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Last modified: March 30, 2001
XML Industry News: October - December 2000

XML News

This XML Industry News section consists mainly of links to company press releases announcing support for XML/XSL/XLink, October - December 2000. An effort has been made to include representative items, but the collection is not exhaustive. Other documents with reference collections:

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

Search: [Indexed Search]

  • [December 29, 2000] "eBusiness Technologies Submits Two Notes to the World Wide Web Consortium. Leading Developer of Standards-Based Content Management and Workflow Solutions Proposes XML-Based Scripting Language and Transition Network Format." - "eBusiness Technologies, a leading provider of solutions and services for e-business applications, today announced that Gavin Nicol, the Company's Chief Scientist and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Advisory Committee representative, has submitted two Notes to the W3C. The Notes are published on the W3C Web site. One Note, titled XEXPR Language Definition, would ease the requirement of using XML in conjunction with a scripting language, which often results in a scripting language being bound within the XML content. The Note defines XEXPR, a scripting language that uses XML as its primary syntax, thereby making is easily embeddable in an XML document, and allowing XML tools to manipulate the scripted content of documents. The other Note, XTND-XML Transition Network Definition, defines an XML- based format to enable the integration and interchange of different sets of states and the transitions between them. The intent of XTND is to define an XML-based interchange format for process definitions. Such definitions could facilitate e-business and eCommerce by fueling interoperability between different workflow engines used in end-to-end business processes, including such functions as editorial review (e.g., creating and reviewing content) and business process automation (e.g., order processing). "The W3C is the most open standards body and the center point for Internet-related technologies," said James Ringrose, president and CEO of eBT. "An XML-based scripting language and transition network format will enable organizations to maintain greater flexibility and control over Web content and the business processes they operate and with which they interoperate. eBT is pleased to submit these Notes to the W3C to further the discussion on these important topics... Leveraging ten years of experience in developing standards-based content management systems for the corporate marketplace, eBT's engenda is a turnkey, XML-enabled content management and workflow automation solution created to support ongoing Internet, intranet, and extranet requirements. Designed for rapid deployment and easy operation, engenda integrates with existing data communications infrastructures and e-business/eCommerce application servers. Intended for mid- to large-sized organizations, engenda is a flexible, collaborative solution for building and sustaining business-critical Web projects."

  • [December 28, 2000] "MISMO Application Workgroup Chair Presents XML Status Report. Dynatek's Todd Luhtanen provides update on XML Data Interchange Standards for mortgage industry." - "The Mortgage Bankers Association of America's Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) Mortgage Application Workgroup Chairman, Todd Luhtanen, today offered his evaluation of the organization's progress related to the establishment of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) data standards for the mortgage industry. According to Luhtanen, MISMO's first year in operation has been a successful, cooperative effort by all lenders, vendors and agency participants and he anticipates all MISMO strategic objectives to be met, if not surpassed, in the organization's second year of operation. Luhtanen, also director of technology for Dynatek, an established provider of mortgage software, was elected to serve on the Governance Committee of MISMO. The committee was formed by the MBA to establish XML data interchange standards for the mortgage industry, and held its third and final working session of 2000 during the last week of September. More than 100 industry leaders attended the five-day conference in Milwaukee, Wisc. to discuss the latest developments concerning mortgage industry standards with XML, the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web. Luhtanen's first task was determining the scope of the Mortgage Application Workgroup and then structuring the timeline for its activities. Luhtanen's chief focus is to lead MISMO's efforts in establishing a thorough data model representing the origination aspects of the mortgage lending process. This group's mission is to build on the established logical data dictionary, encompassing information from all distinctive workgroups throughout the mortgage industry. The working draft of the 'Mortgage Application Logical Data Dictionary' is slated for release by the end of 2000. The Mortgage Application workgroup is defining the primary data set to be used throughout the origination process. Until this time, standards have focused on external processes like credit, underwriting and service ordering. The workgroup will extend and combine these processes and bring them all together. The integration of these processes will result in an XML document that could begin at a consumer based Web site, move to an LOS system, be passed to a credit agency, and returned with credit data attached. From there, it could be sent to an AUS system and returned. All other services could happen in the same manner. This will allow the XML mortgage application to live longer than the transaction it was initially created for and the result of one transaction can become the input of the next transaction. Each vendor performs his portion of servicing the loan, and it is then passed on to the next vendor in the process. The responsibility is on the receiver to understand his or her own business, rather than the sender being required to understand the business of all vendors involved. This will allow greater freedom of service providers to enhance their services, resulting in faster time to market improvements and additional services, while protecting their competitive advantage. The core data concept is integral to this vision and has provided the necessary data elements for the basis of the process. The first release of the mortgage application will include credit, underwriting and additional data necessary to provide initial disclosure information for loans..." See "Mortgage Bankers Association of America MISMO Standard."

  • [December 22, 2000] "World Wide Web Consortium Issues XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation. XHTML Basic Provides the Key to Full Web Access to Mobile Devices." - "Continuing its mission to create one Web for all users, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today released XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation. The specification reflects cross-industry agreement on a set of markup language features that allows authors to create rich Web content deliverable to a wide range of devices, including mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, and television-based Web browsers. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry. In January 2000, W3C published the XHTML 1.0 Recommendation, which combined the well-known features of HTML with the power of XML. In another W3C specification entitled 'Modularization of XHTML', W3C's HTML Working Group describes a mechanism that allows authors to mix and match content from well-defined subsets of XHTML 1.0 elements and attributes. The XHTML Basic Recommendation combines some of these XHTML modules in a manner well-suited to mobile Web applications. 'Interoperability has always been essential to the Web,' said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. 'The simplicity of early versions of HTML made interoperability easy. While XHTML 1.0 is a powerful language, support for the full XHTML 1.0 feature set may be too much to expect browsers on cell phones and other small devices to handle. XHTML Basic offers the simplicity and wide interoperability of early versions of HTML and reflects ten years of Web experience, including advances in XML and accessibility.' XHTML Basic is designed so that it may be implemented by all user agents, including mobile devices, television-based devices, and other small Web devices. 'The minimalist nature of the XHTML Basic document type ensures that all Web clients, including mobile phones, PDAs, pagers, set-top boxes, and PCs, can support a common subset of XHTML,' said Dave Raggett, W3C Fellow and Senior Architect at Openwave Systems Inc. 'XHTML Basic provides a powerful building block for use across increasingly diverse platforms, and can be extended with various specialized markup such as for multimedia (SMIL), mathematics (MathML), vector graphics (SVG), and forms (XForms).' The XHTML Basic specification is the result of significant collaborative efforts of the W3C HTML Working Group, including participants from AOL/Netscape; CWI; Ericsson; IBM; Intel; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; Microsoft; Mozquito Technologies; Openwave Systems Inc.; Philips Electronics; Quark Inc.; and Sun Microsystems. In addition, the Working Group integrated feedback from the W3C Mobile Access Interest Group and the WAP Forum in an effort to ensure demonstrable functionality in wireless devices. Many industry players support, or have plans to support, XHTML Basic, including the WAP Forum. Today, content developers interested in making XHTML Basic documents can create them with W3C's own browser/editor, Amaya..."

  • [December 22, 2000] "New Internet Markup Language Provides Massive Boost to Mobility." - "MobileAware, a leading provider of e-business mobility infrastructure, will unveil one of the first working examples of modularized XHTML at the WAP Forum meeting which starts today in Munich and runs until 15th December. The company has developed a unique markup language known as TML (Task Markup Language), an extension of XHTML which enables content from a single source to be structured for delivery to any Internet enabled device, fixed line or wireless. The new markup language has been designed to minimize dependence on IT resources by empowering the original content author to pre-purpose web pages for delivery to any device. A simple set of tools is added as an extension to any standard web-authoring package, replacing the need for low-level programming code and allowing non-technical authors to determine for themselves how content and applications will be displayed on a PDA, a smart phone, a laptop or any other web-connected device. Existing web authors do not need to learn any new skills to make use of TML because there is little difference between applying TML and standard HTML. As it presently stands, companies are often forced to deploy valuable IT resources to re-engineer enterprise content and applications for delivery to different devices, however this is an incredibly complex task which most companies don't have the resources to sustain in the long-term. Consequently, many corporations are resisting change because of concerns about set-up and maintenance costs and the need for in-house expertise. TML is XML compliant and offers a convenient and low-cost way for companies to mobilize their enterprise resources by enabling them to re-use existing enterprise content and applications. This removes many of the IT resource dependencies traditionally associated with the wireless Internet. For example, a person with little or no experience of Internet technology can easily mobilize a corporate Intranet by simply adding TML tags to the existing web pages, Mr. Collins concluded..." [source, cache]

  • [December 22, 2000] "Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Announces the Formation of an XML Standards Committee." - "Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Inc. today announced the formation of a Standards Committee to research and propose an Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard to facilitate the seamless integration of balanced scorecard related applications. The Balanced Scorecard XML Standard will remove many of the technology and software barriers that currently exist when transferring performance management and strategy related information between some applications and across enterprises. Participating in this Balanced Scorecard XML Standards Committee will be representatives from CorVu Corporation, Gentia Software, Hyperion Solutions Corporation, INPHASE Software Ltd., Oracle Corporation, PeopleSoft Incorporated, PROCOS Professional Controlling Systems AG, Prodacapo, QPR Software, SAP AG, and SAS Institute Incorporated. The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative will lead this initiative. Dr. David P. Norton, President of Balanced Scorecard Collaborative and co-author with Dr. Robert Kaplan of 'The Balanced Scorecard' and 'The Strategy Focused Organization' said, 'The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative ensures that the Balanced Scorecard name maintains meaning through specific processes. These are the establishment of the Balanced Scorecard Functional Standards and the accompanying process to certify software applications for conformance to these standards. Working collaboratively to establish XML standards for the Balanced Scorecard is the logical extension of this process that will help bring alignment to this rapidly growing market space and ensure lasting value for customers of vendors who follow the XML standard, once set.' Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. (BSCol) is a new kind of professional services firm that facilitates the worldwide awareness, use, enhancement, and integrity of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a value-added management process. Founded and led by the creators of the Balanced Scorecard concept, Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, BSCol provides Strategy-Focused Organization and Balanced Scorecard excellence through consulting, conferences, training, publishing, consortia, certification, partnerships, and online services that deliver know-how to global audiences."

  • [December 12, 2000] "United Nations CEFACT and OASIS to Deliver ebXML Technical Infrastructure Ahead of Schedule. Proof-of-Concept Demo with Thirteen Vendors Proves Readiness of Electronic Business Infrastructure." - "The United Nations CEFACT and OASIS today announced that the core technical infrastructure of ebXML, the Electronic Business XML Initiative, nears completion and will be delivered in March 2001, two months ahead of schedule. The technical specifications for the transport, routing and packaging (TRP), trading partner agreements (TPA), and registry/repository (REG/REP) components of ebXML provide the required pieces to ensure interoperability based on XML standards for global business on the Internet. Enterprises are demanding a standards-based framework for global trading, and developers are demanding the availability of an open, business-quality architecture that they can begin evaluating and implementing now. Progress on the 18-month ebXML initiative has been so substantial, organizers agreed to move the delivery date forward to meet this demand. At a recent ebXML meeting in Tokyo, hundreds of organizations from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America gathered to advance the development of ebXML. As a highlight of this meeting and a ratification of this decision, sixteen companies collaborated in an interactive proof-of-concept demonstration of the ebXML technical infrastructure. 'The ebXML specifications for transport, routing and packaging, trading partner agreements and registry/repository are stable and ready for evaluation and early adoption. This is great news for Web developers who want to get a jumpstart on creating electronic commerce applications built on global standards,' said Klaus-Dieter Naujok, chair of ebXML and member of the UN/CEFACT Steering Group. 'We are very excited to report our progress is significantly ahead of schedule and that we are in a position to deliver the ebXML technical infrastructure in 90 days.' Cisco, Fujistu, IBM, Interwoven, IPNet, Netfish Technologies, NTT Communications, Savvion, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, TIE, Viquity and XMLSolutions collaborated to build an interactive implementation of ebXML interoperability. In addition, Extol, webMethods and XML Global tracked the POC event closely and indicated that they would be interested in participating in future ebXML events. The demonstration, which was presented in North America for the first time today at a media event in San Francisco, showed how businesses can use ebXML to dynamically formulate trading partnerships through a registry service and exchange electronic business transactions using a consistent XML-based messaging infrastructure. The ebXML demonstration showed dynamic business transactions using payloads from the Automotive Industry Action Group. 'These vendors, many of whom are competitors, came together to prove that one of ebXML core strength's is interoperability', said Robert S. Sutor, Ph.D. of IBM, vice chair of ebXML and member of the OASIS Board of Directors. 'Early completion of the ebXML technical infrastructure will pave the way for rapid availability of multiple commercial integrated ebXML-compliant solutions. These will reduce the costs of deployment and ensure the flexibility required for e-commerce success in the global market." See references in "Electronic Business XML Initiative (ebXML)."

  • [December 12, 2000] "Lighthammer extends XML capabilities with the release of Illuminator Version 8.5." - "Many CEOs, CTOs and CIOs recognize the link to real time systems in manufacturing represents the 'missing link' in the complete e-manufacturing strategy, says Russ Fadel, CEO of Intellution, Inc., an Exton, PA-based supplier of Plant Information Portal technology. However, while many business systems do an adequate job in providing a view of 'business' metrics, Fadel says they all lack the resolution to provide a current view of production activities and performance. As one solution, Lighthammer's Illuminator acts as a way to complement and extend investments in Enterprise Knowledge Management by expanding the 'reach' into plant/production systems. Illuminator, now in Version 8.5, connects to manufacturing automation and information systems and leverages Web technology to facilitate cost-effective, real-time access to information throughout the internal and external supply chain. Illuminator enables users to make informed operational and tactical decisions and to achieve true 'zero latency' manufacturing, a prerequisite for any manufacturing organization undertaking an e-business strategy. Visibility to operational measurements also provides the foundation for ongoing process improvement and can be an important enabler for Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard initiatives. Version 8.5 extends Lighthammer's deployment of XML technology as an enabler for acquisition, analysis, distribution, and presentation of information from manufacturing systems. Enhanced functionality includes built-in transformation of data into any standard XML message structure such as BizTalk, RosettaNet, and others, as well as the ability to interface with peer or enterprise systems using XML as the default data format for both incoming and outgoing data. Illuminator 8.5 introduces an Intelligent Agent subsystem, which can be used to: (1) enable interapplication messaging on detection of production events or exceptions; (2) automatically calculate key performance indicator (KPI) metrics; (3) automatically transfer information between XML, database, and e-mail sources; (4) gather and convert data from external Web sources..." See also "Lighthammer Showcases Plant XML Portal Technology at ISA Expo 2000."

  • [December 12, 2000] "XML Global supports ebXML Thirteen Vendor Proof-of-Concept Demo." - "XML Global Technologies, Inc., architects and builders of XML powered e-business platforms, announced it enthusiastically supports and endorses the ebXML Proof- of-Concept demo held today in San Francisco. The POC demo, sponsored by the United Nations CEFACT and OASIS and involving thirteen vendors, proves the readiness of the ebXML technical infrastructure as the foundation for global e-business. As an active participant in the ebXML working group, XML Global Technologies, Inc. has contributed significant resources to the ebXML project. Specifically, XML Global's work in registry and repository interoperability has been integral to the recent proof of concept demos in both Tokyo and San Francisco. The San Francisco demonstration showed how businesses will use ebXML to dynamically formulate trading partnerships through a registry service and then exchange electronic business transactions using a consistent XML- based messaging infrastructure. The ebXML demonstration showed dynamic business transactions using payloads from the Automotive Industry ActionGroup. XML Global Technologies, webMethods and Extol, tracked the event and collaborated closely with the thirteen POC vendors for the interactive demo in San Francisco. XML Global, however, will be very involved at the next ebXML event and POC demo as it works closely with OASIS to co-sponsor the upcoming ebXML conference scheduled for February 12-16th 2001 in Vancouver, B.C." See the ebXML announcement.

  • [December 12, 2000] "ebXML Passes Critical Interoperability Milestone. 'Could Become First Global Trading Standard,' stated One of the Proof-of-Concept Authors, JP Morgenthal of XMLSolutions." - "At a news conference held in San Francisco today, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) demonstrated the results of a proof-of-concept for ebXML, a new, open, standards-based framework for facilitating global trade. An initiative of the United Nations body for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business Information Standards (UN/CEFACT) and OASIS, ebXML offers the only integrated electronic business infrastructure currently available. According to OASIS, the vision of ebXML is to create a single global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any geographical location can meet and conduct business with each other through the exchange of XML-based messages. ebXML's proof of concept was first demonstrated in Tokyo on November 2, 2000. XMLSolutions, a leading worldwide provider of software for conducting XML-based direct materials procurement, has participated with Cisco Systems, Sterling Commerce and Sun Microsystems to advance the development of ebXML as the four registry and repository providers in the development of ebXML. These four companies provided the specifications for the trading partner management component of ebXML by demonstrating interoperability with their existing software. XMLSolutions' Business Integration Platform supportsebXML."

  • [December 12, 2000] "Documentum Extends Leadership Role in XML-Based Enterprise Content Management, Becomes Advisor to the UDDI Project. Advisory Role Enables Documentum to Help Drive Open Standards Development for Next Generation Web Services Facilitating e-Business for Global 2000." - "Documentum, a leading provider of Internet-scale content management solutions for powering e-business applications, today announced that they have become an advisor to the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) Project, a coalition of business and technology leaders working to create a platform-independent, open framework for describing Web services, discovering e-businesses, and integrating business-to-business services using the Internet. Documentum's advisory role demonstrates the company's ongoing commitment and leadership in the development of open standards for B2B interoperability, facilitating e-business and enterprise content management for Global 2000 companies. [Said] Howard Shao, chief technology officer and co-founder at Documentum. 'Leveraging the years of experience we've gained serving the enterprise content management needs of Global 2000 companies, it is our goal to help UDDI determine and create comprehensive open standards required by the greater B2B community to enable seamless content interchange. In addition, our close ties to the UDDI project will provide users of the 4i eBusiness Platform with the ability to quickly and easily create and leverage Web services in order to expedite the swift development and implementation of the B2B applications they need.' 'Businesses of all sizes can benefit from UDDI, because the standards we are developing comprehensively address problems that restrict the growth and synergies of B2B commerce and Web services,' said Tom Glover, general program manager at UDDI. 'The UDDI standard is not industry-specific. Any industry, worldwide, offering products and services can benefit from this open initiative. We appreciate the support given to us by Documentum and welcome their extensive B2B experience'." See references in "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

  • [December 11, 2000] "iPlanet Unveils Industry's First Full-Up B2B Commerce Platform. New Commerce Applications Leverage Smart Services and Internet Service Deployment Platform to Deliver Integrated E-Commerce Solutions. BP, ECsoft, Firmbuy and John Hancock Among Customers and Partners Adopting iPlanet Commerce Solutions." - "E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape Alliance, today unveiled its next-generation commerce platform, the industry's first to include buying, selling, billing, market making and trade facilitation software solutions, designed exclusively for the Internet to deliver continuous services with massive scale. The iPlanet Commerce Platform contains all of the company's next-generation Java-based business applications, including iPlanet BuyerXpert, iPlanet BillerXpert, iPlanet TrustBase Transaction Manager, iPlanet Market Maker and iPlanet SellerXpert. Each of these applications leverages the infrastructure platform, enabling customers to offer smart services in a dynamic e-commerce environment. The iPlanet Commerce Platform delivers the next level of integration, secure identity, extensibility and customizability to accommodate the demands of commerce on a global scale... The iPlanet Commerce Platform includes the following next-generation commerce applications: (1) iPlanet BuyerXpert 4.0 is a comprehensive, automated procurement solution that streamlines internal processes and centralizes control of product and service acquisitions. Integrated with the iPlanet Application Server and rearchitected in Java, iPlanet BuyerXpert offers a new, more intuitive user interface, robust workflow, support for direct and indirect purchasing, and other enhancements. (2) iPlanet BillerXpert, B2B Edition builds on the success of the BillerXpert (B2C) and BillerXpert Consolidator products to enable a new level of bill presentment and payment that every business can use. iPlanet BillerXpert B2B, which is also integrated with the iPlanet Application Server and architected in Java, offers hierarchical billing, dispute resolution, multi currency support, full workflow management for approvals and dispute resolution, and support for discreet and cyclical billing. (3) iPlanet Trustbase Transaction Manager 2.2 enables financial institutions to provide trade facilitation services such as payments, credits and identity verification, to their corporate customers. It provides digital certificates to help manage identity risk, links identity services and back end systems, and allows organizations to interface new services to their existing business systems using XML. Trustbase Transaction Manager 2.2 also includes an implementation of the Identrus Transaction Coordinator specification... The iPlanet Commerce Platform uniquely leverages the award-winning iPlanet Internet Services Deployment Platform. Portal services allow the creation of a customized procurement portal, providing multiple simultaneous views of commerce transactions, data or information. Commerce communities can be connected through multiple communication vehicles such as e-mail, AOL Instant Messenger, Calendar, Unified Messaging and Wireless devices. All of these interactions occur in a highly integrated environment that conforms to numerous open standards, including XML, Java, J2EE, PKI, OBI, SOAP, UDDI, EBM XML, OFX/IFX, Spectrum, Identrus and others. In addition, the iPlanet Commerce Platform is the only platform on the market that has strategically integrated Internet bill presentment and payment, as well as secure identity and trust services supporting the Identrus initiative."

