Symantec Corp. has announced the acquisition of SafeWeb, Inc., a provider of SSL VPN appliances, for $26 million in cash. The acquisition brings to Symantec SafeWeb's Secure Extranet Appliance technology designed to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying, managing, and maintaining secure access to remote users.

Symantec intends to offer the SafeWeb SSL-based VPN technology on the Symantec appliance platforms as a standalone offering beginning in the first quarter of 2004.  In addition, Symantec plans to integrate the clientless VPN capabilities into the next version of the Symantec Gateway Security Appliance series later in 2004.

SafeWeb's SEA Tsunami is an SSL VPN appliance that enables companies to selectively grant secure remote access to network resources without the need to install additional software on the remote user's computer. Remote users can access virtually any application (Web, terminal, Outlook, Lotus Notes, legacy client/server) as well as email, file servers, and printers.

(http://www.safewebinc.com), (http://www.symantec.com)

EMC Corporation and Documentum, Inc. have announced a definitive agreement whereby EMC will acquire Documentum in a stock transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion. EMC's acquisition of Documentum combines two information-centric technology companies with a shared commitment to enabling organizations to maximize the value of their information across the enterprise. Documentum and EMC have worked together since the April 2002 introduction of EMC Centera, a content addressed storage (CAS) solution. Documentum's enterprise content management software platform is one of more than 65 applications that have integrated with Centera's open CAS platform under the EMC Developers Program.

Under terms of the agreement, Documentum stockholders will receive 2.175 shares of EMC common stock for each share of Documentum common stock. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including Documentum's stockholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of calendar year 2004.  When completed, EMC expects to take a charge in the quarter the transaction is closed for the value of Documentum's in-process research and development costs and other integration expenses. Including the aforementioned charges, the transaction is expected to be dilutive in the first quarter of 2004 by $0.02 per diluted share. The transaction is not expected to materially impact EPS for the remainder of 2004, and is expected to be slightly accretive in 2005.

Upon completion of the acquisition, EMC intends to operate Documentum as a software division of EMC headquartered in Pleasanton, California, led by Dave DeWalt, Documentum's current CEO. Documentum's sales, marketing and services will remain focused on selling and servicing Documentum's products and solutions.

(http://www.documentum.com), (http://www.emc.com)

The Board of Trustees of Biological Abstracts has voted to pursue final negotiations with The Thomson Corporation leading to a potential sale of the publishing assets of Biological Abstracts, Inc and BIOSIS, UK. Founded in 1926, BIOSIS produces databases and services for life sciences research, including Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, and Zoological Record. These databases are made available globally on a variety of platforms, including the Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge. Thomson/ISI was selected from a number of potential strategic partners, including both not for profit and for profit organizations, following a detailed review process by the BIOSIS Board. As part of the bidding process Thomson has partnered with CAB International, a not-for-profit publisher in the applied life sciences.

(http://www.biosis.org)

Dow Jones Newswires has signed a letter of intent with YellowPepper Inc., a wireless marketing company, to create a news service for delivery to wireless devices throughout Europe. Under the proposed agreement, users will be able to customize news alerts by choosing keywords from more than 50 categories and have headlines directly delivered to mobile phones and PDAs. Categories will include industries, regions and companies, and contain detailed subcategories.

YellowPepper plans to customize and integrate Dow Jones headlines into its mobile-messaging-platform and syndicate the content to European network operators. In addition, YellowPepper will create a subscription service that will be available via the Web and WAP (wireless application protocol). The news alerts will be available in multiple languages including English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese.

(http://www.dowjones.com), (http://www.yellowpepper.com)

Adobe Systems Incorporated and IBM have signed an agreement to develop solutions to help customers improve data capture, document generation, and delivery across the enterprise, by creating intelligent, digital document processes. This agreement expands the current relationship to include joint sales and marketing of document services to the enterprise.

This expanded sales, marketing, and development relationship is intended to bring Adobe's document services together with IBM software offerings to customers worldwide. Combining these technologies into a heterogeneous infrastructure enables organizations to integrate document intensive processes into new next-generation computing environments. As part of the expanded agreement, the two companies will further integrate technologies across IBM's portfolio of software offerings, beginning with IBM's DB2 Content Manager and DB2 CommonStore for SAP, and moving to integration with IBM's WebSphere and Tivoli software brands.

The first phase of IBM and Adobe's software agreement has been the integration IBM DB2 Content Manager with Adobe Form Server, Form Designer, and Reader, allowing forms to be created, managed, and processed within DB2 Content Manager environments. The joint solution will integrate capabilities for intelligent Web-based forms giving organizations and governments the ability to automate their existing paper-based processes.

(http://www.adobe.com), (http://www.ibm.com)

NYTimes.com has announced a partnership with Vindigo Studios, a developer and publisher of consumer information and entertainment applications for mobile devices, to launch NYTimes.com Mobile News with Verizon Wireless.

