July 02, 2003] "Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 Hails Broad Industry Support. Leading Systems Integrators, IHVs and ISVs Help Customers Build Comprehensive and Cost-Effective Identity Management Solutions." - "Microsoft Corp. today announced support from leading industry systems integrators (SIs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) for its Microsoft Identity Integration Server 2003 (MIIS) and other identity management offerings. With this support, Microsoft is delivering a key element that represents a comprehensive and cost-effective identity management solution that will help customers reduce the cost, risk and complexity associated with managing end-user identities. MIIS, paired with broad industry support, will equip customers with the technologies and services they need today to effectively plan, implement and manage an end-to-end identity management strategy that conforms to their unique business needs. 'Customers look to us as a strategic partner that can help bring industry partner products and services together, making identity management solutions on the Windows platform simple and cost-effective,' said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president for the Windows Server Group at Microsoft... Microsoft is working with a leading group of SIs, IHVs and ISVs that are delivering products and services that enable customer identity management solutions. All these industry partners are working with customers to implement successful identity management solutions based on Active Directory and new products introduced today... Technologies from companies like Business Layers Inc., DigitalPersona Inc., ePresence Inc., M-Tech Information Technology Inc., Oblix Inc. and OpenNetwork Technologies have been designed to easily interoperate with Microsoft's identity management offerings and to provide customers with well-integrated solutions that deliver a best-of-breed approach to solving identity management problems. In addition, many of the industry's leading SIs, including Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Ernst & Young, Fujitsu Services, HP Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Unisys Corp., are working with Microsoft to deliver a full range of assessment, planning and implementation services. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are providing customers with a broad selection of solutions to help them realize better return on their investments through implementation of an identity management solution on the Windows platform..." See details and references in "Microsoft Announces Release of Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) 2003."
[July 01, 2003] "Software AG's Tamino XML Server Offers Enhanced Support for Non-XML Documents. Tamino XML Server Version 4.1.4 Provides Indexer to Better Search Metadata for Microsoft Office and Sun StarOffice Documents." - "Software AG, Inc., a pioneer in XML solutions, today announced that version 4.1.4 of its Tamino XML Server includes a new indexing tool for performing metadata searches on non-XML documents such as Microsoft Office and Sun StarOffice. Other text retrieval enhancements in Tamino XML Server 4.1.4 include phonetic document searches and retreived text highlighting. These enhancements enable better access to both Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents and other types of business and multimedia content... Tamino's Non-XML Indexer plug-in module works with Tamino to extend the set of searchable metadata -- such as author, creation date, date last modified, or file size -- that is associated with non-XML documents. This capability facilitates faster and more intelligent searches of non-XML documents using Tamino. The module can create indices for standard document formats such as Microsoft Office (including Word and Excel), StarOffice (including Writer and Calc), OpenOffice, Plain text files (UTF-8), MPEG Audio (often known as MP3 files), RTF (Rich Text Format) and ZIP files. Separately installable on Tamino, the Non-XML Indexer plug-in module can be downloaded from the Tamino Developer Community... Tamino XML Server version 4.1.4 allows for phonetic searches, meaning that documents will be returned which contain a phonetic equivalent to the specific search term. This capability can increase the number of 'hits' during a search for a term where the pronunciation is known, but the exact spelling is unknown. For example, a search on 'site' would also yield results for 'sight,' and a search on 'eight' would also yield results for 'ate.' When returning results from queries against stored document texts, Tamino XML Server version 4.1.4 now highlights elements of the found text that match elements of the recipient's query. This enables returned information to be evaluated more quickly and easily by the requestor... Tamino XML Server's new application programming interface (API) for C allows client applications written in C or C++ to access Tamino without going through a Web server. In addition, any programming language that allows external C routines to be called can take advantage of the functionality provided by the Tamino API for C. Tamino already offers a wide array of APIs -- including Java, Jscript, ActiveX and .Net -- to allow developers to work in the programming language that best matches their current skill sets and programming environment. The Tamino API for C is supported in Tamino versions 4.1 and above...

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Earlier Press Releases 2003 Q2

Earlier Press Releases


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