  • [December 08, 2000] "Perl Now Available for Visual Studio.NET. Visual Perl Beta First Modern Perl IDE." - "ActiveState, a leading provider of Internet programming software and services announces the beta release of Visual Perl, a plug-in for Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET. Visual Perl offers a full-featured integrated development environment that enables programmers to rapidly build software using the most popular open source programming language for development on the Internet. The GUI environment has all the standard features of a modern IDE such as rich syntax-aware editor, method tips, on-line help, and debugger support. Visual Perl features: (1) Syntax-based colorized editor for instant feedback as you write code; (2) Code-completion assistance such as method tips and call tips that save extra documentation trips; (3) Online documentation; (4) Ability to run programs in a debugger or shell; (5) Automatic highlights of syntax errors as they are introduced; (6) Linking of error messages in a task list to the error source. 'Visual Perl programmers will recognize the supporting environment and can concentrate on solving problems,' stated Eric Promislow, Visual Perl / Visual Python Project Lead, ActiveState. 'Professional developers will appreciate Visual Perl's depth with features like: incremental search, multi-file search, code elision, breakpoint management, and a configurable source-code control interface assist programmers in developing code quickly.' Visual Studio.NET provides enabling technologies to simplify the creation, deployment, and ongoing evolution of secure, scalable, Web applications and Web Services. These include: shared editors for use in all Visual Studio languages; Web and Windows forms; XML-based Web services; and more. ActiveState is at the forefront of open source software, providing Internet programming products and services for all popular operating systems and platforms. ActiveState's key technologies are Perl, the Internet's most popular programming language, Python, a user-friendly scripting language, and XSLT, the XML transformation language. ActiveState solutions provide enterprise-wide deployment of open source programming languages, improved programmer productivity, and seamless integration with other technologies. The Visual Python beta will be released shortly. ActivePython 2.0 includes Windows tools such as the Pythonwin IDE and the PythonCOM system, tkinter, expat for XML processing, zlib for data compression, and more. Available for Linux, Solaris and Windows."

  • [December 08, 2000] "Schemantix (formerly Praxis) to Launch Schemantix Development Platform (SxDP) at XML 2000. Innovative New-Generation Web Platform Makes Its Debut At Premier XML Conference." - "Schemantix today [2000-11-29] announced that it will be launching Schemantix Development Platform (SxDP), the world's first XML schema-driven web development platform, at XML 2000 in Washington, DC. SxDP takes advantage of the innate power of XML to provide a next-generation platform for developing and deploying powerful applications on the Web. Traditional template-based Web development languages (such as PHP, Allaire ColdFusion and Microsoft ASP) have reached their limits, and developers are actively seeking more flexible and robust solutions. Companies using existing systems are particularly frustrated by the overwhelming task of maintaining large-scale applications using hundreds or even thousands of templates. Moreover, since these systems mix application logic and presentation together in each template, it is extremely difficult to reuse business logic in new applications that do not share the same visual design. In contrast, SxDP uses XML schemas to model application data structures, and XSLT stylesheets to produce the desired application look-and-feel. In this way, modifications to the application can be made centrally by adapting the XML schemas appropriately. Pages using the schemas are updated automatically, significantly reducing the effort needed to maintain large applications. In addition, application logic is cleanly separated from appearance and can be associated with a different presentation simply by changing the stylesheet used to produce the final formatting. Preliminary versions of SxDP have already met with favorable response from industry-leading technology companies. 'Commerce One has performed a detailed technical evaluation of Schemantix Development Platform (SxDP). We are impressed by both the vision behind the platform and its excellent technical implementation.' says Mudita Jain, SxDP is being made available as Open Source software with BSD-style license similar to that used by the Apache Software Foundation, a leading Open Source group. Schemantix plans to develop commercial products on top of the platform, with the first product slated for release in Q3 2001." For schema description and references, see "XML Schemas."

  • [December 07, 2000] "SyncML Delivers Tomorrow's Technology Today. SyncML, One of the Fastest Growing Industry Initiatives, Launches SyncML Specification in Record Time, Providing Future-Proof Synchronization Technology for Today's Mobile Solutions." - "SyncML, the initiative sponsored by Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Inc., Psion and Starfish Software, has today released the SyncML 1.0 specification providing tomorrow's synchronization technology for today's mobile solutions. In less than one year, SyncML has successfully developed and published a powerful protocol for universal data synchronization of both remote and local data. In addition to the specification, SyncML initiative also released a SyncML Reference Toolkit source code, enabling companies to rapidly bring SyncML-compliant products to the market. "The SyncML initiative is proud to deliver this exciting technology to the market in record-breaking time. Full interoperability among mobile terminals and server infrastructures is a fundamental ingredient in the successful deployment of mobile Internet services. The entire industry will greatly benefit from the success of SyncML," said Ilari Nurmi, vice chairman of the SyncML initiative. SyncML-enabled products and services will offer consumers mobile freedom by synchronizing personal data and providing interoperability among all SyncML-compliant products and services. Consumers and business professionals alike will be able to synchronize their personal data, such as contacts and calendars, in mobile terminals with various applications and services including corporate personal information managers, Internet calendars, Internet address books and more. Synchronization will be possible locally and remotely through various transports, such as infrared, Bluetooth, HTTP and WAP, regardless of platform or manufacturer. This open standard will enable device manufacturers, application developers, Internet companies, and wireless operators to have SyncML-compliant products and services commercially available as early as the Q1 2001. Founded in February 2000, the SyncML initiative has recognized the growing need for a single data synchronization protocol. With the industry-wide proliferation of mobile devices and the evolution of these devices as the major means of information exchange, synchronization of data will be of integral importance. The SyncML initiative, officially supported by more than 500 device manufacturers, service providers and application developers, welcomes new supporters to join the initiative. New members have the opportunity to make contributions to the specification work and will receive advanced solution development tools provided by the SyncML initiative." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [December 07, 2000] "Nokia showcases the world's first SyncML implementation with the Nokia 9210 Communicator." - "SyncML, the initiative sponsored by Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Matsushita, Motorola, Palm, Psion and Starfish Software, has today released the SyncML 1.0 specification in London, UK. Nokia has showcased the world's first SyncML implementation with the Nokia 9210 Communicator. The demonstration also included a powerful SyncML enabled Internet calendar solution, the Nokia Mobile Calendar, which in addition to SyncML supports legacy mobile phones too. The Nokia Mobile Calendar is a product, which operators and Internet service providers can offer to their subscribers. 'Nokia is pleased to see that the SyncML initiative is proceeding well and delivering the essential technology for digital convergence devices. The entire industry will greatly benefit from the success of SyncML, and Nokia is committed to continue its strong support of the initiative. We are determined to extend our leadership in applying the SyncML technology,' says Janne Jormalainen, Vice President, Product Marketing, Nokia Mobile Phones. In less than one year, SyncML has successfully developed and published a protocol for universal data synchronization of both remote and local data. As SyncML-enabled products and services offer consumers mobile freedom and interoperability, consumers and business professionals alike will be able to synchronize their personal data, such as contacts and calendars, in mobile terminals with various applications and services including corporate personal information managers, Internet calendars, Internet address books and more. SyncML based synchronization will be possible locally and remotely through various transports, such as infrared, Bluetooth, HTTP and WAP over a mobile network." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [December 07, 2000] "Starfish and Motorola Showcase SyncML-Enabled TrueSync At SyncML Launch. Motorola Concept Phone And Excite Planner Wirelessly Synchronize Calendar And Address Book Data Using TrueSync Software." - "Today, at the SyncML launch event, Starfish Software, a leading provider of synchronization software and infrastructure solutions for the wireless Internet, demonstrated SyncML-enabled TrueSync technology wirelessly synchronizing address book and calendar data between a Motorola concept phone and the TrueSync-powered Excite Planner. This demonstration of seamless over-the-air (OTA) synchronization provided a preview to a series of future solutions from Starfish partners including SyncML-compliant Web-based services, mobile devices of multiple platforms and PC applications. Starfish's built-in SyncML based technology further enhances the value proposition of the TrueSync Internet Planner and synchronization services that ISP and wireless operators will be deploying using Starfish's server technology. Starfish's SyncML-enabled TrueSync solution is expected to be available to partners in early 2001. This demonstration also provided a glimpse into Motorola's plans to embed SyncML-enabled TrueSync technology into wireless phone platforms as part of a complete end-to-end solution to its wireless customers. Motorola is demonstrating this capability on a dual-band concept phone solution, which has a compelling feature set including intuitive PIM applications for managing personal information. Starfish's new SyncML-enabled TrueSync solutions will give mobile freedom to end-users by providing TrueSync multi-point synchronization for users' personal data and providing interoperability among all SyncML-compliant products and services, regardless of platform or manufacturer. Starfish recognized the growing need for a single data synchronization protocol and helped establish the SyncML initiative in February 2000. With the industry-wide proliferation of mobile devices and the evolution of these devices as the major means of information exchange, synchronization of data will continue to be of integral importance. In less than one year, the SyncML initiative has developed and successfully provided the world's first protocol for universal data synchronization of remote and local data. As additional SyncML-compliant data types emerge, TrueSync technology will provide support for these data types as well. TrueSync provides true, one click multi-point synchronization -- a fast, easy way for users to synchronize among all the supported phones, devices, PIMs and Internet address books, including Palm-OS powered devices, Pocket PC and Windows CE devices, Motorola wireless phones and paging products, supported Ericsson and Nokia wireless phones, Excite Planner, Yahoo! Calendar and Address Book, eresMas Internet based PIM, soon-to-be-released Eircell e-merge services, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Organizer, Lotus Notes, Interact.com ACT!, Schedule+, Sidekick and TrueSync Desktop. And only TrueSync gives users the capability to easily download updates for future phones, devices and other applications, absolutely free." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [December 07, 2000] "fusionOne Announces Availability of SyncML Technology. fusionOne SyncML Server and fusionOne SyncML Client Now Available to Partners and OEMs." - "fusionOne, a pioneer in the development of next-generation Internet synchronization services, today announced the availability of its SyncML server and client technology. Available to partners immediately, the fusionOne SyncML server enables any SyncML device to seamlessly synchronize with all other fusionOne-enabled devices. These include PCs, mobile phones, handheld devices, Internet appliances and select web applications and portals. fusionOne has also developed a SyncML client available to OEMs and third-party developers. This highly portable agent not only enables devices to be SyncML-conformant, but also extends their reach to the entire fusionOne synchronization service. The SyncML organization develops and promotes an open industry specification for universal data synchronization across multiple networks, platforms and devices. fusionOne's industry-acclaimed Internet sync service is the first sync solution to provide seamless synchronization -- both wirelessly and otherwise -- across differing platforms, operating systems, and protocols, including SyncML. fusionOne has been working closely with many device partners and continue to work with its growing list of partners to implement the SyncML specifications following its official launch today. 'We are happy to see fusionOne bring SyncML solutions to the market in such an aggressive timeframe,' says Ilari Nurmi, vice chairman of the SyncML initiative. 'The leading synchronization vendors like fusionOne have an important role in productizing the SyncML technology and in offering user-friendly synchronization solutions to the market'... fusionOne's Internet Sync is a seamless and automatic way for users to keep their personal digital content up-to-date and "in sync" across their computing and communications devices. Leveraging its unique store-and-forward architecture and the power of the Internet, fusionOne synchronizes and distributes information easily and efficiently, without the need for any contact between devices. With fusionOne, users enter information once on any device with assurance that it will automatically be updated in all their other devices." See "The SyncML Initiative."

  • [December 07, 2000] "Semio Adds New Open Interface to Tagger's Automated Content Management Solution. Semio Tagger 4.1 Makes Sophisticated Content Categorization Capabilities Available to Any Application." - "Semio Corporation today announced a new version of its content categorization solution, Semio Tagger, offering open interfaces to categorization information. Version 4.1 makes the content categorization information generated by Semio Tagger readily accessible to other programs, for easier integration with online content solutions and business portals. Semio Tagger extracts key concepts from a wide variety of document sources to build customized content categories. These categories may be integrated in a variety of online applications, including content navigation and personalization in portals. With Semio Tagger 4.1, Semio Corporation offers a comprehensive and open interface to the results obtained through its patented categorization processes. This interface will support future partnership integration efforts through published interfaces and toolkits... 'Semio Tagger already supports XML-based output for product integration purposes,' said Paul Bradshaw, VP of Research and Development for Semio Corporation. 'We've extended the product integration capabilities by storing categorization information in an industry-standard relational database as well, so other applications can access this information easily.' Semio Tagger 4.1, Semio Taxonomy Viewer 4.1 and Semio Map Viewer 4.1 are currently available from Semio Corporation, available on Sun Solaris 2.7 and above, Windows NT and Windows 2000 platforms." See also the announcement of August 28, 2000 (which states that Semio) "has enhanced its core engine, Semio Tagger, to automatically generate XML metadata" "Semio's New XML Capabilities Automatically Create Comprehensive Indexes for A Wide Range of Business Applications Semio's XML-enabled Tagger Engine allows Portal Vendors to analyze, categorize and personalize large volumes of online content quickly and precisely."

  • [December 07, 2000] "SeeBeyond and DataChannel Deliver e*Way Intelligent Adapter for Enterprise Portal Connectivity. Packaged Portal Adapter Connects Back-Office Applications and Other Systems to EIP Framework for Fast Access to Enterprise Information and Increased Efficiencies" - "SeeBeyond, a leading global provider of eBusiness Integration (eBI) solutions, and DataChannel, Inc., a leader in Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) solutions, today announced the availability of their e*Way Intelligent Adapter for DataChannel Server (DCS). The e*Way Intelligent Adapter for DCS enables the rapid connectivity of disparate CRM, ERP and legacy back-office applications with databases, documents, spreadsheets and Web content, allowing companies to more easily access business-critical data for enterprise portal connectivity. Typically, users working with back-office application data while viewing other enterprise information cannot access both within the same portal view. The e*Way Intelligent Adapter unlocks the proprietary nature of back-end systems and integrates it with structured and unstructured information that originates from both inside the enterprise and outside the firewall. Using XML, the data then is re-purposed for use with DCS and is accessible via a user's personalized start page. The e*Way Intelligent Adapter for DCS is a pre-packaged solution further accelerating access to critical enterprise information through the DataChannel portal and reducing the need for custom in-house development. As companies transition to doing business online, it is necessary to bring business critical information from back end systems like Siebel and Peoplesoft to the Web, said Brenda Fisher, vice president of Business Development for DataChannel. By working with SeeBeyond, we'll be providing companies the connectivity to more than 60 back-end systems through DCS so they can access this critical information, make more informed decisions, and leverage their existing IT investments'."

  • [December 07, 2000] "eKXBRL 1.0 Software Facilitates Generation of XBRL Solutions for Financial Reporting." - "eKeeper.com, a leading provider of Web content management solutions to the middle market, announced today that it has released eKXBRL, a software component that significantly reduces the time it takes for a developer to generate XBRL-compatible code. XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is an Internet specification that first appeared on the financial and accounting scene in October of 1999. It uses a financial reporting specification, agreed upon by key members of the financial information supply chain, which allows an open exchange of financial reporting data across all software and technologies including the Internet. 'eKeeper.com has taken an active interest in the XBRL initiative in great part due to the sophistication of XBRL.org and the power of the XBRL specification. The specification has reached a point where third-party developers like eKeeper.com are now developing software components that will make it easier for developers to create XBRL software,' said Doug Steen, CEO for eKeeper.com and member of XBRL.org. 'In addition, the momentum generated by XBRL.org in signing up members and member countries guarantees a market for our software. Consequently, eKeeper.com is committed to devote significant resources to continued XBRL tools development.' The eKeeper XBRL component (eKXBRL) significantly reduces development time by making it easier to manipulate XBRL items and elements. Currently, a developer would need to repeatedly traverse the XBRL taxonomy and instance document by hand to answer questions like: 'Given an XBRL item, what is its label?' or 'Given a taxonomy element, what other elements roll-up into this element?' By using the eKXBRL software component, these answers are available to the XBRL programmer immediately. The end result is that XBRL has been made easier, whether you are: (1)Adding a Save As XBRL feature to your existing application; (2) Making an XBRL document compatible in multiple languages and multiple currencies; or, (3) Creating XBRL-based Web sites that offer XBRL content or use XBRL content offered by others. XBRL offers several key benefits -- technology independence, full interoperability, efficient preparation of financial statements, and reliable extraction of financial information. Information is entered only once allowing that information to be rendered in any form such as a printed financial statement, an HTML document for the company's Web site, an EDGAR filing document with the SEC, a raw XML file, or other specialized reporting formats including credit reports or loan documents." See: "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [December 07, 2000] "IONA Creates Advanced Technology Group to Speed Development and Delivery of Next-Generation Internet Technologies. Enterprise Portal Leader Plans Expanded Alliances with Academic Communities and Technology Thought Leaders " - "IONA, the Enterprise Portal Company, today announced the creation of the IONA Advanced Technology Group. Lead by Sean Baker, IONA's Chief Technology Officer, the group will focus on the continued development of next-generation Internet technologies including EJB, XML, SOAP, and UDDI and the utilization of these technologies in the creation and delivery of advanced e-business platforms and enterprise portal systems. The group will be based in IONA's Dublin headquarters and is scheduled to begin work in early 2001. 'IONA has a long tradition of being at the forefront of developing technologies,' said Sean Baker, IONA's CTO. 'Our contributions to such standards as CORBA, J2EE and SOAP are well documented, as is our commitment to new protocols including XML and UDDI. We've created the Advanced Technology Group to energize the development of these and other next-generation Internet technologies, and to reinforce IONA's thought leadership and ongoing contribution to the future of Internet software.' In support of the Advanced Technology Group, IONA has also announced plans to expand and strengthen its alliances within the academic community and with industry thought leaders. Founded in 1991 as a campus company at Trinity College in Dublin, IONA is aware of the importance of continuing its connection with the academic world and its responsibility to contribute new educational and industrial opportunities to the Irish economy."

  • [December 06, 2000] "E-Learning Takes Important Step Forward. Metadata Standards Leaders IEEE LTSC LOM and DCMI Begin Designing Future Metadata Architecture for Web-based Learning, Education and Training." - "The Learning Technology Standards Committee Learning Objects Metadata (LTSC-LOM) Working Group of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) today announced their joint commitment to develop interoperable metadata for learning, education and training. The joint Memorandum of Understanding is signed by officers representing the LOM Working Group and DCMI. The document, regarding the IEEE standard P1484.12, is co-signed by representatives of concurring projects: ARIADNE (Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe), EdNA (Education Network Australia), GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials), and the IMS Global Learning Consortium. 'No matter how many search engines or information retrieval systems we use today finding a needle in the data-haystack can be a fruitless effort. This enormous problem will not be solved overnight, but LOM and DCMI are building the path that will make information retrieval and exchange a much more rewarding process,' said Stuart Weibel, Director of DCMI. Both LOM and DCMI have been leaders in the formation of metadata specification for the Web. The overlapping constituency has led to the need for increased collaboration and a charge to build a single architecture that promotes creation, interchange and use of metadata. Both organizations seek to increase the use of metadata or 'data about data.' Collaboration will focus on learning, education and training. The principal goal underpinning the MOU is to establish a coordinated discussion between the two groups. The agreement sets out to ensure semantic elements meet the needs of the users and metadata elements can easily work with other descriptions and be refined for specific encoding standards when necessary. 'This is all about critical mass - and building momentum toward interoperable metadata,' said Prof. Erik Duval, Chair of the CEN ISSS Learning Technologies Workshop and technical editor of IEEE-LTSC-LOM. 'Having a common approach to educational metadata is crucial to further speed up adoption of metadata technologies. That in turn is the first, crucial step on the long road to open learning infrastructures'... The IEEE LTSC LOM (Learning Object Metadata) working group will specify the syntax and semantics of metadata needed to describe technology-supported learning, including computer-based training systems, interactive learning environments, intelligent computer-aided instruction systems, distance learning systems, and collaborative learning environments. The IEEE LTSC (Learning Technology Standards Committee) develops technical standards in approximately 20 areas of information technology for learning, education, and training." See "IMS Metadata Specification" and "Dublin Core."

  • [December 06, 2000] "OASIS to Define XML Standard for Secure Electronic Business. Consortium Forms XML-Based Security Services Technical Committee." - "OASIS, the interoperability consortium, today announced that it has begun development of XML standards for security information and services on the Internet. The newly formed OASIS XML-Based Security Services Technical Committee (TC) will define a common language for sharing security information about transactions and end users between companies engaged in online B2B and B2B2C commerce. "Currently, it is difficult to ensure the absolute security of Internet transactions across companies. Businesses need a universal method to assure only users with proper authorization access and execute transactions," explained Karl Best, director of technical operations at OASIS. "OASIS has taken on this development effort to produce a standard, open framework that will enable secure interoperability across company boundaries and heterogeneous platforms." Christian Byrnes, vice president of security strategy at META Group, said, 'Almost all e-commerce involves multiple business partners at some level. The lack of security standards has resulted in difficult, complex, and insecure implementations. A successful standard for integrating security across business partners will make e-commerce faster and less expensive to deploy and more secure at the same time.' The OASIS XML-Based Security Services TC initially plans to base its work on the Security Services Markup Language (S2ML), a joint development effort of Art Technology Group, Bowstreet, Commerce One, Jamcracker, Netegrity, Oracle, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sun Microsystems, VeriSign, TIBCO and webMethods..." See also (1) the TC's publicly archived mailing list, and (2) the the earlier announcement.