The new subscription service, priced at $3.75 monthly access, is available to Verizon Wireless customers with select Get It Now-capable phones. These customers can now download The New York Times's news coverage in a format that is designed to be easy-to-read on their phones via a fast and flexible interface. Updated hourly, NYTimes.com Mobile News provides full text of most of each day's newspaper, including: top headlines; business news; national and international news; technology news; movie reviews; sports updates; editorial and op-ed columns; and photo galleries depicting the day's top stories. Subscribers can also email articles to friends and download New York Times color photos to use as wallpaper on their phones. An overview and instructions on how to download the application are available at www.nytimes.com/nytmobile.  

NYTimes.com Mobile News is currently available to Verizon Wireless customers on select LG and Audiovox mobile phones and will soon be accessible through select Samsung and Motorola models. Verizon Wireless customers can download a free one-day trial of NYTimes.com Mobile News by going to the "Download Shop" on their handsets, selecting the getGOING category, then selecting "The New York Times" option.

New York Times Digital has partnered with Vindigo since March 2000 to provide PDA users with restaurant, nightlife, and film reviews from NYTimes.com and Boston.com. NYTimes.com Mobile News is the latest offering in the Web site's suite that includes Times News Tracker, a customizable email notification service; Premium Crosswords, the online source for the daily Times crossword and 2,000 archived crosswords; and paid archives of articles more than seven days old.

(http://www.nytimes.com/nytmobile), (http://www.verizonwireless.com), (http://www.vindigostudios.com)

Entopia, Inc., a provider of information solutions, has unveiled Entopia Enterprise Social Networks Analysis, a diagnostic tool that is designed to enable managers to optimize information flow. By combining Entopia's dynamic expertise location with its visualization techniques, Entopia's latest application identifies the social networks within the enterprise related to a specific topic. These "people maps" illustrate the subject matter experts, information bottlenecks and disconnected communities with an enterprise. Entopia Social Networks Analysis is built upon Entopia K-Bus, its enterprise knowledge infrastructure technology.  

Entopia Enterprise Social Network Analysis does not require manual effort on the part of the user and does not depend on people's static expertise, but on their dynamic expertise. Unlike most social networking applications that only take into account what users read, Entopia Enterprise Social Network Analysis analyzes what people spend their time working on in an effort to create a more accurate model of social networks. All actions such as authoring, checking-in/out, versioning, reading, annotating, and commenting on the content residing in enterprise repositories are taken into account for the analysis. The results are displayed as a map showing community leaders, subject matter experts, peers, and sets of linked and disjointed communities. Maps can be viewed over time to provide continuous change feedback to managers as they fine-tune the social network of their project teams and workforce.  

Entopia's Enterprise Social Networks Analysis is enabled by the Entopia K-Bus Enterprise Knowledge Infrastructure. Entopia K-Bus, built on a J2EE architecture, creates a metadata database that spans and can connect to all content repositories in the enterprise. Entopia Enterprise Social Networks Analysis software is currently in beta testing.

(http://www.entopia.com)

Speedera Networks, a provider of content delivery services, has integrated Apple's Darwin Streaming Server technology with Speedera's distributed delivery network in support of QuickTime as well as open standards such as MPEG-4.

Speedera has deployed Apple's Darwin Streaming Server (DSS), the open source streaming server technology that enables the streaming of QuickTime files to clients across the Internet using the RTP/ RTSP protocol, and which is based on the same code as Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server. Speedera extends the capabilities of DSS not only with its delivery network, but also with support for a variety of value added modules including the newly-introduced Speedera Smart Storage Manager service, the SpeedEye management portal, and the Secure Streaming service.

Speedera is now globally delivering multiple formats of digital content across the Darwin architecture, including: support for MPEG-4 professional-quality audio and video streams over a wide range of bandwidths from cell phones to broadband; and serving of standard MP3 files using Icecast-compatible protocols over HTTP.  Features include plug-and-play implementation, flash crowd protection, 100% availability, no requirement for investing in additional infrastructure, and added security.

Speedera's native support for QuickTime for live, on-demand, and secure streaming using Apple's own Darwin Streaming Servers is targeted toward companies in the media and entertainment business--including news sites, movie and movie trailer sites, portals, sports sites, streaming aggregators--as well as government organizations, higher education institutions, and any site with QuickTime or MPEG-4 movie files.

(http://www.speedera.com)

MediaEdge, a division of Exceptional Software Strategies, and Plumtree Software have announced a new Enterprise Web application developed by MediaEdge using Plumtree's Enterprise Web software that is designed to simplify the management, processing, and retrieval of all courtroom content. The courtroom application, Gavel, provides personalized, secure workspaces through which judges, lawyers, and clerks can submit, process, manage, and navigate the sprawl of data, documents, video, and multimedia files that flow through the court. By simplifying common courtroom processes and centralizing information from diverse sources into fully searchable workspaces, Gavel helps courts focus on issues rather than procedural logistics. The Courtroom Application is based on the Plumtree Enterprise Web Suite, MediaEdge's electronic courtroom management system, Gavel, and MediaEdge's Rich Media Server.