  • [December 06, 2000] "Documentum Introduces the First XML Enterprise Content Management Platform That Enables True Global E-Business Content Exchange and Reuse. New Release of Documentum 4i eBusiness Platform Features Complete Support of XML for Content Management and B2B Content Interchange, as Well as Full Internationalization and Software Configuration Management Support." - "Documentum, a leading provider of Internet-scale content management solutions for powering e-business applications, today announced the release of the next generation of its 4i eBusiness Platform. The release features significant enhancements, offering complete support of XML for content management and B2B interchange, as well as full internationalization and multilingual support, automated delivery of content to multiple channels, and seamless integration with industry-leading source code management systems. With the new release, Global 2000 companies can now leverage the full power of XML to support the growing demands of e-business content management. XML content management provides the basis for streamlining the content creation process by enabling content reuse and automating the generation and delivery of assembled content for multiple channels. This is achieved by adding intelligence to content earlier in the process and separating the creation and delivery processes. Content can now be re-purposed rather than re-created and intelligently transformed and customized to suit the characteristics and formats of different devices and channels (e-commerce sites, portals, PDAs, wireless devices, and online exchanges/marketsites). Full lifecycle, workflow, security, and library services enable organizations to automate their business processes, and sophisticated link management services enable the reuse of content globally. Also facilitating deployment of content on a global scale is the full internationalization of the 4i eBusiness Platform to allow the creation, management, and delivery of multilingual content. In addition, the latest platform release is integrated with industry-leading software configuration management systems, so Web site developers can seamlessly manage, and simultaneously deploy, both source code and content. These capabilities, in conjunction with initiatives to standardize upon XML exchange vocabularies, enable organizations to engage in business-to-business content interchange across information systems. Content management becomes the backbone for powering these next-generation B2B systems, enabling cross-enterprise collaboration and worldwide exchange of dynamic content."

  • [December 05, 2000] XMLFund and ActiveState Partner on XML. XSLT to Plug Into Visual Studio and Komodo." - "ActiveState, a leading provider of Internet programming software and services, and XMLFund, the first XML technology investment fund, have partnered to develop an integrated development environment (IDE) for XSLT to work with Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET and with ActiveState's Mozilla-based environment, Komodo. [Komodo is ActiveState's cross-platform, multi-language Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Komodo supports Perl, Python, and JavaScript development on Windows, Linux, and Unix.] The XSLT IDE will be cross-platform and will enable programmers to debug XSL transformations... 'XSLT is one of our core technologies. We use it to integrate enterprise data and deliver information to end-user desktops. ActiveState's background in software development environments and depth in XML knowledge should create a highly productive new tool. This can accelerate the adoption of XSLT and XML technologies in general,' said Carla Corkern, Vice President of Professional Services and Training, DataChannel. 'XSLT is a powerful tool for integrating heterogeneous XML systems and building XML-centric web applications,' said Paul Prescod, Senior Developer ActiveState. 'The two main problems that hinder XML implementation in industry are vocabulary interoperability and difficult tools. Unfortunately, writing XSLT is harder than it should be. We're addressing these issues with a development environment that will make XSLT programmers more productive and increase the pace of XML deployment on the web and in cross-business integration.' Under this agreement XMLFund is providing funding and technical expertise to ActiveState for the development of an XSLT IDE, which will be cross-platform and plug into Komodo and a Visual XSLT that will plug into Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET... ActiveState is at the forefront of open source software, providing Internet programming products and services for all popular operating systems and platforms. ActiveState's key technologies are Perl, the Internet's most popular programming language, Python, a user-friendly scripting language, and XSLT, the XML transformation language. ActiveState solutions provide enterprise-wide deployment of open source programming languages, improved programmer productivity, and seamless integration with other technologies."

  • [December 05, 2000] "Autodesk Delivers XML Tool for AutoCAD 2000i Products With New Product Extension. Latest Milestone in Strategy to Use XML to Extend Digital Designs Beyond CAD Departments." - "Autodesk Inc. today announced the new XML/Data Extension tool for its AutoCAD 2000i family of products -- the latest installment of the Autodesk Product Extension strategy introduced last April. The XML/Data Extension is part of a broader Autodesk XML initiative to create a common, open standard for delivering design data to the Web, ensuring compatibility between products in different segments of the design industry, and facilitating e-commerce around design specifications. In addition, because of the cross-platform, cross-industry acceptance of XML, the XML/Data Extension will allow developers to create tools that help designers share their design data with other mainstream business functions such as marketing, sales, operations, and customer support. The XML/Data Extension extends design intelligence to external business processes and applications. Key to this is DesignXML, a web-centric tool targeted at third-party developers. DesignXML makes it possible to fully represent both graphical and nongraphical data using an open, published XML schema. It extends the value of DWG data by allowing external applications and processes (such as word documents and sales) to seamlessly use and create design data. The XML/Data Extension also comes with a number of new tools that help AutoCAD software designers use the program more efficiently. The new tools include a Block Attribute Manager, an Enhanced Attribute Editor, Enhanced Attributed Extract feature, a Layer Translator, and a Layer Previous function. Autodesk unveiled its XML initiative last June, committing to creating a common, platform-independent, and open standard for communicating design-related information across corporate networks and over the Web. Through XML-based products and initiatives, Autodesk customers are able to deliver design data across the value chain, including contractors, partners, building owners, and separate business disciplines throughout an enterprise. Autodesk is focusing its XML efforts in four areas: adoption throughout the Autodesk product line, ensuring cross-product interoperability, incorporating relevant industry XML initiatives, and publishing XML schemas for design collaboration."

  • [December 05, 2000] "Excosoft XML Client is a 100% Web-enabled XML Editor." - "Excosoft AB, a leading provider of content management solutions, today announced the latest release Excosoft XML Client. Excosoft XML Client has improved support for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV). Support for WebDAV, a protocol that enables writing, editing and sharing information across intranets, extranets and the Internet, means that Excosoft XML Client is a 100% Web-enabled XML editor. All Excosoft products now support WebDAV, putting Excosoft firmly in the first-wave of technology vendors shipping WebDAV-compliant products. Momentum continues to gather behind the new Web standard with Microsoft, for example, offering support for WebDAV in Office 2000, Internet Explorer, and Exchange 2000 Server. There is also a WebDAV module for Apache, the world's most common Web server... Working with the content of XML documents without first having to convert them to a proprietary binary format is called working in 'native' XML. In Excosoft XML Client XML documents are read and saved in the native XML format. No preprocessing or filtering operations are required for opening or saving documents in XML format. XML documents are structured documents, that is, the content is organized hierarchically. In Excosoft XML Client, when you open an XML document, this hierarchical structure is mapped to expandable outlines. Outlines allow you to view structure levels progressively -- you can view the top level only, all structure levels simultaneously or some levels in outline and some with open sub-levels. For valid XML documents, an editing environment should provide the user with the freedom to combine diverse sources of information. This freedom, however, has a trade-off -- the often arduous task of getting back to a consistent and valid XML document. Excosoft XML Client supports this working process through validation routines, conspicuous error markups and guided correction. The transition from a document that violates a DTD to a fully validated and complete document is straightforward and expeditious..." See "WEBDAV (Extensions for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web."

  • [December 05, 2000] "TIBCO Software Launches First Infrastructure Software Product for Managing XML Assets. XML Canon/Developer Delivers First Collaborative, Internet-Enabled, XML Schema And DTD Repository." - "TIBCO Software Inc., a leading provider of real-time infrastructure software for e-business, today announced XML Canon/Developer (XCD). XCD, the first member of the XML Canon family, is a comprehensive development platform that enables the life cycle management of XML-based business rules in a Web-accessible repository. XCD allows businesses to dynamically create and adapt XML-based standards that facilitate collaboration for e-business internally and with trading partners, customers and industry groups. The XML Canon product line supports the diverse requirements and various stages of XML development organizations are implementing. First to be launched is XCD for organizations developing and deploying XML infrastructure assets (e.g,. XML schemas, DTDs, instance documents, stylesheets, or adjuncts.) Features: (1) Managing Business Rules and Taxonomies: Access and manage the inter-relationships of an organization's e-business rules or XML schemas at a granular level. (2) Web-enabled Collaboration: internal and external exchange and collaboration of e-business rules based on customizable access control. (3) Life Cycle Management: configurable staging for all XML infrastructure assets, including DTDs, XML schemas, adjuncts, instance documents or stylesheets. (4) Extensible Architecture: extend and integrate with existing applications without having to re-architect them through the processing technology of XCD. (5) Full integration: across TIBCO Extensibility product family: Turbo XML, XML Authority, XML Instance, and XML Console. XML Canon/Developer will run on Windows 2000, NT 4, SP6 with support for SQL 7.0 SP1 or Oracle 8i. Microsoft IE 5.0 or 5.5 is also required. TIBCO's Extensibility client interface Turbo XML is also required." For schema description and references, see "XML Schemas." [source]

  • [December 05, 2000] "Kinecta Announces First Free Internet Application For Business-to-Business Syndication. XML/ICE-Based Tool Automates Distribution of Business-Critical Content." - "Kinecta Corporation, the global leader in content syndication and aggregation infrastructure solutions, announced plans to deliver the industry's first free content distribution tool, Kinecta Syndicator Lite. Kinecta Syndicator Lite, based on the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) standard, offers businesses two important benefits: automation and flexibility. It enables organizations to set up open, dedicated channels for automating ongoing business-to-business content delivery instead of relying on manually intensive and error prone methods such as e-mail or FTP (file transfer protocol). It also avoids unscalable and inflexible click-back methods such as linking and framing. Kinecta Syndicator Lite also manages delivery of multiple content types, formats, content sources and delivery frequencies. Kinecta Syndicator Lite, based on the company's industry-leading Kinecta Interact syndication platform, is the industry's first free ICE-based application. Like Kinecta Interact, Syndicator Lite automates the distribution of any type of digital asset in a wide range of file formats, including XML, HTML, text, PDF, graphics, audio, video and streaming media. The new application is designed to benefit system administrators, developers, and other information professionals requiring a standards-based solution for the automated delivery of information and content to employees, partners, suppliers and customers. Kinecta Syndicator Lite allows companies to establish various syndication business processes, including the ongoing distribution of content such as financial data, manufacturing drawings, product catalogs or inventory data to partners or suppliers; the distribution of industry news to partner sites to increase site traffic and extend brand; or the automated aggregation of content from multiple partners into a single system, intranet or extranet. Users can download the Kinecta Syndicator Lite Java-based server application, and then authorize a limited number of partners to distribute content to. The scope of the application makes it an ideal solution for small syndication networks or for larger organizations wanting to start out using a proven ICE-based content delivery solution on a smaller scale. Businesses that need access to more advanced functionality and support for larger distribution networks can easily upgrade to the enterprise-class Kinecta Interact syndication platform... ICE is an XML-based communications protocol that is the industry standard for syndication. It automates the business rules needed to distribute content reliably within or between organizations. By standardizing content exchange, solutions based on ICE reduce the effort and cost of creating and operating online content distribution networks, and increase the value of business alliances." See "Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol."

  • [December 05, 2000] "Open Source NewsML Toolkit for Processing NewsML Packages." - "Reuters and Wavo will announce version 0.1alpha of the NewsML Toolkit, an Open Source (LGPL) Java2-based library for processing NewsML packages. The library is available at www.xmlnews.org/NewsML/toolkit/ and at the Reuters web site. NewsML is the new XML-based packaging and metadata format for news distribution, approved this fall by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC). The IPTC's membership includes many of the world's major news providers, such as Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France Presse, as well as many other companies working in the news industry. For more information see www.iptc.org. The NewsML Toolkit was written for Reuters and Wavo by David Megginson of Megginson Technologies. The library is a joint project of Reuters PLC, a leading international information services provider, and Wavo, a leading news amalgamator. The NewsML Toolkit works with the Document Object Model (DOM) interface developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)." See "NewsML and IPTC2000."

  • [December 05, 2000] "Reuters and WAVO Team Up to Launch Industry Tool for NewsML." - "Reuters, the global information, news and technology group, and leading news software developer WAVO, have joined forces to launch the NewsML Toolkit, a simple interface that facilitates the implementation of the newly ratified NewsML standard. Developed by Reuters and WAVO with the assistance of XML expert David Megginson, the NewsML Toolkit offers developers with no prior XML knowledge, a fast and simple way to analyse and filter multimedia NewsML items using regular Java. The NewsML Toolkit is being released as Open Source software under version 2.1 of the 'GNU Lesser General Public License' and can be incorporated into commercial software packages royalty free, so long as any modification or improvements are released back to the public. NewsML is the new industry standard for delivering multi-media news. Reuters conceived the idea for NewsML in 1999 and donated it to the news industry for further development. The International Press and Telecommunications Council ratified NewsML in October 2000. NewsML provides a common framework to publish news in any format. It can be used by news providers to combine their pictures, video, text, graphics and audio files into news output available on web sites, mobile phones, high end desktops, interactive television and any other device... The NewsML Toolkit can be downloaded from the Reuters website at about.reuters.com/researchandstandards/firstcontact/newsmltoolkit and at www.xmlnews.org/NewsML/toolkit/..." See "NewsML and IPTC2000."

  • [December 05, 2000] "Whitehill Technologies announces Release of Version 2.0 of Whitehill (xsl) Composer. High Profile Beta Clients Engaged in Pre-release Trial of the Software, including Novell, Sinclair Oil and Ingeniux Corporation." - "Whitehill Technologies Inc., a leading provider of Internet infrastructure software, today announced the second major release of their leading edge, standard-setting XSL software, Whitehill (xsl) Composer, including the addition of a robust XSL editor. As well, companies such as Novell, Sinclair Oil and Ingeniux Corporation have agreed to be part of the beta testing process leading up to the scheduled shipping date of January 15, 2001. Whitehill (xsl) Composer is a desk top development application that revolutionizes the ability for an organization to capitalize on XML based business communications. Using existing XML data, Whitehill (xsl) Composer automatically creates XSL/CSS (cascading style sheets), which can be used to render web versions of electronic bills, invoices, statements and reports as well as for XML/EDI data exchange using XSLT (extensible style sheet transforms). Until now, the creation of XSL to render XML electronically has been a completely manual process. Whitehill (xsl) Composer replaces the need to hand code XSL. With the addition of a robust XSL Editor, Whitehill (xsl) Composer provides the user with the ability to import and edit existing XSL, as well as providing an Absolute Positioning feature, which allows users to position and align fragments in relation to the page layout or to other fragments. This functionality significantly increases the speed at which users create the presentation of their XML data while leveraging any pre-existing investment in XSL." A related announcement ['Whitehill Announces Significant Upgrade of Whitehill (xml) Transport'], was made for the availability of Whitehill (xml) Transport. "Whitehill (xml) Transport is engineered to create pure, or well formed, XML from any data source and can be deployed rapidly without the need for complex programming our modifications to existing data systems."

  • [December 04, 2000] "BDI Systems announces the release of their new XML product, xPower Transform." - "BDI Systems Inc., an XML and database tool developer, announced the release of their new XML product, xPower Transform 1.0. The product offers a visual object mapping tool, customizable value-added transformation rules and a transformation engine to meet enterprise's needs in data transformation and interchange between XML and relational database. The Enterprise Edition offers an API class library with documentation and sample code. It can be either used as a stand-alone tool or integrated into other applications or third party tools. Together with its sister product DB/XML Vision, they offer bi-directional data transformation between XML and relational database, between XML and delimited or positional text formats, and between database and delimited or positional text formats. DB/XML Vision and xPower Transform are scalable with industrial strength, and ideal for data interchange, database integration, data conversion and B2B applications. The standard edition of both products is free of charge for non-commercial use. You can download them from the company's website. For more information about xPower Transform and DB/XML Vision, please visit http://www.bdisystems.com." Contact: Benjamin Zhang, President.

  • [December 04, 2000] "Sun Microsystems Announces Early Access Availability of Key Java Technologies for XML. Java APIs Enable Developers to Easily Leverage XML for B2B Ecommerce Applications." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the early access availability of two key Java technology application programming interfaces (APIs) for the Extensible Markup Language (XML): the Java API for XML Messaging (JAXM) and the Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP). Both APIs are downloadable free of charge through Sun's Java Developer Connection Connection at http://java.sun.com/jdc. More information on Sun's historical and present work with XML can be found at http://www.sun.com/xml. These two APIs, along with the Java API for XML Data Binding (JAXB), form the core of XML support in the Java 2 platform. JAXB, formerly called Project Adelard is nearing completion through the Java Community Process (JCP) program. These Java technologies for XML give developers a powerful, easy-to-use API tool set for developing and deploying Java technology-based applications that harness the synergies of the Java platform's portable code and XML's portable data. With the delivery of JAXM, JAXP, and the forthcoming JAXB, Sun is providing essential XML functionality to Java technology developers and continuing to deliver on its vision of simplifying development of network-centric applications based on open industry standards. All three technologies are being developed through the JCP program, the open, community-based organization that stewards the evolution of the Java platform. JAXP, JAXM and JAXB are expected to be included in the next releases of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). (1) JAXM: Enabling B2B Messaging Through Support of the ebXML Standard. The early access implementation of JAXM, known by the code name 'The M Project,' enables the packaging, routing and transport of both XML and non-XML business messages across a number of key communications infrastructures, such as those based on HTTP, SMTP, and FTP protocols. By supporting industry standard packaging and an asynchronous messaging model, Java technology programmers will be able to easily and quickly build robust, reliable, and secure B2B Ecommerce applications with JAXM. JAXM will support a variety of XML messaging methods, such as the evolving XML messaging standard being defined in the ebXML framework. ebXML is intended to provide a global standard for simple, robust, low-cost trade facilitation and is a joint development effort between OASIS and the UN/CEFACT (United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business). (2) JAXP: Supporting Latest XML Standards JAXP enables the reading, manipulating, and generating XML documents through Java APIs by providing a standard way to seamlessly integrate any XML-compliant parser with a Java technology-based application. JAXP v 1.1 supports the latest XML standards, including: the Document Object Model (DOM) level 2, a W3C recommendation that was released last month; Simple API for XML (SAX) level 2, the industry standard for XML parsing; and XSL Transformations (XSLT), an integrated XML transformation standard defined by the W3C. (3) JAXB: Simplifying Creation of XML and Java Technology-Based Applications. JAXB, formerly Project Adelard, will enable Java technology developers to deliver and maintain high-performance XML-enabled applications with a minimum of development effort. JAXB provides two-way mapping between XML documents and Java technology-based objects along with a schema compiler tool. The compiler will automatically generate Java technology classes from XML schemas without requiring developers to write any complex parsing code. In addition, the compiler will contain automatic error and validity of checking of XML messages, helping to ensure that only valid, error-free messages are accepted and processed by a system. With JAXB, developers will be able to more easily develop and deploy Java technology-based applications that leverage XML and enterprises will also cut costs through more productive development."

  • [December 04, 2000] "Sun Microsystems Continues Strong Relationship With the Apache Software Foundation on Technology Development and Distribution. Batik Project, a New XML-based Graphical Toolkit, Is Newest Addition to Joint Technology Initiatives." - "Sun Microsystems today announced that it has been working with the Apache Software Foundation on a new technology initiative, called Batik, an open source, Java technology-based toolkit for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Batik was released in beta form today by Apache and is the third Apache project to which Sun has donated code and technical resources. Other projects include Jakarta, a collection of initiatives around JavaServer Pages technology (JSP) and Java Servlets technologies, and Xerces 2, a best-of-breed XML Parser. The Apache Software Foundations XML-Batik Project received contributions from a number of industry leaders including CSIRO, Eastman Kodak Company, ILOG, and Sun Microsystems. As with all Apache projects, the project exists through volunteer contributions to ensure each project continues to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source software projects. These projects with Apache are testament to Suns commitment to deliver the best tools and technologies to developers who are building next generation, network-centric applications. Through partnerships, such as with the expert developers of Apache, and the open, inclusive Java Community Process (JCP) 2.0 program, Sun continues to listen closely to developers requests and quickly deliver on their requirements. Apache is also deeply involved in the JCP 2.0, having served on the interim Executive Committee (EC) and being voted onto the EC again last month in the JCP 2.0 elections... SVGs cross-platform, vendor neutral format for graphics, based on XML and developed through the W3C, is perfectly suited for the Internet and likely to become a solution for delivering graphics over the Web. The Batik project provides a toolkit, comprised of several modules, that enables Java technology developers to build Web-based applications that can handle SVG content. Sun has been instrumental in jumpstarting the Batik project at Apache, is contributing development resources, and has donated code, such as the SVGGraphics2D generator software, which allows Java technology-based applications to export graphics to the SVG format, as well as image encoders, and components such as gradient paints and filter effects. Other modules for Batik include: an SVG viewer that can be easily integrated into any Java technology-based application to display SVG images; an implementation of the Document Object Model (DOM) in SVG; and SVG transcoders, which allow SVG images to be converted to other formats, such as JPEG or PNG. The Batik toolkit itself is written completely in Java technology code, which means developers can rely upon the Java platforms promise of 'Write Once, Run Anywhere' when using Batik. For more information about the Batik project or to download the toolkit please see http://xml.apache.org/batik." See: "W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)."

  • [December 04, 2000] "New ILOG JViews One Of First Products To Support SVG, Emerging XML Graphics Standard. JViews Developers Playing Role in Creation of New Open-Source Batik 1.0 Toolkit." - "ILOG today rolled out the new ILOG JViews Component Suite 3.5, supporting Scaleable Vector Graphics (SVG) and various Java thin clients. In addition to their work on this new release, ILOG JViews developers are playing a key role in the creation of today's beta release of Batik 1.0 by the Apache Software Foundation's XML Project. Batik is the first open-source SVG toolkit based on the Java platform and was developed with contributions from ILOG, Sun Microsystems, Eastman Kodak Company and CSIRO Australia. SVG is the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) new graphics language based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and is expected to become the standard for web-based graphics. One of the reasons ILOG contributed its well-known expertise in 2D graphics to the development of Batik is because standardizing SVG will give programmers - and ultimately, end users - a vehicle for taking the visual web experience to a new level. Applications built with the Batik toolkit can leverage SVG via higher-quality graphics and interoperability than what has been available. Meanwhile, those applications with the greatest need for high-end graphics can utilize ILOG JViews for seamless integration of intuitive, interactive components such as Gantt charts, workflow modelers and maps. Never before have so many options been available for advanced web graphics. SVG support within the ILOG JViews Component Suite 3.5 combined with the new thin client support enriches the deployment options for ILOG's developer customers. Using the embeddable ILOG 2D libraries, developers can quickly create rich user interfaces deployed on fat clients as well as a range of thin clients. These include DHTML pages - the most common vehicle for displaying graphics in a browser - and SVG files on up to the most graphics-intensive Java applets. Client hardware can include PCs, workstations, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other devices..." See: "W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)."

  • [December 04, 2000] "EDGAR Online Creates Repository for Financial Statements Tagged in XBRL. XBRL Expert Joins Company." - "EDGAROnline, Inc. announced today at the XBRL committee meeting in Washington, D.C. that it is establishing the first public repository for company financial statments in XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) format. The Company also announced it has hired Liv A. Watson as Director to establish and manage its XBRL repository. XBRL, the newly developed business-specific XML financial reporting system developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and other major financial services, technology, and public accounting organizations, is expected to become the standard way in which U.S. public companies will prepare, report and disseminate their financial information. The EDGAR Online XBRL Repository will provide a single source for analysts, investors, credit and lending institutions, news organizations and accountants to find any company financials prepared and published in this format. The majority of U.S. companies are expected to release their financial statements in XBRL format in the near future. In other news, EDGAR Online Inc. announced that it has hired Liv A. Watson as Director. Ms. Watson will develop short and long-term strategies for implementing XBRL capabilities and functionality into the EDGAR Online Web site and financial information delivery value chain. Through the XBRL Steering Committee Ms Watson has aided in the establishment of the universal 'business reporting language' that will facilitate the worldwide dissemination, analysis and interchange of business reporting. She presently serves as XBRL Education and Communication Committee Co-Chair and has spent fifteen years in film and television production, multimedia training, and information technology consulting in the public and private sector. Among other national and regional projects, she recently led a government project that will automate and streamline records systems for counties across the nation. Ms. Watson is a specialist in information systems project strategies, as well as management and information technology consulting for medium to large organizations. Prior to joining EDGAR Online, Inc., Ms. Watson served as the Managing Partner of Gaither Technologies LLC. The incorporation of XBRL will allow EDGAR Online, Inc., to provide superior services to companies, analysts, investors and other audiences allowing for more informed financial and management decisions. 'However, XBRL does not change existing accounting standards. Rather, XBRL provides an efficient and reliable means for business reporting information exchange and gives the professional and individual user fast and easy access to this SEC information.' said Mike Willis, XBRL Chairman from PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP." See: "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [December 04, 2000] "FRx Software Supports XBRL Initiative. Denver Firm Among First to Support Internet-based Financial Disclosure Initiative." - "FRx Software Corporation, a Denver-based company specializing in the development of advanced financial reporting and business analytic application software, announced its endorsement and support of the XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) for Financial Statements specification released by the XBRL Consortium. FRx Software is a long-time supporter of the XBRL initiative and was one of the first companies to join the XBRL Consortium. With the release of the first XBRL taxonomy in July 2000, companies across all industries are now able to incorporate XBRL into their business reporting and analysis processes and start reaping its primary benefits. More than 80 percent of major U.S. public companies provide some sort of financial disclosure on the Internet. As a result, investors need accurate and reliable financial information that can be delivered promptly over the Internet to help them make informed financial decisions. XBRL for Financial Reporting meets these needs and leverages the efficiencies of the Internet as today's primary source of business information. In recent remarks made to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), acknowledged XBRL and recommended its further development to turn financial statements into meaningful information for investors using this new revolutionary technology. 'The XBRL specification is critical to the financial reporting success of companies across all industries because it empowers people to employ the Internet as a highly efficient channel by which to communicate business information,' said Chris Scherpenseel, President of FRx Software. 'In addition, XBRL is highly conducive to FRx Financial Reporting Version 6.0, which offers Web-based financial reporting as part of its host of product features and benefits.' FRx Financial Reporting Version 6.0 offers XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) as the primary report output when generating FRx financial reports. Leveraging this XML support, FRx plans to release an upgrade to its Version 6.0 product line in early 2001, and will provide an add-on XBRL module so that users can easily begin to take advantage of the benefits of XBRL. With more than 80,000 customers and 320,000 + users worldwide, introducing XBRL support into FRx's product suite will help facilitate rapid global adoption of XBRL. Denver-based FRx Software Corporation produces advanced financial reporting and analysis software that interfaces with more than 50 best-of-breed financial accounting systems and is used at approximately 80,000 sites worldwide. FRx applications, distributed exclusively through 30+ strategic partnerships, enable finance and accounting professionals to streamline processes with ease and generate the financial knowledge necessary to gain a competitive advantage." See: "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [December 04, 2000] "Leading Security Vendors, Service Providers, and Enterprises Cooperate on Standard for Secure Web Transactions. AuthXML Working Group Unveils List of 45 Charter Members. Prepares Specification for Submission to Standards Body." - "The AuthXML Working Group today announced that 45 organizations representing the vendor, service provider, and enterprise communities have joined the open and vendor neutral initiative to help create a standard way to secure Internet-based electronic transactions. The Working Group is finalizing preparations on the AuthXML specification for submission to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and OASIS. Charter members include Access360, Arcot Systems, Argus Systems Group, Authentify, Authentor, BioNetrix, Bowstreet, Brown University, Calendra, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, CertCo, Check Point Software Technologies, Citrix, Datek Online, Deloitte & Touche LLP, eBenX, Employease, Entact Information Security, Entrust Technologies, Epicentric, Equifax, Internet 2 Project, Keyware Technologies, Mackenzie Financial, McKesson, Novell, Oblix, Outlook Technologies, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ProofSpace, Royal Bank of Scotland, SAIC, Sandhill Systems, Secretariat du Conseil du Tresor, Securant Technologies, Secure Computing, Silverstream, SiteLite, SVi Retail, Thomson Financial, Transport Logistic Centre, University of Western Ontario, Urmet, Valicert, and Wave Systems Corp. The ability of the Internet to support secure electronic transactions that span multiple Web sites and organizations is limited by the fact that each organization has deployed its own separate security systems for performing user authentication and authorization. In order for the Internet to enable seamless yet secure transactions between trading partners, affiliated organizations, and between businesses and consumers, a standard method is required for presenting and maintaining security details as a user or session traverses linked Web sites that are based on disparate technologies, applications and platforms. AuthXML is a vendor-neutral specification that enables the integration of proprietary Web security, network security, B2B infrastructures and applications with individual Internet-based user sessions and transactions. The specification derives its name from the fact that it uses XML and links the two primary components of Web transaction security: Authentication and Authorization. AuthXML is designed to enable the seamless flow of Web-based transactions between trading partner sites that may be using different security systems, and within a given site that may be deploying multiple applications that require integrated security. The goal of the AuthXML Working Group is to achieve a universally accepted standard that enables authentication and authorization functions to be performed across and interoperate with multi-vendor Web security systems, packaged and custom Web applications, and network level security systems - using XML technology." See: "AuthXML Standard for Web Security."

  • [December 01, 2000] "Inera Introduces eXtyles. Inera Incorporated introduces eXtyles, the premier suite of editorial and XML tools for Microsoft Word." - "Inera Incorporated, a leading developer of XML solutions, announces the introduction of eXtyles, the premier integrated suite of editorial and XML tools for Microsoft Word. 'With the advent of rapid electronic publishing, structured information has become more important to organizations than ever before. Most document authors and editors, however, prefer to use Microsoft Word rather than a structured XML editor to create and edit information,' said Irina Golfman, President of Inera. 'eXtyles enables organizations to continue use of Word and meet the demand to deliver XML.' eXtyles automates editorial and XML production processes. It simplifies the time-consuming, error-prone and frustrating task to clean up, style, edit and tag content. eXtyles streamlines molding Word content into a corporate editorial and visual style, and exporting Word documents to XML or other metadata formats. It uses Intelligent Pattern Recognition (IPR) to automatically identify and markup XML elements and automates tedious manual content editing. Developed with direct input from long-time publishers of SGML and XML documents, eXtyles has been specifically designed for the workflow requirements of editorial and production organizations faced with the mandate to produce XML from Microsoft Word under deadline pressure... eXtyles is currently installed at three sites. These sites have achieved significant productivity improvements and cost savings as well as enhanced content quality. Version 1.0 of eXtyles will be available in the 4th Quarter of 2000. eXtyles is compatible with Word 97 and Word 2000, and it runs on Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000."

  • [November 30, 2000] "VeriSign, Microsoft and webMethods Announce Breakthrough XML-based Specification to Enable Interoperable Digital Signatures and Encryption for B2B and B2C Transactions. New Open Specification to Accelerate Deployment of Secure E-Commerce Applications." - "VeriSign Inc., Microsoft Corp. and webMethods Inc. today introduced a breakthrough XML-based framework -- the XML key management specification (XKMS) -- to enable a broad range of software developers to seamlessly integrate digital signatures and data encryption into e-commerce applications. To accelerate the development of applications incorporating these advanced technologies, the XKMS specification -- jointly designed and prototyped by VeriSign, Microsoft and webMethods with industry support from other technology leaders -- was made publicly available today and will be submitted to the appropriate Web standards bodies for consideration as an open Internet standard. In addition, XKMS will be built into the Microsoft.NET architecture to ensure broad and rapid adoption of this framework in both B2B and B2C environments. The new XKMS specification revolutionizes the development of trusted B2B and B2C applications by introducing an open framework that enables virtually any developer to easily access applications from any public key infrastructure products and services. With the XKMS specification, developers are able to integrate advanced technologies such as digital signature handling and encryption into their web-based applications. The XKMS specification promotes the interoperability of advanced technologies because it is based on XML, a rapidly growing standard for application development. Currently, developers choosing to enable applications to handle digital keys for authentication and digital signatures are often required to purchase and integrate specialized toolkits from a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) software vendor which only interoperate with that vendor's PKI offerings. Functions such as digital certificate processing, revocation status checking, and certification path location and validation are all built into the application via the toolkit. With the new XKMS specification, those functions are no longer built into the application but instead reside in servers that can be accessed via easily programmed XML transactions. The XKMS architecture, along with the recently drafted XML digital signature standards and the emerging XML encryption standard, provides a complete framework for ensuring broad interoperability across applications developed by enterprises, B2B exchanges and other Internet communities of interest. XKMS is also compatible with the emerging standards for Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)..." See: "XML Key Management Specification (XKMS)." Announcement also from webMethods.

  • [November 30, 2000] "VeriSign Introduces New Suite of XML Specifications for Seamless Links to Web Identity, Online Authentication, Authorization and Payment Services. Enterprise Developers, B2B Exchanges and Independent Software Vendors to Benefit from Open, Interoperable Internet Trust Infrastructure." - "VeriSign, Inc., a leading provider of Internet trust services, today announced a range of XML-based specifications and services designed to enable enterprise developers, B2B exchanges, independent software vendors (ISVs) and service providers to link their applications seamlessly to Web identity, online authentication, authorization, digital signature, encryption and payment services. These specifications are being introduced in conjunction with today's public release of the XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) by VeriSign, Microsoft and webMethods. The new XML specifications are designed to work with VeriSign's existing Web identity, authentication, payment and validation services and greatly simplify interoperability of e-commerce transactions. In addition to the new XKMS specification announced today by VeriSign, Microsoft and webMethods, VeriSign has also developed a suite of XML specifications for Web identity management, online authorization and payment processing: (1) Provisioning of Web Identity Services -- To assist domain name registrars and others in accessing VeriSign's global registry data faster and easier, VeriSign has developed the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) to support an XML-based management utility for vendors of online identity services. EPP will enable VeriSign's accredited registrar partners to sell domain names, telephone numbers and future identification assets through a new extensible protocol. This protocol will allow for greater sharing of information and flexibility as new identification technologies gain acceptance. The EPP specification has been submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for consideration as an Internet standard. (2) Authorization Across E-Business Platforms with S2ML -- VeriSign is working with multiple industry partners, including Netegrity, to develop S2ML, a common language for sharing authentication and authorization services through XML documents. This standard is compatible with XKMS and enables interoperability between security systems or infrastructure systems that need to communicate about information such as authentication, authorization and profile information. S2ML is designed to work with multiple XML document exchange protocols and frameworks such as SOAP, OAG, MIME, Biztalk, and ebXML. (3) Payment Specifications for both B2B and B2C Applications -- VeriSign's XML Pay is an XML specification for payment requests and responses in a distributed, web-based payment transaction environment. The typical user of XML Pay is an Internet merchant or merchant aggregator who wants to dispatch consumer credit card, debit card, corporate purchase card, automated clearinghouse (ACH), or other payment requests to a financial processing network. Users can create an XML Pay client payment request and dispatch it to an associated XML Pay-compliant server. Responses are formatted in XML and convey the results of the payment requests to the client. XML Pay also helps businesses secure and gain intelligence from their transactions since it supports digital certificate-based identification and authentication, digital certificate-based identification and authentication, digital signatures, and the generation and archiving of digital receipts..." See: "XML Key Management Specification (XKMS)."

  • [November 29, 2000] "Commerce One, Along With Industry Leaders, Establishes Next-Generation Standards to Power Open E-Marketplaces. Compaq, Microsoft, SAP and Sun Microsystems Support xCBL Standards for Business-to-Business E-Marketplaces." - "At the eLink Conference here today, Commerce One, Inc., a leader in global e-commerce solutions for business, announced Commerce One XML Common Business Library (xCBL) 3.0, the next generation of Commerce One's leading interoperability standard for the exchange of business documents. Commerce One also announced that industry leaders Compaq, Microsoft, SAP and Sun Microsystems will leverage xCBL 3.0 as a key standard in the development and delivery of B2B solutions. xCBL 3.0 provides a comprehensive set of standardized XML document formats, allowing buyers, suppliers and service providers to integrate their existing systems quickly and efficiently into e-marketplaces. Since it is built from a thorough analysis of existing e-commerce standards such as EDI (Edifact and X12), RosettaNet and OBI, it is expected that xCBL 3.0 will enable users of different e-commerce standards to communicate with one another with an ease that has previously not been possible. xCBL 3.0 is built from a set of document components or 'building blocks' that are reused by businesses to support automation of multi-company supply chains, collaboration, direct and indirect procurement, planning, auctions, invoicing and payment in an international multi-currency environment. It is expected that this component architecture will enable more efficient, robust, and scaleable integration of trading partners and gives e-marketplaces the flexibility to support diverse business services. Furthermore, xCBL 3.0 will be the underlying XML technology that will enable the interoperability of all the e-marketplaces within the Global Trading Web (GTW). In addition, xCBL 3.0 will make it much simpler for suppliers to participate in e-marketplaces by providing significant enhancements that make it easier to define, construct, manage, maintain and share catalog content across multiple e-marketplaces. Like earlier releases, xCBL 3.0 is available for free to other organizations and businesses to use on an unrestricted basis. The full set of xCBL 3.0 documents and accompanying documentation will be available in mid-December at the www.xCBL.org website. Commerce One is working with its partners, customers and industry standards organizations to place xCBL completely in the public domain and align with initiatives such as ebXML. Commerce One continues to work with leading standards, including RosettaNet and the ebXML initiative chartered by UN/CEFACT and OASIS to build this effective XML standard. xCBL 3.0 was built based on an analysis of existing EDI standards for a number of large industries, including automotive, aerospace, finance, transport, energy and retail."

  • [November 29, 2000] "Leading Financial Institutions and Standards Bodies Endorse Interactive Financial Exchange Specification." - "Financial institutions around the world in concert with several standards groups are working together to implement the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) framework in e-business environments and related industries. Spearheaded by BITS in 1999 to facilitate the sharing of financial data among banks, their customers and service providers, the IFX Forum builds on the industry experience of the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) and Integrion GOLD specifications, which are currently implemented by major financial institutions and service providers. This emerging IFX specification utilizes Extensible Markup Language (XML) for optimal business level information flow and drives widespread adoption of online financial services. Providing a foundation for users to build new Internet delivery channels and applications for customers, the IFX framework also supports Spectrum, a consortium of banks, and offers Bill Presentment & Payment functionality. Participation in the IFX Forum continues to grow dramatically with recent additions of member organizations, such as American Management Systems, Business Logic Corporation, Metavante and Unisys. In addition to the financial industry, a number of groups have expressed clear interest in cooperating with the Forum in XML message development and in utilizing the IFX architectural framework. (1) In January 2001, the IFX Forum will launch the Brokerage Working Group to facilitate the needs of the brokerage industry. (2) The student loan community, which is working to design one standard based on an XML format to be used by student lenders, universities and the U.S. Department of Education, is eyeing the IFX framework. (3) The Mortgage Bankers Association of America's Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization is coordinating with the IFX Forum to standardize real estate finance transactions, with the goal of eliminating duplicative standards efforts in the loan applications area. (4) Internationally, there is a great deal of interest from financial institutions in the Far East in using the IFX Forum's architectural framework. The IFX Forum boasts an active membership of financial institutions and service providers, such as Bank of America, EDS, First Union Bank, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, and Wells Fargo Company, and receives managerial support from the Data Interchange Standards Association. An active player in the insurance industry, the IFX Forum formed a cooperative relationship with ACORD, a nonprofit insurance standards organization. ACORD sits on the IFX Forum Steering Committee and currently contributes property and casualty business messages based on the IFX XML architecture. The forum is organized into the following five working groups: Bill Presentment & Payment; Business Banking; Loan Application; Insurance; and Aggregation, which will launch January 2001. The IFX Forum, open for worldwide participation, was founded to provide a variety of benefits for financial services companies and their customers. IFX Forum members develop open and interoperable specifications that meet the financial services industry business requirements for serving consumer and corporate customers. The mission of the IFX Forum's open membership is to expedite the development and implementation of the IFX specification, which defines the business message format for the electronic exchange of data." The IFX XML Specifications are available online. See "Interactive Financial eXchange (IFX)."

  • [November 29, 2000] "IRML.org Unveils Initial Working Groups and 'Proof of Concept' Prototype for XML Standards for Investment Research." - "IRML.org, the first global industry consortium established to develop a nonproprietary, industry-wide standard for the creation and exchange of Investment Research content using XML technology, today publicly announced its three working groups. Additionally, the consortium announced plans to build a 'proof of concept' prototype for evaluation during Q1 2001, along with the draft specification for public comment. The Consortium is comprised of firms from major banks, brokerages, relevant third parties and buy side institutions. The group consists of over 30 firms globally, including participation by: ABN AMRO, AXA, Barings Asset Management, BARRA, Bloomberg, Charles Schwab & Co, CLSA Emerging Markets, Deutsche Bank, Digital Capital Limited, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, FactSet, Fortis Bank, Greenwich Associates, HSBC, JP Morgan Asset Management, Lehman Brothers, Lipper, Inc, Multex.com, Morningstar, Newton Investment Management, Reuters, Robertson Stephens, SG Cowen, Schroders Investment Management, Standard & Poor's, and US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, among others. The group plans to release a 'Proof of Concept' working prototype early in 2001. Several brokerage houses have already made commitment to outputting research content into this draft standard, which will then be evaluated by a special panel of Buy Side representatives for its utility and ability to create greater efficiencies between parties in the financial information supply chain... The Organization seeks to create accepted, concise standards for Investment Research for use by all market participants. Benefits of the standard would include: (1) Providing multiple research products from a single set of XML data; (2) Allowing for a finer targeting of client needs through the customization of reports; (3) The streaming of Investment Research data to be delivered over next-generation platforms, including wireless; (4) Establishing further efficiency between parties and within the community; and (5) Providing a forum for research to be accessed and manipulated in meaningful ways. The Organization also unveiled its three initial working groups. The Technical Specification Working Group, ' chaired by Stuart Berwick from Dresdner Kleinwort Benson is tasked with execution and building of the XML standard. The Strategy Working Group' will manage bigger-picture issues and business strategies. Finally, a Liaison Working Group' will coordinate with other relevant standards bodies within the community. As IRML's goals and focus are unique from other XML efforts, the Organization still realizes the importance of establishing formal relationships with other relevant industry standard bodies who are examining different pieces of the XML puzzle, in order to best foster interoperability and real benefit to end consumers." See: "Investment Research Markup Language (IRML)."