Specifically, Gavel is intended to help judges to: execute a full text search of the official transcript for a word or witness and then view the corresponding video to observe mannerisms or connotations; visually scan court video to find images of documents or other digital data presented in the hearing, click on an image and immediately play the video from that point on; and archive notes, collaborate with law interns helping to write the ruling, and move between details of all cases before their court. Gavel gives courtroom clerks the ability to: perform general courtroom administrative functions including setting court calendar, scheduling witnesses, managing the docket, and the flow of cases through the court; establish and follow procedural workflow and document processing for a hearing; and correct errors or make changes to the court transcript, synchronize the real-time transcript with the video, and resynchronize the video with the official transcript as it is finalized. Gavel allows lawyers to: review court calendar and status of all exhibits; review real-time transcripts of what a witness has said; and search for exhibits, filtering list by status, party, or courtroom.

(http://www.exceptionalsoftware.com), (http://www.plumtree.com), (http://www.plumtree.com/applicationpartners)

Percussion Software, a provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions and Lotus Domino developer tools, has introduced its newest software product, Lyrix, a content integration solution for the reuse of Domino content in other enterprise applications. Lyrix is targeted at the Lotus Domino user base at organizations that are deciding between co-existence and migration for each of their Domino applications. Lyrix supports a range of target enterprise applications, including Web applications, portals, enterprise applications such as sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and Percussion's Rhythmyx 5 ECM system.  

Built on a Web services architecture, Lyrix provides organizations with a range of options allowing them to choose the right future for each of their Domino applications. For each application, Lyrix enables organizations to choose: Co-existence with Domino by continuing to create content in existing applications while simultaneously reusing the content in other applications, or Migration of Domino content to other applications systematically. In addition, if selecting to migrate, Lyrix does not force a migration of all content into a new central repository.

Lyrix transforms all Domino attributes into standard XML and xHTML, and also maintains content relationships. Lyrix retains Domino formatting including rich text, embedded images and attachments and Lyrix also retains the context of Domino content, by maintaining the relationships among related pieces of information (such as automatically maintaining the link between a diagram and its caption). Pricing for the Lyrix Starter Package is $34,000.

(http://www.percussion.com)

Responding to a more stringent climate of corporate governance and regulatory scrutiny, FileNet Corporation a provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, has announced the introduction of FileNet Records Manager, a new records management suite that is designed to offer lifecycle management of records from creation to disposition.

FileNet's Records Manager will be based on a single, integrated, scalable repository featuring the ability to create and manage file plans, retention schedules, and security. It also offers reporting and auditing tools to enable organizations to meet any number of regulatory reporting requirements.  

The new solution is designed to help organizations meet newly introduced or updated government and industry regulations as well as the explosive growth in the volume of electronic records resulting from the widespread use of electronic content including the Internet and email. The FileNet Records Manager suite is designed to address specific needs around issues of complying with reporting provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and is designed to meet the U.S. Department of Defense's 5015.2 records management standards requirement, as well as the U.K.'s National Archives 2002 revised functional requirements. Recent high-profile corporate malfeasance, new legislation and Securities & Exchange Commission oversight have pushed records management and compliance into the forefront of corporate strategy.

FileNet's Records Manager software suite is designed to provide a central file plan administration for both electronic and physical records, and automatic electronic records declaration and classification. By making use of FileNet's monitoring, reporting and analytics capabilities, Records Manager can provide organizations with the visibility required to understand when, how, why and where records are used within their business. This can enable companies to proactively optimize operations according to specific needs and adjust records retention policies and file plans to meet emerging regulatory requirements.

(http://www.filenet.com)

Sawyer Media Systems, Inc., a provider of enterprise media solutions, has announced the release of Enterprise Media Producer 2.0, a suite of software components designed to help companies create, manage, deliver, and measure rich media-enabled business communications.

Enterprise Media Producer 2.0 includes the following components: MediaPresenter-A Flash-based portal that displays compelling rich media programming. MediaAdministrator-An internal application for managing and deploying media content. MediaDistributor-Peer-based technology that allows high-speed distribution and viewing of media files across distributed organizations-even behind a corporate firewall. MediaCaster-Webcasting tool that enables complete self-production of online events in marketing, sales, and corporate training. MediaReporter-Integrated reporting of media usage statistics. MediaMailer-Rich media email assembly, distribution, and reporting. MediaBlueprints-Media templates.