  • [November 28, 2000] "Curious Networks Launches Web-Based Mobile Application Development Workshop. Online Site Enables Developers to Build, Test and Publish Applications Created with First Multi-Channel Markup Language." - "Developers can now breathe a collective sigh of relief because life as they know it just got a little easier thanks to the launch of Curious Networks' online application development Workshop at workshop.curiousnetworks.com. For the first time, novices and experts alike can explore and test Curious Networks' patent-pending markup language, MAXML -- the power behind next-generation applications. Workshop is the first free multi-channel online environment where application developers can quickly and easily build, evaluate and publish applications for multiple devices through a single development effort. By creating applications in Workshop, visitors get a preview of Curious Networks' flagship product, Continuum, scheduled for release in early 2001, and first-hand experience working with an evaluation version of the company's innovative markup language, MAXML (Multi-Channel Access XML). Workshop contains all the tools needed to quickly and easily publish mobile, as well as wired applications without having to download any software. To help get developers started, the site features a thorough guide on MAXML, tutorials, sample MAXML applications, a syntax checker and a publishing environment. In addition, newsgroups and message boards provide developers with help and feedback, and allows them to share their innovative MAXML applications with others. 'Technology is changing so fast, it's hard to keep up with it,' says Vera L. Smith, independent software developer and consultant. 'It's not that easy for developers to find tutorials on new standards. The Workshop eliminates the need to learn other markup languages for various channels because MAXML's run-time converts the code to the appropriate languages.' Until today, developers had to painstakingly code applications for each access channel using the standards associated with each particular device, requiring them to learn numerous mark-up languages such as WML, HDML, VoiceXML, XHTML and Palm's PQA. Because of the unique way MAXML allows developers to define an application's functionality, programmers only need to write code once, enabling them to deploy the application across all current and future devices, including PDAs, text pagers, WAP phones, interactive TV and standard phones using voice recognition. 'Realizing existing technologies did not meet the needs for multi-channel development, we created MAXML, the first language with an interaction-centered approach,' says David Cutler, CEO of Curious Networks. 'Through Workshop, we are able to present MAXML to the public, allowing everyone the opportunity to experience the power of a true 'write once' multi-channel access platform.' Unlike traditional markup languages based on presentation, MAXML is founded on human interaction models that interpret how the application data should be presented on each device. Because developers define specific interactions independent of presentation standards, MAXML requires fewer lines of code, saving valuable time and headaches when testing and debugging applications. The first phase of the Workshop will support the Web, WAP phones and voice portals. Curious Networks' platform is compatible with all industry standards from HTML and XML to WML and VoiceXML. Using MAXML, a breakthrough multi-channel markup language based on interaction-oriented development, the Curious Networks Continuum product delivers unparalleled usability, protection from costly future development, and complete scalability." See: "Multi-Channel Access XML (MAXML)."

  • [November 28, 2000] "Arbortext Introduces Epic 4.1 with Conversion from Interleaf and Adobe FrameMaker Formats to XML. Upgrade builds on conversion between Microsoft Word and XML to Enable Enterprises to Deliver More Personalized and Dynamic Content." - "Arbortext, Inc., a leading provider of content management integration software and business-to-business commerce solutions, today announced the launch of its most recent version of e-content software, Epic 4.1, which supports the conversion between Interleaf and Adobe FrameMaker files and XML. This latest release also enhances Epic's capability to convert between Microsoft Word files and XML. Many enterprises today employ teams of authors that work with large amounts of material in multiple proprietary formats in order to create and maintain business-critical content. Epic 4.1 builds on the previous Epic version by giving these authors the ability to take proprietary formats such as Interleaf and Adobe FrameMaker and convert them into XML, enabling them to concentrate on the subject matter rather than spending time and resources learning new tools. Epic 4.1 significantly expands the reach of authors who can leverage XML within an enterprise. Occasional authors who contribute content and are accustomed to a particular type of software can continue authoring in that environment while downstream processes can leverage that content for multiple purposes by converting it to XML. Epic 4.1 also maintains and further enhances features introduced in the previous Epic version such as rapid applications development, global support and adherence to W3C XML recommendations. Epic software was designed to help enterprises who are building e-commerce initiatives more easily share information that leads to purchase decisions and enables self-service. With Epic, enterprises have the ability to capture information quickly, manage and control it effectively, assemble it according to individual needs, and distribute it automatically from a single source to multiple media such as the Web, print, CD-ROM and wireless devices. Epic enables enterprises to create, capture and deliver more personalized and dynamic content for e-publishing, e-commerce and B2B net marketplace applications... Epic 4.1 will ship in December 2000. All Arbortext customers under maintenance are eligible to receive the Epic 4.1 upgrade at no charge and will automatically be shipped the upgrade. The XML conversion capabilities are available as Epic Interchange, an option to Arbortext's best-selling XML editors, Epic Editor and Epic Editor LE, and are included as a standard part of Arbortext's server, the Epic E-Content Engine (E3)."

  • [November 20, 2000] "First Call Supports Launch Of RIXML.org As It Brings Industry Closer to an XML Standard for Investment Research." - "First Call Corp., a Thomson Financial company, supports the work that is currently underway to develop Research Information eXchange Markup Language (RIXML), announced on October 18, 2000. First Call is committed to working collaboratively with industry participants to create a public standard for investment research. The formation of RIXML.org -- a global industry association of buy- and sell-side firms whose mission is to develop an open standard for the electronic exchange of investment research -- represents a significant step in realizing this objective. In June, First Call made a draft Document Type Definition (DTD) available free of charge via its institutional Web portal. The DTD was intended to facilitate industry dialogue and the creation of a more complete specification. An XML-based information standard will provide for a more efficient and customized flow of information among market participants, including the brokerage and asset management communities served by First Call. 'With this endorsement of RIXML, First Call has demonstrated its commitment to supporting a broad and public effort to create an XML-based standard,' said David Seibert, Vice President, Investment Systems at T. Rowe Price and Buy-Side Co-Chair of the RIXML.org Steering Committee. 'Vendors and service providers are expected to play an important role in the evolution and implementation of RIXML, and we look forward to First Call's involvement in this important industry initiative.' A broadly accepted XML standard will ensure that the independent components of a research document are structured and identified in a consistent manner across all organizations. This consistency will facilitate the exchange and customization of information, as the components may be parsed and repackaged to meet each recipient's distinct requirements. XML-formatted documents can also be converted to the formats specified by recipients and delivered seamlessly over a variety of platforms, including the Web and wireless devices. First Call Corp. is the global financial community's leading Internet provider of real-time broker-sourced research, earnings estimates, equity and fixed income ownership information, insider trading information, and corporate news releases. More than 6,000,000 research documents are available on the FIRST CALL Network. First Call's distribution capabilities, research services, competitive intelligence product, usage reports and customized business solutions provide value-added links between the institutional buy-side and the sell-side worldwide." See references in "Research Information Exchange Markup Language (RIXML)."

  • [November 16, 2000] "Securant Technologies Announces Formation of AuthXML Working Group to Create Industry Standard for Web Security. Leading Provider of Access Management Software Invites Industry to Help Shape Specification for Submission to Public Standards Body." - "Securant Technologies -- the access management company that secures eBusiness -- today announced the formation of an open industry working group to facilitate the creation of the first XML-based standard for Web security, called AuthXML. This standard will leverage XML, which is platform and programming language independent, to enable authentication and authorization functions to be performed across and interoperate with multi-vendor Web security systems, packaged and custom Web applications, and network level security systems. AuthXML will allow integrated Web commerce and a transparent user experience by providing a standardized approach for presenting and keeping track of security details as a transaction or session traverses linked Web sites based on disparate technologies, applications and platforms. Securant has been working with its key customers and partners for several months to develop a framework for the AuthXML specification, and is now opening up its research and design efforts to help foster and accelerate the adoption of a universal standard. 'A breakthrough standard like AuthXML offers tremendous gains for eMarketplaces, exchanges and enterprises,' said Pete Lindstrom, Senior Analyst, Security Strategies Service at Hurwitz Group. 'AuthXML transports the 'genetic code' of a user's personal transaction information from site to site with a single sign-on, creating opportunities for referrals and 'personal concierge' services while providing a singular user experience.' With this announcement Securant is extending an open invitation to the industry to join the AuthXML working group, help shape the design of the specification, and support its submission to the appropriate public standards organization later this year. Through this open invitation the company is working to build consensus within the industry, speed the adoption of a universal standard, and avert 'quasi-standards' which will cause further confusion in this already fragmented market. More details and information on participating in the AuthXML working group are available at www.securant.com/authxml. 'As a strong proponent of industry standards, Securant is pleased to contribute the AuthXML specification as a well-researched starting point for the creation of an open approach to Web security. We are excited about working with our customers, partners and peers to jointly develop a successful standard,' said Eric Olden, Chief Technology Officer, Securant Technologies. 'AuthXML promises to streamline Web commerce transactions, improve security and provide new opportunities for creating trusted high value on-line relationships. By galvanizing around a non-proprietary standard, we as vendors will enable our customers to achieve faster time to market, greater flexibility and easier implementations of their eBusiness and eCommerce infrastructures." See: "AuthXML Standard for Web Security."

  • [November 15, 2000] "Curious Networks Introduces New Markup Language For Mobile Industry. MAXML enables one development effort for applications on multiple internet access devices." - "Curious Networks today turns up the power on multi-channel applications development with the introduction of MAXML (multi-channel access XML), the first language designed specifically for the development of multi-channel applications. This patent-pending, XML-based language helps take the time and difficulty out of writing code for wireless and non-wireless Internet access devices. Using MAXML, developers no longer have to write separate code for each device. They simply write in MAXML once and the application is instantly accessible across all devices-regardless of the varying standards. Through focus groups and product testing, Curious Networks found that developers face many challenges programming in the new wireless landscape. In fact, until today, moving into the wireless space has been tedious and time consuming for programmers. With a variety of mobile and alternative access devices, and unique standards and presentations associated with each, developers had to painstakingly code an application for each device, which required them to learn numerous current and emerging markup languages such as WML, HDML, Voice XML, WAP and Palm's PQA. Now with a single development effort, programmers can specify and write code once in MAXML, enabling them to deploy that application across all devices, including PDAs, text pagers, WAP phones, interactive TV, and standard phones using voice recognition. Without any alteration to the existing MAXML, developers can support additional devices as they emerge, eliminating the concern over ever-changing standards and technologies. Because MAXML uses fewer lines of code, developers also save valuable time. 'As more businesses go mobile, MAXML is going to be very important,' says Dwight Taylor, Webmaster consultant and developer, who participated in Curious Networks' focus groups and product testing. 'Most major corporations do not have WAP-enabled or voice-XML-enabled applications. They are strictly using HTML. They don't have applications that can go across devices, so there is definitely a benefit there with MAXML. It's a language developers will soon be looking to use.' 'Businesses also save time and money through the use of MAXML because they no longer have to worry about recruiting and retraining developers on codes that may soon be obsolete. With only one development effort necessary for multi-channel access, businesses can ensure rapid deployment of applications. A scalable, future-proof solution, MAXML offers businesses a quick and efficient way to move into the mobile arena without lengthy development efforts. 'Companies are spending millions to ramp up on current standards that may not last. Curious Networks provides a robust solution that eliminates the risks associated with deploying mobile applications,' says Francesca Mabarak, senior analyst with the Wireless Mobile Technologies division at Yankee Group. Unlike traditional development processes based on presentation, MAXML is founded on a human-information interaction model that explains the relationships between data and how users interact with that data. 'MAXML is the cornerstone of an entirely new way of developing applications,' says David Cutler, CEO of Curious Networks. 'No longer do companies have to build applications that work only on a single device or platform. Now, they are able to create and deploy into-the-future applications that can be accessed on multiple devices ranging from wireless phones to interactive television. MAXML is the first language to make this possible.' Availability: The beta version of MAXML and Curious Networks' flagship product, Continuum, will be available on the Web at workshop.curiousnetworks.com. Curious Networks Workshop will, for the first time, let interested individuals explore and evaluate the inner-workings of true multi-channel development, allowing developers to build and deploy their own test applications using MAXML. Curious Networks' enterprise version of Continuum is currently in beta testing with select customers and will be commercially available in early first quarter 2001." See: "Multi-Channel Access XML (MAXML)."

  • [November 16, 2000] "UDDI Business Registry Goes Live. Momentum For UDDI Project Grows With Public Beta Launch, Participation Triples." - "The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project -- a broad coalition of business and technology leaders -- today announced the initial public beta testing of the UDDI Business Registry, a Web service designed to accelerate the adoption of business-to-business (B2B) integration and commerce on the Internet. The UDDI Project also announced that 94 new members have joined since the launch two months ago, bringing the total number of participants to 130. By listing a Web service in the UDDI Business Registry, companies are opening the door for the establishment of new e-business relationships and added efficiency to existing relationships. Companies can publish identifying information and indicate a preferred means of conducting e-commerce transactions. Businesses registered are located more easily by B2B customers and partners via the registry's search mechanism. The globally distributed operation of the UDDI Business Registry is currently shared by Ariba, Microsoft and IBM. Each company operates a registry server which interoperates with the other participants' servers, ensuring that information registered at one site is shared with all other operator registries. The UDDI Business Registry is a platform-neutral implementation of the UDDI draft specification announced last month. Future versions of the Business Registry will add other companies as operators. Having a business service listed in the UDDI Business Registry is free, companies can begin the registration process at: http://www.uddi.org/register.html. The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project is a 120 member plus coalition of business and technology leaders committed to the acceleration and broadening of business-to-business integration and commerce on the Internet." See: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

  • [November 14, 2000] "World Wide Web Consortium Issues DOM Level 2 As a W3C Recommendation. DOM Level 2 Delivers Standard API and Dynamism to XML." - "Leading the Web to its full potential, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today released the Document Object Model Level 2 specification as a W3C Recommendation. The specification reflects cross-industry agreement on a standard API (Applications Programming Interface) for manipulating documents and data through a programming language (such as Java or ECMAScript). A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who favor its adoption by the industry. Created and developed by the W3C Document Object Model (DOM) Working Group, this specification extends the platform- and language-neutral interface to access and update dynamically a document's content, structure, and style first described by the DOM Level 1 Recommendation. The DOM Level 2 provides a standard set of objects for representing Extensible Markup Language (XML) documents and data, including namespace support, a style sheet platform which adds support for CSS 1 and 2, a standard model of how these objects may be combined, and a standard interface for accessing and manipulating them. DOM Level 1 was designed for HTML 4.0 and XML 1.0. With DOM Level 2, authors can take further advantage of the extensibility of XML. Simply put, anywhere you use XML, you can now use the DOM to manipulate it. The standard DOM interface makes it possible to write software (similar to plug-ins) for processing customized tag-sets in a language- and platform-independent way. A standard API makes it easier to develop modules that can be re-used in different applications. DOM Level 2 provides support for XML namespaces, extending and improving the XML platform. As more sites move to XML for content delivery, DOM Level 2 emerges as a critical tool for developing dynamic Web content. The DOM defines a standard API that allows authors to write programs that work without changes across tools and browsers from different vendors. But beyond this, it provides a uniform way to produce programs that work across a variety of different devices, so all may benefit from dynamically generated content.. The DOM Level 2 Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) API makes it possible for a script author to access and manipulate style information associated with contents, while preserving accessibility. DOM Level 2 also includes an Events API to provide interactivity anywhere someone uses XML - in documents, in data, or in B2B applications..." See "W3C Document Object Model (DOM)."

  • [November 14, 2000] "Energy Leaders Gather for Election, Celebration and Collaboration On eBusiness Issues." - "POSC (Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation), an international consortium of energy companies focused on leveraging technology and standards for eBusiness, today announced the results of its recent Annual Member Meeting, 10-year anniversary celebration and Energy eCommerce Conference. 'The Energy eCommerce Conference brought together an outstanding lineup of speakers and delegates -- thought leaders who are driving fundamental changes in the industry -- in a neutral, collaborative environment to discuss how eBusiness and eStandards have already impacted and will continue to impact the industry,' said David Archer, president of POSC. 'Our participants shared what they are currently doing to realize the promises of eCommerce and digital marketplaces as well as what they believe the next year will hold.' Dave Clementz, president of Chevron Information Technology Company, kicked off the eCommerce Conference with a discussion of new approaches for the new economy. Conference keynotes included several industry leaders; among these were John Gibson, CEO of Landmark Graphics; Thierry Pilenko, CEO of GeoQuest; Paul Frison, CEO, Houston Technology Center; and Philippe Chalon, CIO of TotalFinaElf. As part of the annual member meeting, POSC outlined its directions for the coming year stating that the central focus for 2001 will be XML solutions for high-value exchanges of technical, business and regulatory information. The organization also reiterated its commitment to collaboration and joint activities with other standards-oriented bodies; to this end, it announced the recent exchange of membership with the BizTech for Energy Foundation. 'The objective of POSC is to build value by making eStandards and information available to the Membership as well as to the industry at large,' Archer said, adding, 'It's through these meetings that we bring key industry players together to increase awareness and to focus on implementations that will increase business efficiency in the energy sector.' The annual meeting resulted in the election of four new POSC board members, including: Stefan Nowina, manager for utilities and middleware for BP Amoco Technical Applications Group; William Ragosa, manager of data resource management within Upstream Technical Computing for ExxonMobil Exploration Company; Jim Honefenger, vice president of marketing-ISVs for GeoNet Services.com; and David Archer, president of POSC." POSC XML Activities include: WellLogML 1.0 for Well Log Data Exchange XML Format Description Standards for Well Log Graphics, MMS Reporting Proposal, ProductionML/Reporting (XML DTD for use in reporting well tests, monthly and annual production and performance forecasts to regulatory agencies), WellSchematicML (description of well schematics in XML), Geophysics ML Proposals (description of geophysical acquisition and processing objects), eosML Proposal (project to rapidly develop an XML specification for equation of state [EOS] data for compositional fluid modeling), etc. See "Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC) XML Related Projects."

  • [November 13, 2000] "Newly Formed Alliance to Develop Open Technology Standards For the Online Real Estate Industry. Seamless Data Exchange Will Lead to Integrated and Streamlined e-Real Estate Transactions." - "A consortium of companies today announced their initiative to create open standards for data exchange within the real estate industry in order to streamline the online home-buying and selling process. The Alliance for Advanced Real Estate Transaction Technology's (AARTT) initiative is called CRTML (comprehensive real estate transaction markup language). Member companies are: 9keys, AppraisalHub, Bowstreet, Commission Advance, Deloitte & Touche, GHR Systems, Homeadvisor Technologies Inc., Homebid, iLumin, Inciscent, InfoStream, Instanet Forms, InteliTouch, Interealty, iProperty, MarketLinx, Property I.D., Supra Products, and VISTAinfo. Though several attempts are underway to define specifications for portions of the real estate industry, including online mortgages, it may take years for the different sub-industries to integrate the systems. By defining the core data elements necessary by all e-real estate participants, CRTML will significantly speed the development of a seamless data exchange. 'The main purpose for founding the Alliance is to turbo-charge cooperation among existing vertical standards efforts and build interoperability between them; we believe that strong technology alliances within our industry are crucial for innovation and value creation,' said Ari Vidali, chief technology officer for iProperty and AARTT founder. "CRTML will act as the connective tissue between real estate transaction systems. This will allow participants to migrate core business processes toward a fully integrated real estate e-transaction. The resulting end-to-end solutions will create new value for everyone involved by dramatically reducing the friction present in the transaction today..." See: "Comprehensive Real Estate Transaction Markup Language (CRTML)."

  • [November 13, 2000] "Microsoft Announces Availability of Visual Studio.NET And .NET Framework Beta 1; Submits C# to ECMA. Announces Public Availability and Standardization of Tools And Platform for Building Web Services." - "In his COMDEX/Fall 2000 kickoff keynote address on Sunday, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced the public availability of the first beta version of Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework, two key technologies for enabling developers to build Web Services on the .NET Platform. Web Services are applications and components made available over the Web via XML and SOAP, and are the key programmable building blocks of the next-generation Internet. Microsoft is making beta 1 of Visual Studio.NET and the .NET Framework broadly available to millions of customers and industry partners. Gates also announced the formal submission of C# (pronounced 'C-sharp') and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specifications to ECMA, a vendor-neutral international standards organization committed to driving industrywide adoption of information and communications technologies. This submission, co-sponsored by Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., delivers on the promise of standardizing key technologies to enable greater interoperability between computing environments and thus helps companies leverage existing knowledge and current investments in software development infrastructure to build the next-generation Internet. By submitting C# -- an object-oriented language derived from C and C++ -- and the CLI -- a subset of the .NET Framework -- to ECMA, Microsoft is following through on its commitment to standardize key interoperability technologies. C# provides the world's first component-oriented language for C and C++ developers. CLI includes base-class libraries and necessary plumbing components, enabling other software vendors to support C# on any operating system..."

  • [November 13, 2000] "Canopy International Joins UDDI Advisory Counsel Formed by Microsoft, Ariba and IBM. Canopy to Provide B2B Integration and Industry Standards Expertise." - "Canopy International, an e-business service provider specializing in enterprise and business-to-business integration, today announced that it has joined the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project's advisory council. The UDDI is a cross-industry initiative designed to accelerate and broaden B2B integration and commerce on the Internet through the development of e-business transaction specifications and standards. Canopy joins IBM, Microsoft Corp., Ariba, and their coalition of business and technology leaders that recently launched UDDI. The UDDI Project is developing specifications and standards that will enable companies to find and transact business with each other quickly and easily. The goal of the UDDI Project is to offer the basic infrastructure for dynamic, automated integration of all e-commerce transactions and Web services. UDDI is defining a platform-neutral set of specifications to enable businesses to describe themselves and indicate their preferred means of conducting e-commerce transactions, and will also include the shared operation of a globally distributed UDDI Business Registry. As a member of UDDI's advisory council, Canopy will help develop standards and specifications, and provide the expertise they have gained from their long series of commitments to universal B2B e-commerce standards and from their history of developing standards-based integration solutions for industry leaders. Canopy recently demonstrated the use of UDDI for automatic alternative supplier identification at the November 2, 2000 B2B Vendor Challenge, which was sponsored by the Open Applications Group and hosted by Canopy. The UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) Project is a comprehensive, open industry initiative enabling businesses to (I) discover each other, and (II) define how they interact over the internet and share information in a global registry architecture. UDDI is the building block which will enable businesses to quickly, easily and dynamically find and transact with one another via their preferred applications. UDDI is also a framework for Web services integration. It contains standards-based specifications for service description and discovery. The UDDI specification takes advantage of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), HTTP and Domain Name System (DNS) protocols. Additionally, cross platform programming features are addressed by adopting early versions of the proposed Simple Object Access ProtocoL (SOAP) messaging specifications found at the W3C Web site." See: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

  • [November 08, 2000] "FpML Emerging E-Commerce Standard for OTC Derivatives Trading and Key to Lower Processing Costs. Future of $88 Trillion Derivatives Market Charted at London Symposium." - "FpML (Financial products Markup Language) is the emerging e-commerce standard for OTC derivatives trading, Phil Ellis of Cygnifi Derivatives Services told a symposium of approximately 160 representatives of financial institutions and technology vendors here November 1. Mr. Ellis, who is Head of Solutions Business for the New York-based firm, said 'FpML has a well-defined architecture to integrate a number of applications with diverse technologies and makes it easier for financial institutions to reach consensus on an external standard rather than 'rolling their own'.' The symposium was sponsored by FpML.org, Inc., a consortium of leading banks, information and software vendors, and systems integrators. Matt Meinel, Managing Director for UBS Warburg, opened the symposium by noting that the OTC derivatives market has grown to more than $88 trillion of notional since the interest rate swaps market emerged in the 1980s. 'This represents a 10% increase overall during 1999,' he said, 'and more than a 20% increase in interest rate swaps alone.' Damian Kissane Managing Director and Head of Derivatives eBusiness for Deutsche Bank, said 'FpML is essential from a business perspective to drive down the cost of processing OTC derivatives, and to satisfy the information demands of the market. Electronic trading is the wave of the future,' he said. 'Supporting it requires a commonality of straight-through processing between front and back offices and ultimately between institutions that participate in this market.' Other presentations described how FpML is being used at SunGard Trading and Risk Systems; an FpML Toolkit for Java developed by Kronos Software, and work done by Logica in implementing an FpML-based middle office system for managing exotic trades at Commerzbank. According to FpML.org, some 30 financial, technology and consulting firms are at work to broaden the application of the standard into areas beyond interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements. Responding to demands for faster time-to-market and broader product coverage, the organization is planning to roll out its next release in early 2001 to accommodate interest rate caps and floors, interest rate swaptions, optional and mandatory early swap terminations, basis swaps and cancelable swaps. The consortium will review the scope of this and future releases based on the feedback received at the London symposium and one held earlier in New York. FpML provides the derivatives industry with a unique opportunity to streamline the flow of information across all front-to-back-office processes, promising to dramatically reduce the estimated $1 billion annual cost of OTC trading in financial derivatives. It supports exploring new ways of doing business and challenges existing outdated practices. FpML is a freely licensed XML-based standard. It is designed to support the electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives between trading partners, including financial institutions and their client network. The standard received a 2000 Technological Development of the Year award from Risk Magazine." See "Financial Products Markup Language (FpML)."

  • [November 08, 2000] "DataChannel Joins Prominent UDDI Project. DataChannel Teams Up with Industry Leaders to Advance E-Commerce And B2B Integration." - "DataChannel Inc., a leader in XML-based enterprise information portal solutions, Tuesday announced its participation as a member of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project. Started in September, the UDDI Project is an industry initiative designed to broaden B2B integration and commerce on the Internet. Web services reflect a shift away from traditional desktop software applications and toward the availability of similar applications over the Internet. Guided by industry leaders, the UDDI Project creates a global, platform-independent, open framework for discovering businesses, describing services, and integrating businesses using the Internet. This open initiative allows companies to publish how they want to conduct business on the Internet. As a UDDI advisor, DataChannel helps explore related standards and technologies to determine how they can apply to future Web product and service offerings. DataChannel also reviews and comments on UDDI specifications and will register its business, contact information and supported Web services into the UDDI registry. 'Companies continue to support an increasing number of Web services,' said Norbert Mikula, chief technology officer for DataChannel. 'Just as we build our open, XML solutions to allow businesses to exchange information with anyone using the Internet, we strongly believe that a universal framework is necessary to ensure that businesses can transact with each other using their preferred applications. 'Business-to-business commerce stands to gain exponentially from the specifications that the UDDI initiative will provide, and we're pleased to be a part of this effort.' In addition to UDDI, DataChannel also participates in the ebXML initiative, which is co-sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT. Brian Eisenberg, standards and technology liaison at DataChannel, is a co-editor of the Technical Architecture team, and Mikula sits on the Requirements team. Furthermore, DataChannel's Yan Xu is a member of the important XML protocols activity at the W3C." See: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

  • [November 08, 2000] "Digex launches interactive portal and unveils xFrame for next-gen managed web and application hosting services." - "Just nine months after launching a development initiative with Compaq Computer Corporation and Microsoft Corp. aimed at building the industry's most advanced managed Web and application hosting services, Digex today unveiled a new interactive client portal providing resource monitoring and management, advanced provisioning features, and xFrame, a new XML framework for flexible, standards-based data exchange between applications. The Digex client portal represents a significant leap forward in the ability to seamlessly integrate companies' hosted e-business initiatives with their internal processes and back-office applications. Built around xFrame, the portal delivers the tools and technology customers need to view, interact and manage their critical e-business information anytime, anywhere, from any Web-enabled device. xFrame, developed in partnership with Compaq, Digex and Microsoft, is the enabling platform for the Digex client portal. xFrame is a highly automated, scalable technical framework for rapidly deploying, hosting, and managing mission critical applications anywhere on the Internet. xFrame is built on top of the Digex Managed Hosting solution and consists of Compaq hardware, Microsoft software and hosting components, accessed through the client portal. xFrame uses XML schemas to form the 'hooks' between the Digex managed services framework, server software and Digex clients' own applications. Those XML hooks allow Digex clients to 'plug in' to Digex, permitting real-time interaction with the data in Digex's monitoring, asset management, billing and trouble ticketing systems. Because the data is defined by XML schemas, it can be exported into any XML-enabled application - meaning clients can use the data in their existing back-office systems. Digex expects to make available its first suite of XML schemas to its clients in the first quarter of 2000. These schemas will be published broadly beginning in the second quarter to the general public in partnership with Microsoft, through its BizTalk.org initiative."

  • [November 08, 2000] "ViaXML -- Open XML Tools from Odyssey Software -- Delivers Universal Secure Data Access, Mobile Device Management, Server Push with Action, Peer to Peer, and Notification." - "Odyssey Software, a leading provider of mobile enterprise data access tools and infrastructure, today introduced ViaXML, an open standard XML-based mechanism enabling the 'Programmable Web' for mobile platforms, such as the Pocket PC where developers can implement a new class of node-to-node distributed applications with true interoperability among a wide range of mobile, desktop, and server-class platforms for effective developer-controlled bi-directional data exchange. A ViaXML-enabled application will allow servers to initiate remote action on Mobile devices -- known as Server-side push or pull of enterprise information with action -- enabling developers to easily provide Notification Services, as part of their application. ViaXML also enables traditional mobile client/server applications, where mobile devices initiate interaction with servers. Seamless direct Peer-to-Peer interoperability (mobile device to mobile device, desktop to desktop, and even server to server) is immediately available to developers of today's mobile applications being deployed on Pocket PCs and other devices powered by Windows CE, in addition to the Win32 platform. Support for other platforms and message formats will be available directly from Odyssey Software in early 2001. Additional application frameworks are anticipated for delivery in the near term, and include SyncFX, mobile software services for dynamic device-with-server database synchronization."

  • [November 07, 2000] "Free XML Starter Kit. Software AG now offering trial version of the new Tamino XML Platform." - "Software AG is offering its new Tamino XML Platform free of charge for a 90-day evaluation period. The trial version contains Tamino XML database, X-Studio (development environment), and X-Bridge (integration tool). The software features a comprehensive set of functionalities, which introduce professional-level users to XML applications. For instance, they can test the products with a sample application from the real-estate industry included in the Kit . With the XML Starter Kit, testers see how easy it is to develop applications with the new Tamino XML Platform and acquire hands-on experience using XML. Everyone's talking about XML -- but only a very select few have actually employed XML applications, not to mention developed them. 'With the XML Starter Kit, Software AG is offering developers, partners and professional-scale users the chance to install and test all the components of the first complete XML architecture for electronic business applications,' explains Andreas Zeitler, Software AG board member for sales and marketing. Users quickly learn how to install an XML database. WithTamino X-Studio, the development tool of the Tamino XML Platform, they can develop their first XML-based application and link it to a web or application server with ease. And, with Tamino X-Bridge, the architecture's XML middleware, the different applications can be integrated seamlessly. The Starter Kit also includes an in-depth tutorial, comprising two versions. The full version requires installation of all components, allowing users to go through every step of the application development process. The demo version is for less experienced programmers and does not entail as much installation... XML Starter Kit from Software AG: You will find that this unique composition of tools, database and connectivity software will open up the world of XML for you. Find out how Software AG's native XML database Tamino, the XML development tool X-Studio and the XML connectivity tool X-Bridge, can simplify any XML project."

  • [November 07, 2000] "dtSearch Corp. Announces Version 6.0 of Its dtSearch Products. New Version Adds FindPlus Distributed Searching, Web Spider, XML Support, API Enhancements, Unicode, Other Enterprise Features." - "dtSearch Corp. announces the next generation of its Windows-based text search and retrieval product line. dtSearch end-user and developer products have over two dozen full-text search options for instant indexed (and slower unindexed) searching of large document collections -- word processor, database, spreadsheet, email, ZIP, etc. All products display retrieved files with highlighted hits, along with (for HTML and PDF) embedded images and links. This version adds distributed searching and other features to improve access to information throughout an organization. The new features also expand the products' utility as a developer component for a wide variety of programming languages. FindPlus distributed searching is an integrated feature of dtSearch Desktop, dtSearch Web, and dtSearch Network that conveniently allows a single search request to span everything from local drives to remote servers. Operating through a unified user interface, FindPlus enables indexed searching of files and other data throughout an organization, without the need to collect the data in a monolithic repository. Because FindPlus uses an XML-based protocol for exchanging and aggregating search information, developers using the dtSearch Text Retrieval Engine can also easily incorporate this capability into their own applications. A built-in web indexing spider provides a way to also use other organizations' web sites as instantly searchable document resources. The spider can index and search any web site, including display of retrieved XML, HTML and PDF files with highlighted hits and embedded links and images. The dtSearch Engine includes sample spider source code for developers to use. Enhanced XML support gives end-users and developers a way to combine data from any source, while retaining the ability to search on field and table information. XML is increasingly becoming a universal data format. However, other search engines (excluding some built with the dtSearch Engine) do not fully incorporate the hierarchical structures in XML data, effectively reducing XML to 'flat' text. In contrast, dtSearch can perform indexed searches using the full range of dtSearch features across an entire XML database, or limited to a specific combination of fields or sub-fields, with no sacrifice in search speed. [Advanced XML searching features are supported, including nested XML fields; see the Shakespeare XML demo to try out this feature.] For an online XML search demo, visit the company's demo web site."

  • [November 06, 2000] "Adobe Defines its Vision for the Third Wave of Publishing. Software Leader Introduces Network Publishing with Strategic Partners." - "Making visually rich, personalized content available anytime, anywhere on any device is the vision Adobe Systems Incorporated unveiled today for the next era of publishing. During a press conference at the Tech Museum of Innovation, the leader in Web, print and dynamic media publishing software defined this new category as Network Publishing. The company articulated how it would fuel its success and that of the entire publishing industry through new technologies, services and strategic partnerships. To help build the category, Adobe announced support from Art Technology Group ('ATG'), HP, Interwoven, Nokia, and RealNetworks. Adobe will continue to champion industry standards on which Network Publishing is based, such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Synchronized Multimedia Integrated Language (SMIL), Wireless Markup Language (WML) for WAP devices and the Compact HyperText Markup Language (cHTML) for i-mode."

  • [November 06, 2000] "Workscape Joins Industry Leaders Supporting Open Internet Standards. Market Leader in HR Self Service to Participate in HR-XML Consortium, UDDI Initiatives." - "Workscape Inc., a leading provider of Web-based HR self service solutions, is joining the HR-XML Consortium and supporting the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) standard. In doing so, the company will actively participate in the definition of open Internet and e-commerce standards under development by these organizations, working alongside other industry leaders including Ariba, CommerceOne, Dell, i2 Technologies, IBM, PeopleSoft, and SAP. The HR-XML Consortium is an independent, non-profit association dedicated to the development and promotion of a standard suite of Extensible Markup Language (XML) specifications to enable e-commerce and the automation of human resources-related data exchanges. The Consortium has targeted key HR applications for XML standardization including recruiting and staffing, benefits enrollment and defined contribution/defined benefit data exchanges. HR-XML Consortium includes over 90 organizational members and hundreds of individual participants. UDDI focuses on standardizing methods for information sharing and integration among B2B trading partners over the Internet. The UDDI initiative creates a global, platform-independent, open framework to enable businesses to discover each other, define how they interact over the Internet and share information in a global registry that will more rapidly accelerate the global adoption of B2B e-commerce. Workscape hopes the HR-XML Consortium will help reduce the cost to businesses of exchanging relevant information and improving communications among employers, employees and the HR solutions providers that support them. UDDI's efforts to standardize on the underlying infrastructure for dynamic, automated integration of all e-commerce transactions and Web services will be backed by Workscape's strength in deploying e-marketplaces." See: "HR-XML Consortium."

  • [November 02, 2000] "Sabre Announces XML Tool Kit as Part of New Solutions for Web and Server-Based Applications. Next-Generation Development Tools Benefit Online Travel Sites and Agencies." - "Sabre Holdings Corporation today announced the availability of its new XML (Extensible Markup Language) tool kit, a product to enable flexible design and a scalable interface for travel agency Web sites and online travel sites to utilize the extensive content of the Sabre global distribution system (GDS). 'In order to further eCommerce in travel, Sabre has created a standard solution for Web sites and client-server applications to communicate with our system by using a common language and structured data,' said Thaddeus Arroyo, senior vice president of product marketing and development for Sabre. 'As a leader in technology and marketing services for the travel industry, this is just the first phase of Sabre's very aggressive roadmap to deliver the industry's most robust XML offering.' Sabre offers its XML tool kit as part of the Sabre Do-it-yourself tools portfolio, a set of components that enables developers to create customized applications according to their companies' unique business needs. XML furnishes Sabre customers with an environment to easily create high-volume Web booking engines and client-server applications. The Do-it-yourself tools suite is a component of Sabre eVoya eStorefront, which provides the technologies needed to leverage the power of the Sabre system with the opportunities of the Internet to create and grow a Web presence. Sabre eVoya provides agencies with value-added solutions to compete in online travel, better serve clients, more effectively manage an agency and create new distribution and revenue opportunities through the Internet. The XML tool kit also includes Sabre Data Source (SDS), a data protocol that provides Sabre responses in a structured message format, allowing for easy XML translation onto a Sabre Connected travel agency screen or Web site. SDS eliminates all screen formatting, which most Sabre users are accustomed to seeing. With this combination of SDS and XML, Web developers will be able to create their applications faster and with much more flexibility..." [source]

  • [November 02, 2000] "CPExchange Launches New Global Privacy-Enabled Customer Data Interchange Standard to Improve e-Business Customer Relationships." - "The Customer Profile Exchange Network (CPExchange) today launched the newly authored Customer Profile Exchange standard, which creates the first global standard for privacy-enabled customer data interchange. The CPExchange standard allows enhanced customer service in e-business relationships. The new standard will automate tasks and tie the digital economy more tightly together. The CPExchange Network, a volunteer consortium made up of over 70 leading e-business organizations, is offering a vendor-neutral, open standard for exchanging privacy-enabled customer information across different businesses and computer systems. Organizations with many different and separate data sources who are seeking an integrated view of customers -- such as suppliers and employees -- will utilize CPExchange. 'This may be the most significant development in proposed standards since XML, not just as an Internet standard, but a business standard,' said Brad Husick, vice president, standards and evangelism at Vignette Corporation, which founded the standards initiative. 'CPExchange applies to CRM, ECRM, customer care, the Internet, back office applications, front office applications, application servers, networking, supply chains-any thing that touches a customer. CPExchange facilitates the management and promotion of customer relationships, while profiling customer information -- appealing to all industry sectors. Few of today's supply and demand chains share a unified profile of the customer, leaving customer support, order management, lead sharing and other primary business functions working independently to grasp a customer's identity, behaviors and needs. Customer service capability is severely reduced by this lack of shared information, creating significant short and long-term IT integration costs. The CPExchange standards benefit businesses and their customers in the following ways: (1) Customers gain a unified profile of their situation among their suppliers, enjoy better customer service, and reduce the time and complexity of interacting with companies. Significantly, it will allow customers to more easily achieve the levels of privacy they require when handling sensitive and proprietary profile information. (2) Businesses benefit from reduced service costs, better customer service, less time spent deploying multi-vendor solutions, and universally implemented global privacy safeguards. Businesses even gain a competitive advantage through new alliances across the supply and demand chain. (3) Vendors who support CPExchange also benefit by increasing their market size through single customer profile operability. Vendors can deploy their solutions quicker, and gain competitive advantage through new alliances and partnerships..." See "CPExchange Network."

  • [November 01, 2000] "XBRL Helps Meet Market Needs in Fair Disclosure Rule Communications." - "Starting last week, U.S. public companies will be required to comply with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new Fair Disclosure Rule (Regulation FD). The new rule, which became effective on October 23, is part of the agency's efforts to level the playing field for all investors by requiring companies to fully disclose material data and relevant information that may influence decisions to all investors at the same time, not just selectively to analysts and insiders before events occur. Mike Willis, Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Louis Matherne, Director of Information Technology at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), who together serve as co-chairs of the XBRL Strategy Work Group, are available to talk with you about a revolutionary software language called XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) being developed by 70 of the world's largest accounting, technology and financial services companies to help public companies communicate with their stakeholders more efficiently and on a more timely basis. We believe that XBRL will facilitate compliance with the new SEC regulation while also providing information to the stakeholders in a significantly more useful format. XBRL is an XML-based, freely available software language that provides an Internet platform for distributing company information. Using "bar codes" understood by the accounting, technology and financial service sectors, specific line items on a business report are tagged with XBRL. Analysts, investors, accountants and finance teams within companies can now quickly prepare, distribute and review data for better investment and management decisions. Under the new Fair Disclosure regulation, all parties involved in the business reporting chain will now have equal access and better comprehension of the information contained within business reports taking advantage of this faster, cheaper and better process to disclose information using the power of the Internet. All a public company needs to do is put its business reports and financial statements into the XBRL format and post them to its Web site..." See: "Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL)."

  • [November 01, 2000] "Companies Adopt New Microsoft XML Parser For Mission-Critical Applications. Microsoft's Latest XML Parser Enables Customers to Create Solutions That Embrace XML for Open Data Exchange and Communication." - "Delivering on its commitment to quickly implement the latest Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards, Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate availability of its newest XML parser, MSXML3. This fully supported version is available for download from the MSDN developer program XML Developer Center. Less than three years after becoming a recommended specification of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), XML is being widely adopted and is yielding dramatic benefits for customers, who are already using the completed version of the Microsoft parser to build and deliver applications that maximize the capabilities of XML. 'The successful delivery of MSXML3 through a Web-based release program allowed our customers to provide invaluable feedback to Microsoft at every stage of the development cycle,' said Dave Reed, general manager of Data Access and XML Technologies at Microsoft. 'Their input, combined with Microsoft's vision and leadership in helping shape XML standards, enabled us to quickly deliver an enterprise-class product.' XML is a fundamental technology supporting the Microsoft .NET Platform, which will allow for the creation of distributed Web services that can interoperate in heterogeneous environments. Lycos.com, a premier Web site of Terra Lycos, a new global Internet network reaching 91 million unique monthly visitors worldwide, is using MSXML3 to build XML-based Web services that help the company manage content flow from its partners in a high-performance environment. 'The XSLT engine performance in MSXML3 has helped Lycos.com to meet the high- throughput and processing load requirements that our site demands,' said John Hotchkiss, vice president of engineering at Lycos.com. 'Also, its strict compliance with the core W3C XML standards and solid reliability allowed us to migrate seamlessly from several other XML engines to MSXML.' In addition to those standards supported in previous versions, Microsoft's latest XML parser - the programming component that implements the core XML standards and provides XML services to applications - adds standards-compliant support for XSL Transformations (XSLT), XML Path Language (XPath) and Simple API for XML (SAX2). Along with enhancements in speed and reliability over previous versions, MSXML3 also introduces caching for XDR schemas, transformations and queries to significantly improve application throughput. The parser also includes a new HTTP service that enables scalable server-to-server communication. Microsoft released the first version of the new XML parser in January 2000, and updated versions were posted to the Web in March, May and July leading up to today's release."

  • [October 27, 2000] "World Wide Web Consortium Holds Second P3P Interoperability Session. P3P Working Group Provides Day-Long Outreach Event in Silicon Valley." - "Over 30 leading technology and content companies, privacy advocates, and other organizations will gather on 2 November 2000 in Palo Alto, California, USA, to conduct public tests and demonstrate implementations of the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web privacy technology. The second in an ongoing outreach series, W3C's public 'interoperability session' provides an opportunity to unveil new prototypes, to test them with other P3P services, and to educate Web content and service providers about P3P. The event, hosted by Hewlett Packard, provides Silicon Valley companies the opportunity to meet P3P developers, see implementations, and get answers on how to make their sites P3P compliant. 'P3P is at its most effective when it is implemented by the largest possible number of sites. With its concentration of e-businesses in all imaginable sectors, Silicon Valley is a natural choice for P3P outreach efforts,' explained Daniel J. Weitzner, W3C's Technology and Society Domain Leader. 'Being at one of the world's centers for Web software development, we also have the opportunity for dialogue on ways to use the P3P platform to help a variety of new Web services become more responsive to user privacy needs.' Registration for the 2 November Interoperability event is open to the public. More details on this event, as well as reports on the June 23, 2000 Interoperability session are linked from the W3C P3P homepage. Web users want to know how the sites they visit use their personal information. Some companies have made efforts to publicly disclose the privacy policies of their Web sites, but the policies are often difficult to find and understand. Web users need to be able to know quickly and with confidence whether a company engages in information sharing practices that meet or conflict with their wishes. P3P enables anyone with a Web site to translate their privacy practices into XML-based P3P statements that can be retrieved automatically and easily interpreted by a P3P-enabled browser. P3P-enabled services will enhance user control by putting privacy policies where users can find them, presenting policies in a form that users can understand, and enabling users to make informed decisions based on those policies. For ecommerce services and other Web sites, P3P can e used to offer seamless browsing experiences for customers without leaving them guessing about privacy." See the P3P FAQ and "Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project."

  • [October 25, 2000] "adXML.org Announces Release of adXML online DTD Version 1.0. Improved Version Furthers Organization's Goals of Automating Business Processes and Opening the Door To New Opportunities For The Advertising Community." - "The international open standards industry group, adXML.org, today announced the release of adXML online DTD version 1.0. The new version is the result of a collaborated effort of the 350 companies and 500 individuals that are a part of adXML.org. 'The adXML online DTD version 1.00 represents a significant milestone achieved by the adXML.org and its member companies. For the first time in history, businesses can streamline the advertising insertion order process across company boundaries electronically, securely, and cost-effectively, and be able to significantly reduce errors and increase efficiency,' said Barclay R. Jiang, co-chair of adXML.org online subcommittee. 'This enabling technology will have a profound impact on the entire advertising industry for years to come.' The new version of the adXML standard includes a number of exciting changes including: self-contained transport packaging, an extension for secure digital signatures, object-oriented modularity, and a streamlined creative construct to support creative data, image maps and 3rd party ad serving. The new version can be downloaded at www.adXML.org. As an added benefit to this community, a 100% Java implementation of an adXML development kit can be downloaded for free at www.adXML.org, courtesy of Mediaplex, Inc. adXML.org is an international, open standard organization, which is defining an advertising XML schema for both on-line and off-line media. adXML was initiated by Mediaplex, Inc. as part of the infrastructure to automate the online advertising market.' See: "adXML.org: XML for Advertising."

  • [October 25, 2000] "RosettaNet E-Business Standards Consortium Builds World-Class Technical Architecture Office. Consortium Seeks Chief Architect and Several Architecture Team Members to Champion Standards Development Activities." - "RosettaNet, the information technology (IT), electronic component (EC) and semiconductor manufacturing industries' leading non-profit consortium that develops global supply chain standard electronic business interfaces, has recently announced production-system implementation of RosettaNet standards, and is now looking to expand its core architecture team to accelerate continued progress. RosettaNet's success is based largely on its rich and varied talent pool, many of whom are drawn directly from technology companies such as, Intel, Quantum, Texas Instruments, Extricity and webMethods. These companies and others provide short- and long-term loans of their own employees to develop and refine e-business standards that benefit the entire industry. This organizational structure is unique and separates RosettaNet from other e-business standards organizations. RosettaNet collects the best minds from the best technology companies and creates an environment of rapid innovation and collaboration from which all industry participants can benefit. It also hires highly qualified candidates as regular employees. The consortium has, for example, developed an Architecture Office consisting of regular employees and on-loan resources that the RosettaNet community can depend on for information, guidance, and dispute resolution when adopting RosettaNet interface standards. The Architecture Office is primarily responsible for the development of the RosettaNet Implementation Framework (RNIF), a set of implementation guidelines that enable RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes (PIPs) to be exchanged in a standard way. The efforts have moved forward largely through the efforts of RosettaNet Chief Architect Mitch Shue, on loan from webMethods. Shue has managed the highly skilled team responsible for bringing the RNIF up to its soon-to-be-released second version, which will provide the IT and EC industries with a simplified integration and implementation process. Shue has also spearheaded development of the RosettaNet software compliance program, a formal procedure that, when launched, will allow companies to ensure that their RosettaNet-based products and solutions for the implementation of RosettaNet standards meet all necessary requirements and, as a result, enable them to begin forging dynamic trading partner relationships via the Internet. RosettaNet seeks to fill the vacant position of chief architect when Shue's on-loan assignment ends early next year. RosettaNet also plans to add two to three new technical architecture team members to officially form a global Technical Architecture Office and seeks immediate employee or on-loan candidate interest. The chief architect will report to Paul Tearnen, vice president of standards at RosettaNet, and will manage the newly formed architecture team to, among other things, continue refinement of the RNIF. The position requires leadership, objectivity, attention to detail and deep working knowledge of the technical and business requirements associated with creating industry-wide standards solutions. The chief architect will be responsible for forging alliances with other standards organizations and understanding how parallel industry efforts affect or relate to RosettaNet's activities. Candidates must be self-starters who have technical management experience as well as the ability to adapt to change. Knowledge of business concepts and supply chains, deep working knowledge of XML and e-commerce standards is also required." See "RosettaNet."

  • [October 25, 2000] "ASC X12 Agrees to Jointly Develop Business XML." - "ASC X12 Committee continued their focus on improving business-to-business communications across industries by voting at their October meeting to develop accredited cross-industry business standards based on the Extensible Markup Language or XML. This respected standards body, accredited by American National Standards Institute (ANSI), will prepare these new standards based on the emerging Electronic Business XML (ebXML) initiative. 'This expansive ASC X12 standards-setting initiative will make possible for a factory in Toledo to send electronic orders over the Web to customers in Sao Paulo or Stuttgart, just like they send them to Dearborn or St. Louis,' says David Barkley, chair of the X12 Committee. Barkley adds, 'By working together with our EWG partners and basing the effort on ebXML, we can reach our goal of a unified business message standard.' X12 also agreed to join forces with the UN/EDIFACT Working Group (EWG) for the definition and validation of a set of protocol-neutral electronic business objects valid within both the UN/EDIFACT and the X12 business processes. This single set of business objects would be the basis for future developments with new and emerging technologies, and would be submitted for inclusion into the UN/CEFACT and OASIS ebXML initiative. To further underscore their commitment to a unified business message standard, X12 also agreed to appoint committee spokespersons for ebXML technical specifications efforts. Building on two decades of experience defining business communications syntax and transaction sets, ASC X12 will be helping to define business processes and modeling using core business objects via XML. Building on the framework in the international arena, X12 will be working to help formalize the modeling process. The ebXML initiative is a worldwide effort to develop a common framework for using XML for business messages. A critical part of the initiative combines a definition of business processes with an identification of common or core components used in most business messages. The XML standards proposed by X12 will be based on ebXML recommendations. ASC X12, comprised of cross-industry representation, develops the most widely used EDI standards that interact with a multitude of e-commerce technologies and serves as the premier tool for integrating electronic applications. Through standards setting and active participation in emerging and technically relevant initiatives, ASC X12 facilitates the effective exchange of electronic information. DISA, the association driving global e-business, is the leading provider of educational and networking forums on the booming digital marketplace. DISA also provides technical and management services to standards and XML specification development organizations, including ASC X12, the OpenTravel Alliance, the Interactive Financial Exchange Forum, the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, Open Philanthropy Exchange, and the XML/EDI Group. DISA's affiliation with the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association, EC User Groups and emerging initiatives around the world facilitates an interchange of e-commerce development in the marketplace." See "ANSI ASC X12/XML and DISA."

  • [October 24, 2000] "World Wide Web Consortium Issues XML Schema as a Candidate Recommendation. Implementation testing the key to Interoperability." - "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued XML Schema as a W3C Candidate Recommendation. Advancement of the document to Candidate Recommendation is an invitation to the Web development community at large to make implementations of XML Schema and provide technical feedback. XML Schema introduces new levels of flexibility that may accelerate the adoption of XML for significant industrial use. For example, a schema author can build a schema that borrows from a previous schema, but overrides it where new unique features are needed. This principle, called inheritance, is similar to the behavior of Cascading Style Sheets, and allows the user to develop XML Schemas that best suit their needs, without building an entirely new vocabulary from scratch. XML Schema allows the author to determine which parts of a document may be validated, or identify parts of a document where a schema may apply. XML Schema also provides a way for users of ecommerce systems to choose which XML Schema they use to validate elements in a given namespace, thus providing better assurance in ecommerce transactions and greater security against unauthorized changes to validation rules..." For schema description and references, see "XML Schemas." [cache]

  • [October 24, 2000] "Industry Adopts HR-XML Standard for Web-Based Recruiting. XML Consortium Launches XML Standard for Job Postings on the Web." - "Members of HR-XML, the non-profit standards group for human resources data exchange, today approved the HR-XML Staffing Exchange Protocol (SEP) for standardizing job postings on the Internet. The new XML-based standard provides a common method for posting employment opportunities to web-based recruiting sites and the return of resumes matching those positions. The HR-XML member companies participating in the meeting unanimously approved HR-XML SEP. 'HR-XML SEP will have an immediate, beneficial impact for job seekers, hiring managers -- in fact, everyone involved in the recruiting process,' said Alan Sproat of jobs.com, leader of the HR-XML Recruiting and Staffing Workgroup. 'We invite companies and individuals who have not been involved in this development to use HR-XML SEP and participate in its future.' HR-XML SEP makes it possible for employers to submit job requisitions to publishers without the need for customized interfaces. Resumes conforming to HR-XML SEP are retrieved, searched and evaluated more easily. Job seekers access a targeted range of positions with better-defined requirements. Application developers offer their clients the benefits of HR-XML SEP-compliant integration and automation tools. 'With the tight job market showing no signs of easing up, it is more important than ever to take advantage of a technology that can improve the efficiency of the task of hiring the best person for the job,' commented Lon Pilot of Watson Wyatt Worldwide, chairman of the HR-XML Consortium. 'HR-XML SEP is that technology.' Representatives from all aspects of the human resources industry participated in the development of HR-XML SEP. Chuck Allen, director of the HR-XML Consortium, noted, 'Many companies put aside competitive issues to reach consensus on HR-XML SEP, working together in the best interest of the HR community at large.' HR-XML is the independent, non-profit consortium dedicated to enabling e-commerce and inter-company exchange of human resources (HR) data worldwide. The work of the Consortium centers on the development and promotion of standardized XML vocabularies for HR. HR-XML's efforts are focused on standards for staffing and recruiting, compensation and benefits, training and workforce management." See: "HR-XML Consortium."

  • [October 20, 2000] "Mondeca Launches Topic Navigator Software." - "Mondeca is launching its Topic Navigator software solution. The Dynamic Content Navigation program provides users with better methods to access and manage Internet-based data. This is possible as a result of Mondeca's unique content structure as a topic network, and intuitive access to content via spatial navigation tools. No additional programming is required to use the software, and users experience no delays in accessing information. Topic Navigator features template-based content organization, content editing, powerful browsing tools, and is based on an open architecture using as XML, Topic Maps, Java, and EJB. Traditionally, companies have had few choices for intelligent web navigation. Typically, users are restricted to linear page-by-page views of information or random searches when clicking on embedded links that may lead to other web sites or dead-end searches. Neither process is intuitive or efficient. Poorly designed links, hierarchical structures, and multiple searches with no guarantee of end results are all common experiences using today's Internet options for obtaining information. Topic Navigator is scalable, flexible, and secure. In addition, Mondeca software can be integrated with e-commerce tools to direct users towards products in internal or external e-commerce catalogs as they browse the knowledge base. Immediately available, prices for a single license begin at $20.000, with training, consulting, and maintenance extra..." See: "(XML) Topic Maps."

  • [October 17, 2000] "Physiome Sciences and the University of Auckland Launch Cell Modeling Website (www.CellML.org) to Provide Users World-Wide with Universal Language for Developing Computer Models of Cells, Tissues, and Organs." - "Physiome Sciences, Inc. and researchers at the University of Auckland announced the launch of a new website that provides a tool to standardize and streamline the creation of computer-based models of cells, organs and tissues. The launch was announced by Warren Hedley of the Bioengineering Research Group at the University of Auckland on Saturday, October 14, at the 2000 Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Fall Meeting, held from October 12-14, 2000 (Seattle, WA). The website, http://www.CellML.org, represents a major step forward in allowing scientists to create and customize computer models that integrate data from a wide variety of sources, including genomic, proteomic, cell and organ studies, and public and private databases. The language will be developed as a common standard that will be available free of charge to all users. The CellML Language is an XML-based mark-up language designed to represent and exchange computer-based biological models and their components. CellML allows scientists to share models even if they are using different model-building software. It also enables them to reuse components from one model in another, thus accelerating model building. CellML is expected to enable scientists to more effectively manage and interpret gene and protein data and apply it to study diseases, identify potential drug targets and test new drugs 'in silico.' 'Up until now, scientists tended to put single data sets into one, inflexible model, so that when the model was published, it wasn't clear how it was put together,' said Dr. Thomas Colatsky, Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Physiome. 'CellML allows researchers to describe the components of a model in a highly readable format that makes each component reusable in other models, so that models of greater complexity can be built and understood. For example, if someone models an excitable cell, such as a heart muscle cell, and someone else models the biochemical response to a specific neurotransmitter, these two models can now be easily integrated to develop a more complete working model of the heart.' The website results from collaboration between Physiome Sciences and the University of Auckland to develop and maintain a standardized computer language for biological modeling. CellML is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) application that provides a single means of integrating biological data in a platform-independent way. The University of Auckland team developed language standards for describing anatomical data and the distribution of biological properties in three dimensions, while Physiome developed XML-based descriptions of cellular and subcellular process, including biochemical pathways." See "CellML."

  • [October 16, 2000] "Sun Microsystems Announces Availability of StarOffice Source Code On OpenOffice.Org. Sun Works With CollabNet to Deliver Largest Donation of Source Code to Open Source Community." - "Sun Microsystems Inc. today announced the availability of the StarOffice source code on OpenOffice.org, the site that will host the StarOffice source code. In an attempt to drive standardization for technologies for office productivity suites, Sun also released the XML file formats and StarOffice API specifications. OpenOffice.org is managed by CollabNet and serves as the coordination point for the source code, the definition of XML-based file formats, and the definition of language-independent office application programming interfaces (APIs.) In addition, CollabNet is providing its SourceCast platform for developers around the world to easily collaborate on the StarOffice source code. OpenOffice.org establishes the necessary facilities to make all of the StarOffice source code available under dual licensing -- the GNU General Public License architecture (GPL) and the Sun Industry Standard Source License (SISSL). StarOffice software is a leading, full-featured productivity suite for all major platforms, including Solaris Operating Environment, Windows, Linux, and, during the first half of next year, the Macintosh. StarOffice 6 software, the next version currently in development, will serve as the source code base for OpenOffice.org. StarOffice 6 software will feature a modularized design, breaking down StarOffice software into re-useable components and discrete applications." See details in "StarOffice XML File Format."

  • [October 16, 2000] "ABC Technologies, SAS Institute, and Computer Sciences Corporation Announce Intent to Explore XML-based Standard." - "ABC Technologies Inc., SAS Institute, and Computer Sciences Corporation today jointly announced their intent to research and propose an Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard to facilitate seamless integration between scorecarding applications. ABC Technologies is a global leader of activity-based performance management solutions. SAS is the market leader in e-intelligence and data warehousing. CSC is one of the world's leading consulting, information technology services and outsourcing firms. 'Our desire is to develop a standard that will remove the technology and software barriers associated with communicating and deploying Performance Management information across the enterprise, we hope others will join us in this endeavor,' said ABC Technologies' chief technology officer Will McKinney. For instance, Performance Management related information will be easily exchanged between a corporate Balanced Scorecard and other XML compatible software applications, along with personal scorecards that reside in remote offices or portable devices. 'In moving corporate strategy forward, it is important to share key information easily from all areas of the organization,' said Jonathan Hornby, strategy manager for organizational performance. 'Our Balanced Scorecard and data warehouse offerings already support the sharing of various kinds of metadata, so this standard is a logical extension for us.' 'In CSC's annual survey of CFOs with the Financial Executive's Institute, the need for enhanced analytical information has been the primary theme. Today's complex business models and heterogeneous systems environments cry out for an open, independent information backbone to support the sharing of measurement information. CSC is excited to be working with these industry leaders in developing a robust XML-based standard,' said Al Rossman, principal with CSC's Consulting Group. As part of this joint effort, these organizations will collaborate on-line to develop this proposal. This collaborative effort will be openly available for review next year through multiple Web site links from the ABC Technologies, SAS and CSC corporate sites. What are the Balanced Scorecard and XML? The Balanced Scorecard is an organizational framework for implementing and managing strategy at all levels of an enterprise by linking objectives, initiatives, measures and rewards to an organization's strategy. XML is a flexible way to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web. Such a standard way of describing data would enable a user to send an intelligent agent (a program) to each computer maker's Web site, gather data, and then make a valid comparison. XML can be used by any individual or group of individuals or companies that wants to share information in a consistent way."

  • [October 12, 2000] "Radius backs new standards for electronic joined-up Government. Interoperability standards in local and national government crucial to achieving official targets by 2005." - "Radius, one of the leading suppliers of e-government solutions to local authorities, today announced its full support for the Government's e-GIF (e-Government Interoperability Framework) standard. e-GIF is key to the Government's target of achieving 100% electronic service delivery, 24-hours a day from a single point of access, by 2005. The initiatives, introduced to the market yesterday by e-Minister Ian McCartney at an industry conference in London, centre around the e-GIF standards for the electronic transfer of information over the Internet. In addition, they also include the setting up of a central GovTalk repository for Government standard XML templates for the open exchange of electronic documents. The last Government Spending Review in July committed councils to achieve overall annual improvements in cost-effectiveness of 2% or more, while also setting a date of 2005 to achieve full electronic delivery. Many local authorities currently believe that these aims are incompatible, given the investments that they will have to make in new IT infrastructure and staff training. Radius is already playing a central role in helping local councils adapt to this new environment and take advantage of new technologies to enable process re-engineering and process improvements while simultaneously cutting their operations overheads. The company recently announced XML-compliant versions of its market-leading Local Government software products Powersolve 2000, RadiusICON and RadiusOrbit, together with intelligent e-forms that collect data in XML format. . . Radius has been a specialist supplier of application software solutions to UK local authorities for 17 years, and counts over 200 local authorities as customers. The company is at the forefront of the adoption of true interoperation in implementing e-government solutions for local authorities, having announced XML-compliant versions of its market-leading products Powersolve 2000, RadiusICON and RadiusOrbit, together with XFA (XML Forms Association) intelligent e-forms. Radius achievements in the XML arena: (1) e-procurement - where we are already the leading supplier of traditional purchasing systems to local authorities -- with 77 councils using our solutions. Our e-procurement solution, RadiusOrbit, focuses on reducing the costs of the purchasing within local authorities, whilst supporting a high level of authorisation and close links to the financial system for financial authorisation and control. It is built around the XML templates defined by the Business and Accounting Software Developers Association (BASDA) in its e-BIS-XML schema, generating electronic Purchase Orders for, and receiving electronic invoices from, suppliers. Our first user in this area is again a London Borough, Greenwich. (2) e-billing - where we have fully adopted the BASDA eBIS-XML standard for invoices and other documents, and have enhanced our existing financial management products to fully support all aspects of e-billing, including extranet support for customers. Over 150 local authorities currently use Radius' products for core accounting functions. (3) e-forms - where we provide intelligent electronic forms utilising innovative technology that bridges the gap between the different browser environments in use by citizens. Our solution is based on server-side processing to minimise download times and enhance the user experience, generating both a pdf of the completed form, and the data in XML format for transfer into applications. (4) GovTalk - where we have supported the industry's XML-based electronic government framework initiative since its inception in September 1999, and are the first UK local authority software supplier to have published its XML templates at www.biztalk.org." See "e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF)."

  • [October 12, 2000] "Excelergy Joins OASIS and Publishes First XML Standards for the Retail Energy Industry. Firm Is First to Publish XML Standards for Retail Energy Companies." - "Excelergy Corporation today announced that it has become a sponsor of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) to promote the industry-wide acceptance of XML standards for open electronic data exchange among retail energy companies. Excelergy, a provider of e-infrastructure technology to the restructuring energy marketplace, first proposed a set of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) standards for the retail energy industry in October 1999 named Partner Interface Processes for Energy (PIPE). By publishing PIPE and supporting OASIS, Excelergy opens the door to industry discussion about the most efficient ways for retail energy companies to communicate electronically via the Internet. In the absence of universally accepted standards, utilities and energy companies all along the generation, transmission and distribution chain have been forced to manage widely varying forms of business-to-business data exchange, leading to inefficiencies, errors and higher transaction costs. Excelergy created its core products -- billing and customer care software and trading partner data transaction management software -- with energy industry restructuring in mind. While this software supports the EDI-based standards in place in a number of markets today, it is designed to fully leverage the emerging trend of using XML as the standard protocol for electronic data exchange. Sharing its knowledge and expertise in promoting efficient standards in the retail energy market, Excelergy will also benefit from OASIS' experience in advancing XML in other industries. . ." See "Partner Interface Process for Energy (PIPE)."

  • [October 12, 2000] iPrint's XML Commerceconnect Technology First to Integrate Print Shopping Experience. New Technology to Power Next Generation of E-Print Shopping." "iPrint, a leading online print shop and print infrastructure provider located at http://www.iPrint.com, today unveiled XML CommerceConnect, the first XML-based integration technology from an e-printing organization that connects separate commerce Web sites into a seamlessly integrated shopping experience. 'iPrint's XML CommerceConnect technology gives us a significant advantage in the e-printing marketplace,' said Royal P. Farros, CEO and Chairman of iPrint. 'It allows us to integrate the online shopping experience to a level not yet seen in e-printing today. It's a big missing piece that just got filled in.' iPrint's XML CommerceConnect allows iPrint to connect its industry-leading online print and copy shop environment into any partner's commerce site. This unique, online commerce technology will be used by a variety of strategic partners including Hewlett-Packard-funded vJungle, the first integrated Application Service Provider for small- to medium-sized businesses. A customer can now visit a partner's site, create custom-printed materials such as business cards or color flyers using an iPrint private-labeled environment, but check out and be processed through the partner's Web site cash register, customer support system, and accounting system. The entire process is transparent to the customer. iPrint is the first ASP (Application Service Provider) to provide a complete, interactive creation and online ordering system tailored for the professional printing industry. In addition to access to an extensive network of backend printing partners, iPrint provides clients with specialized programming, high capacity hosting, online creation and order fulfillment, secure payment services, multi-leveled customer service, and 24/7 management reporting."

  • [October 11, 2000] "XMLSolutions Announces Support for XML Representation of Uniform Code Council (UCC) EDI Standards. XML Representation of UCC-Specific EDI Standards Requires No Data Mapping for Retail Industry." - "XMLSolutions Corporation, a leading worldwide provider of software for conducting XML-based direct materials procurement, today announced support for the bi-directional translation of Uniform Code Council (UCC) direct materials EDI transaction sets to XML through the XMLSolutions Business Integration Platform 2.0. XMLSolutions provides the only product that supports the XML representation of UCC-specific EDI transactions immediately at product installation. Dedicated to a worldwide system for the unique identification of products, shipping units, assets, locations and services, the UCC is a not-for-profit standards organization with nearly 240,000 member organizations and global trading requirements in over 140 countries. The UCC takes a global leadership role in administering and promoting electronic communication standards and the mapping of standards with business processes to increase the efficiencies of supply chains and other business transactions in multiple industries. Typically, time-consuming and highly complex data mapping is required to link information in EDI transactions with the XML representation, but with XMLSolutions' unique method for seamlessly converting EDI messages to XML, this mapping requirement is absent. This feature delivers a 3 to 1 time-to-market and cost savings advantage over other products, and it offers a complete solution for EDI-to-XML translation to the thousands of companies that rely on UCC standards. The EDI-to-XML translation capabilities provided by XMLSolutions Business Integration Platform supports all ANSI X12 and EDIFACT transaction sets and links to existing EDI Translators from companies such as Peregrine Systems, GE Global Exchange Services, Sterling Commerce, TIE Commerce, and Compaq-DEC/EDI..." [announcement from XMLSolutions]

  • [October 10, 2000] "XML DevCon Fall 2000 Features an Unprecedented All-Star Lineup of Speakers Including 29 Authors. XML DevCon 2000 Summer Earlier This Year Became the Largest XML Event in the World with More than 4,500 Delegate Registrations." - "SYS-CON Media and Camelot Communications announced today that XML DevCon Fall 2000 to be held November 12-15, 2000 at the San Jose DoubleTree Hotel is expected to play host XML enthusiasts from around the world, including programmers, developers, engineers, software architects, system engineers, Web developers, product managers, project leaders, consultants and educators. Updates on the event may be found at www.xmldevcon2000.com. The four-day technical conference features 6 tracks with over 100 sessions. Highlighting the technical program is the distinguished faculty, many of whom are recognized industry best-selling authors who have written several types of books on XML, SGML, Java, SQL, HTML, JavaScript. 'The XML DevCon Fall 2000 faculty represents pioneers for bleeding edge XML technology. The list above outlines the speakers who are authors. We also have a number of speakers who are editors for W3C XML specifications. Never before has such a massive amount of XML intelligence been assembled. This coupled with an interactive exhibit floor will solidify XML DevCon's position as the leading educational XML event for the software development community.' Said Ken North, Technical Chair." See also "SGML/XML Conferences, Seminars, Tutorials, Workshops."

  • [October 10, 2000] "Leaders in the IT and EC Industries Announce RosettaNet Standards Implementation Success. Supply Chain Partners Implement Business-to-Business Process Standards in Production Environment." - "More than 60 companies with headquarters in Asia, Europe and the Americas are gathering Tuesday to announce success in implementing global e-business process standards within the information technology (IT) and electronic components (EC) industries. Organized around '10.10.2000,' a milestone marking production-system implementation of RosettaNet standards, this gathering of supply chain partners and solution partners represents substantial industry-wide participation and velocity. Progress made by the RosettaNet consortium members signifies a new era of supply chain collaboration, according to RosettaNet CEO Jennifer Hamilton. The theme of 10.10.2000 is the "transition from commitment to implementation," according to Hamilton, who will report that approximately 80 percent of IT and EC Board Member companies have connected with trading partners to implement RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes (PIPs). RosettaNet PIPs are system-to-system XML-based dialogs critical to aligning business processes in the supply chain. Working in concert with trading partners are solution providers who deliver system integration, software development and consulting services; RosettaNet membership contains nearly 150 Solution Partner companies that are committed to speeding adoption of RosettaNet standards. Several thousand people at partner companies are working full- or part-time on RosettaNet implementations, Hamilton noted. A public event Tuesday will showcase partner successes, with selected companies reporting live implementation of PIPs in production-system interfaces between trading partners. Scheduled speakers represent Arrow Electronics, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, NEC, and Philips Semiconductors. Other participants sharing achievements include Agilent, AMD, Avnet, Bourns, Dell, Flextronics, Future Electronics, Hitachi, IBM, Micron, Molex, National Semiconductor, ON Semiconductor, pcOrder, Pioneer, Samsung, STC, STMicroelectronics, Tech Data, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Tyco Electronics and Xilinx. In addition to increasing momentum of production PIP implementation in the IT and EC industries, RosettaNet is celebrating rapid growth into new supply chains and recent global expansion. The creation this month of a Semiconductor Manufacturing (SM) Board extends the reach of RosettaNet through the design and manufacture of semiconductors used in a wide range of computer and electronic systems. Regional RosettaNet organizations in North America, Europe, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan are also providing a voice to various business economies seeking to adopt and influence RosettaNet global standards in their respective regions. RosettaNet will also roll out a new PIP assembly line methodology designed to accelerate development and input processes. . . RosettaNet is an independent, self-funded, non-profit consortium dedicated to the development and deployment of standard electronic business interfaces to align the processes between supply chain partners on a global basis. More than 300 companies representing more than $1 trillion in annual information technology, electronic components and semiconductor manufacturing revenues currently participate in RosettaNet's standards development, strategy and implementation activities." See "RosettaNet."

  • [October 05, 2000] "BMGI Announces the Release of XMLResources.com -- "The Most Complete XML Resource On the Web." - "Bits Media Group Inc. (BMGI) announced the official release of XML Resources (http://www.xmlresources.com) today at the XML One Developers Conference in San Jose. Described as 'the most complete XML resource on the Web,' the site offers XML-related products, job listings, whitepapers, forums and other tools for its users. According to BMGI, software developers face a tough challenge to keep up with today's numerous new technologies. 'While there may be many places to find information about technology on the Internet, many of us do not have time to search for them,' said Erik Bowman, president of BMGI. 'Although XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has been around for a few years, it has been difficult to find comprehensive information about XML products and services, until now.' To assist developers, BMGI created XMLResources.com. The site relies on the latest Internet searching technology to parse through tens of thousands of Web sites to capture up-to-date information and links related to eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Additionally, users can add resources directly to the site through its easy-to-use interface. Other features of the site include e-mail service, instant messaging, and forums allowing users to hold ad hoc meetings with other XML professionals. Heidi Butzine, vice president of Marketing, described the site as '(having) broad appeal, (as) the site contains rudimentary to highly complex information for any level of XML enthusiast.' 'This is not a static Web site,' she continued, 'it is specifically designed for users to interact with one another and to receive answers to XML-related questions from other expert users.' User forums at the site currently focus on XML implementation categorized by industry as well as general XML discussion. BMGI says it has already had a positive response to its beta version of XML Resources and plans to launch an extension to the site located at Expert.XMLResearch.com later this fall. XML Developers in various industries will be able to register their skills, talents, industry expertise and availability with this new service. Businesses can then use the site to find XML specialists for their specific programming needs. 'XML skills are a necessity for almost every industry,' stated Bowman. 'It is a hot market right now for XML developers and they have expressed the need for a more targeted forum for information and networking.' XML is the new Internet standard for marking up data to facilitate exchanges of information between businesses, independent of semantics, O/S and platforms. It is the enabling technology behind the next generation Internet trading systems such as CommerceOne, Ariba, and Freemarkets, as well as for the leading technology companies such as IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems."

  • [October 04, 2000] "BASDA Announces eBIS-XML Website to Back Office Link." - "Following the successful launch of its eBIS-XML initiative earlier this year, BASDA (the Business and Accounting Software Developers' Association) has now introduced its latest eBIS-XML Web Shopping Cart schema which enables companies to transmit orders generated on their websites, directly into their back office, order entry and financial systems. The BASDA eBIS-XML technology already allows direct exchange of purchase orders and invoices between different business software applications, via e-mail and the Internet. More than 150 national and international business application software developers are implementing the BASDA eBIS-XML interface, which will enable their software to generate and read the XML messages. A number of those companies have already had their software tested to ensure compliance to the BASDA eBIS-XML standard and have launched eBIS-XML enabled products which, in turn, are creating a growing network of users who are automating their supply chains. 'We believe that this new development will be of particular interest to web developers who have been looking for a simple and inexpensive way to link their clients` websites to their back office systems,' said Dennis Keeling, CEO of BASDA, 'By using the BASDA eBIS-XML standard with the Web Shopping Cart schema, they can link directly to hundreds of different back office applications, from SAP to TAS Books.' 'Research in the United States shows that there are hardly any good website-to-back office links and, here in the UK, less than 1% of companies can input orders from their web shops directly into their order processing systems. Almost all have to rekey the data. eBIS-XML offers a standard interface for application integration which is simple to implement and operate.' Some 40 developers helped in the development of the BASDA eBIS-XML standard, which has been acknowledged by the United Nations CEFACT / OASIS (ebXML) working group because it uses the power of XML in an entirely new way. The development, which is already revolutionising business-to-business eCommerce, is also supported by IBM, Intel and Microsoft under its BizTalk and Office programmes. BASDA is the international standards body, based in the UK, representing 370 of the world`s leading developers and suppliers of business and accounting software. BASDA has developed standards and accreditations for handling business to business and business to Government eCommerce, euro compliance and VAT handling. It provides an information service and runs seminars and workshops for the benefit of its members and business." See: "BASDA eBIS-XML."

  • [October 04, 2000] "New OASIS Process Supports XML Industry Standards Development. XML Consortium Adopts Bylaws to Foster Open XML Standards." - "OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, has expanded its technical process for the development of industrial XML standards. The Consortium recently expanded its bylaws to implement a new model of technical committee organization that, in essence, allows OASIS to become a home for industry-specific XML application development. Instead of establishing separate governance and infrastructure, vertical industry groups are now free to develop XML standards within OASIS. The new OASIS development process is open, accountable, democratic, language-neutral, flexible and scalable. 'XML is a framework for the development of industry data standards,' said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, who organized and led the working group that created XML. 'Without a legally accountable, open development process, XML standards are likely to be established by, and engineered to benefit, just a few large corporate players, locking out small- to medium-size enterprises. By establishing a framework for the open development of XML standards, OASIS puts the present and future control over such standards firmly in the hands of those who will use them.' Bosak chaired the OASIS Process Advisory Committee (PAC), which drafted the new bylaws. 'XML standards developed over the next few years will form an essential part of the IT infrastructure for decades to come,' commented Laura Walker, executive director of OASIS. 'OASIS is widely recognized as the open forum where industry leaders put aside competitive differences and come together to solve business problems with XML. We have the critical mass to insure standards developed within OASIS will be adopted by industries around the world'."

  • [October 03, 2000] "XMLSolutions Joins Industry Leaders in Project to Accelerate Internet Commerce UDDI Standards Project to Provide Universal Specifications and Business Registry." - "XMLSolutions Corporation, a worldwide provider of software for the development and deployment of XML-based applications, today announced its endorsement and participation in the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Project. The UDDI Project is a cross-industry initiative proposed by over 30 companies including IBM, Microsoft and Ariba. The project is designed to accelerate and broaden business-to-business integration and commerce on the Internet. The goal of the UDDI Project is to create the basic infrastructure for Internet transactions and services through a two-step process: defining a platform-neutral set of specifications to enable businesses to describe themselves and indicate their preferred means of conducting e-commerce transactions; and placing this information in an open, universally accessible business registry. Speaking about the UDDI Project at the eBusiness Integration Conference currently underway in San Francisco, Scott Cosby, Marketing Manager on e-business Technologies for IBM, said, 'There is a tremendous amount of momentum behind UDDI. We are looking forward to XMLSolutions' participation in UDDI as we evolve the specification to foster the next generation of e-business.' The UDDI Project utilizes industry standards such as XML and HTTP in setting the universal specifications that will permit dynamic business interaction over the Internet. Regardless of underlying platform, specific business application or marketplace, standards such as XML will enable direct computer-to-computer transactions via the Internet. XMLSolutions is a registered participant in the UDDI Project. XMLSolutions Corporation enables the secure, real-time B2B exchange of direct materials transactions over the Internet. By eliminating a company's EDI and XML dialect dependencies, XMLSolutions removes trade barriers, enabling uniform transactions among customers, exchanges, and trading partners of all sizes. The XMLSolutions integrated solution includes support for XML-to-XML transformations; EDI-to-XML translation; and over 3000 mission-critical, industry-specific EDI business documents." See: "Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI)."

  • [October 03, 2000] XML/EDI Translation Software. Posting from John Evdemon (Chief Architect, XMLSolutions) to XML-DEV. "The XEDI (pronounced "zee-dee") Translator is the ONLY XML translator to support ALL documents in ALL versions of both X12 (EDI) and EDIFACT out of the box. While there are other mapping tools out there, XEDI is the only tool that provides full EDI and EDIFACT translation to XML (and back) immediately. Other tools only handle a subset of EDI or EDIFACT transactions - this means that you must manually map the EDI or EDIFACT transactions to XML and back (an extremely difficult and time consuming process)..."

  • [October 03, 2000] "Software AG Inc. Announces the Tamino XML Platform for E-Business; Offers Industry's First Comprehensive Suite of Products for XML-enabled Data Transactions and Applications." - "Software AG has introduced the industry's first complete suite of XML-enabled products for building enterprise-scale applications capable of handling complex and transaction-intensive processes. Software AG's new Tamino XML platform, which includes a native XML database, an integration broker and development tools, leverages the performance and scalability benefits of native XML technology to optimize a company's internal E-Business communication and raise the value of existing IT investments. Software AG's new Tamino XML platform consists of the following components: (1) a native XML database, (2) products that allow for the seamless integration of data, existing applications and electronic business processes (X-Node and X-Bridge) and (3) a set of development tools for XML applications (X-Studio). The Tamino XML database is the only native XML database management system available on the market today. A native XML system runs faster, more reliably and with less administration than legacy database architectures that use slow XML adapters. Considered the "engine" of the Tamino platform, the native XML database was specifically designed to store, publish and retrieve XML elements directly in their original data structures ensuring outstanding performance. The database uses a standards-based query mechanism that also allows for sophisticated and powerful text retrieval. Furthermore, the native XML database allows systems administrators to control the whole system via one location-independent browser interface. The X-Node and X-Bridge components of the Tamino XML platform address the integration of traditional data sources into XML and the transformation and routing of XML documents between applications. X-Node provides users with a single server view of business data residing in both the Tamino XML database and other databases, offering a real-time conversion of externally-stored data into XML. X-Bridge serves as a central communication hub for enterprise-level XML-based information exchange by analyzing and routing the content and structure of XML documents according to user-defined rules. X-Bridge supports applications built in Java and can interface with established and emerging e-business standards like Biztalk, Business Object Documents of the OAG (Open Applications Group) and SOAP (Single Object Application Protocol). Software AG's Tamino XML platform also incorporates X-Studio, an application development tool set specifically geared to the requirements of programmers creating XML-centered applications. Tamino X-Studio allows for rapid development of scalable XML-based applications and for building XML-related documents or XSL stylesheets. Tamino X-Studio is a Java-based development environment for building applications that support heterogeneous IT systems. Software AG's Tamino XML platform is available immediately. For developers interested in evaluating the platform, Software AG will soon offer a starter kit, which allows for a time-limited evaluation of the components listed above. All Tamino XML platform products are compatible with the W3C recommendation, XML 1.0, and support multilingual documents by conforming to the Unicode standard for internationalization. Tamino protects data independence by following an open database management system philosophy, providing interfaces such as DCOM, ODBC and JDBC."

  • [October 03, 2000] iPLanet and Interwoven to Provide Content Management Solutions for iPlanet Internet Service Deployment Platform. Combined Solution Facilitates Rapid, Streamlined Development and Deployment of Web Content for Applications and Portals." - "iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape Alliance, the first provider of a comprehensive and best-of-breed Internet Service Deployment Platform and Interwoven, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise-class content management solutions today announced a joint effort to provide content management solutions for the iPlanet Internet Service Deployment Platform. The inclusive Interwoven TeamSite content management architecture together with the iPlanet platform is designed to facilitate rapid, streamlined development and deployment of timely content for high-performance applications and portals. 'Integration of a robust content management product with the enterprise web platform is one of the most critical issues facing organizations,' said Bob Airasian, president of BellSouth.com, Inc. 'We are working with both iPlanet and Interwoven to help us build a world-class customer experience.' Interwoven TeamSite software streamlines and simplifies Web development for customers developing eBusiness properties on the iPlanet platform by virtualizing or simulating the development environment (i.e., iPlanet Application Server) to facilitate collaborative authoring, workflow and versioning. TeamSite manages the development of diverse Web assets including HTML, audio, video, JSP, servlets, and EJB. XML-based TeamSite Templating allows non-technical users to easily contribute content and to apply metatags referencing Web application components that leverage reusable EJB business components. Built upon open Internet standards -- J2EE, XML, LDAP, IMAP and WML -- the iPlanet Internet Service Deployment Platform provides the core infrastructure necessary to handle the complex demands of the e-business revolution. This massively scalable, battle-tested software platform -- which provides industry leading user management, application services, communication tools, portal services and commerce applications -- is designed from the ground up to be integrated and customized. Currently Interwoven TeamSite supports the iPlanet Web Server. Integration with iPlanet Application Server 6.0 is scheduled for completion in Q4 2000. In addition, joint customers are able to use TeamSite to manage content contributions to portals built with iPlanet Portal Server."

  • [October 02, 2000] "Planet 7 Technologies Delivers XML Routing and Transport Solution for Streamlining e-Business. Software for XML Transport and Collaboration Speeds Integration and Lowers Costs." - "Planet 7 Technologies Corp., a developer of e-business infrastructure software based in Bothell, Wash., announced today that it has launched its flagship XML Network Server 2.0 product. Shipping today, the Planet 7 Technologies XML Network Server (XNS) is distributed network software that provides infrastructure for the next generation of e-business solutions being built upon the Extensible Markup Language (XML) standard. The XML Network Server acts as the building block for a new network architecture that greatly reduces the pain of integrating enterprise systems by eliminating the need for hard-coded, point-to-point connections between individual enterprise systems. Modeled on the proven paradigm of routers and hubs, the XNS software creates and connects multiple transactions spaces (hubs) for the exchange of XML data. In these transactions spaces, critical business data can be aggregated, updated, and simultaneously acted upon in a many-to-many XML 'conversation'. By embedding routing and transport knowledge in the XML network itself, applications can plug into the XML network easily, and can rely on existing routing and rules to manage XML message traffic among relevant enterprise systems. This intelligent XNS-based architecture replaces customized, application-specific middleware and HTTP-speaking application servers, resulting in faster integration and significantly lower development costs. The XML Network Server mimics the well-proven TCP/IP communications model by embedding intelligence in the XML network itself. XML data is routed on a logical level between business applications much as Cisco routers manage TCP/IP packets-- transparently. Business data is routed on the network according to XML-formatted content, without requiring the transmitting application to possess specific destination information. As the enterprise system grows, XML networks can be segmented onto sub-nets to direct traffic to new internal resources, and to reach across the Internet to partners and customers. The XML Network Server's decoupled hub and router architecture provides several additional benefits that address the limitations of current middleware and app server solutions in building e-business networks. (1) Concurrent, fully synchronized data exchange. XNS is the first product to support real-time, many-to-many XML data exchange, providing a framework for lowering system latency and creating automated, dynamic trading systems. (2) Eliminates performance bottlenecks. A real-time, many-to-many XML data exchange eliminates queuing, a major source of latency in networked applications that rely on older, request-response messaging. (3) Supports integration standards. A built-in XML parser and adherence to the W3C XML specification enables integration with emerging XML-based technologies, including SOAP, UDDI, RosettaNet, OASIS, cXML, ACORD, ebXML and others. XNS is developed in Java and uses client platforms with Java virtual machines, including Windows 2000/NT and Linux. Support for Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) enables integration with a wide variety of COM-enabled technology, including Microsoft development tools, operating systems and applications. (4) Supports native Internet protocols. The XML Network Server's ability to use HTTP as a message transport allows data to be submitted to XNS through common Web browsers or from the output of any Web server-enabled application on the Internet. Configurable network settings allow XNS to be deployed easily on both sides of the firewall. Further, routing XNS message traffic across a firewall via HTTP does not require potentially risky changes to firewall parameters, unlike the proprietary Internet integration technologies offered by middleware vendors..."

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