Enterprise Media Producer 2.0 is anchored by MediaPresenter, the company's flagship product, which comes bundled with MediaAdministrator and MediaBlueprints. MediaBlueprints are quick-start templates that are intended to help companies to customize MediaPresenter based on the type of audience they are targeting. Companies can purchase the other components separately, to ensure they create enterprise media solutions that are tailored to their needs.

(http://www.sawyermedia.com)

EDGAR Online Inc., a provider of online SEC information and analysis tools, has announced the release of a new version of its premium EDGAR Online Pro service. In addition, the company outlined a new strategic focus on selling EDGAR Online Pro to clients in financial services companies, including investment bankers, asset managers, credit risk managers, compliance officers, hedge fund managers, market data professionals and others.

The new focus on the financial services market is intended to streamline the company's operations, increase product development efficiencies and allow for more targeted marketing. The company also expects to add staff to its existing subscription sales force. EDGAR Online will provide more details about the new strategic focus in the company's upcoming third quarter earnings call on October 28, 2003.

With the enhancement, the EDGAR Online Pro product now includes: Initial and Secondary Offering Data, which provides access to real time and historical profiles on initial and secondary public offerings including company, underwriter, auditor views, calendar information and post offering performance; Increased Ownership Pie Information--fielded data on insider trades and intents to sell, as well as equity holdings from over 2,200 institutional investors indicating asset management strategies; New Comparative Financial Tools that allows subscribers to compare financials across multiple companies and industries; more real time SEC Documents and additional search criteria.

(http://www.edgar-online.com)

Stellent, Inc.'s Content Components Division, a provider of component technologies for managing, viewing and transforming unstructured data, has announced the release of the Outside In Transformation Suite, bringing together data transformation components into a new server architecture accessible as a Web service. The Outside In solution is designed to convert native files to XML, HTML, wireless, or image formats, enabling access to information stored in more than 250 proprietary file formats from a range of devices, such as desktop computers, browsers and wireless devices.

The Transformation Suite supports industry initiatives focused on service-oriented infrastructures that provide better management and integration of resources without vendor lock-in. The server architecture and Web services interface enable transformation to be implemented as a common "on-demand" service, available to all applications and business operations, and providing guaranteed access to unstructured information independent of the creating application.

The components of the suite include Outside In HTML Export, XML Export, Image Export and Wireless Export. The server architecture features automatic fault protection, support for multiple simultaneous transformation processes and an extensible architecture that provides third-party transformations with the benefits of process isolation and a single client API. The Web services SOAP interface is provided in addition to existing C and Java APIs.

(http://www.outsideinsdk.com), (http://www.stellent.com)

Recommind, Inc. has announced the availability of MindServer Media, its information management solution for publishers and media organizations. Available immediately, MindServer Media saves time and improves information sharing among content managers, editors, and librarians by tagging, routing and retrieving news feeds, articles and other text.

MindServer Media is based on Recommind's MindServer platform, which delivers categorization and retrieval for documents, presentations, emails, Web pages and news articles, and other text. As a result, Recommind's customers are able to automate processes that previously were performed manually, significantly reducing costs and increasing efficiency of news article processing.

MindServer Media can be operated in a fully automated or semi-automated mode, giving content experts control over their work processes. Its speed and high levels of accuracy in tagging and routing content enable organizations to share and repurpose time sensitive news content more efficiently.

MindServer Media categorizes text into multiple taxonomies according to the concepts mentioned in a news story. In addition, it employs text extraction techniques to identify and process documents containing specific people names, organization names, and geographic places. GUI-based tools enable content experts to create and manage taxonomies while flexible configuration options enable control of categorization performance.

Recommind has also announced that Bertelsmann has selected MindServer Media to improve automatic categorization and access to critical company information. Bertelsmann will use Recommind's MindServer Media software platform for its existing company-internal issues management portal.

(http://www.bertelsmann.com), (http://www.recommind.com)

MuseGlobal, Inc., a metasearch technology firm, has announced a Content Partner Program with the objective of fostering quality connectivity to information sources. Headed by Emily Fayen, MuseGlobal's Vice President of Digital Content, the program is intended to strengthen technology relationships with content providers for the mutual benefit of users and publishers.

MuseGlobal has also announced MuseSeek, a new consumer-oriented version of its

metasearching technology. MuseSeek will allow Internet users to perform simultaneous searches of an unlimited number of online information sources using an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

MuseSeek returns results that represent optimal breadth and depth of Web resources. By clicking on check boxes, users can select specific sources they want to search from hundreds of different information collections arranged within topical categories

like "Web Engines," "Business," "News," "Entertainment," "Booksellers," "Sports," and "Reference." An Advanced Search option allows searching using Boolean logic and by specifying keyword, title, author, subject, or description. Search rules can be changed to alter the number of results per page or per source, or to order retrieved results by fastest, relevance, or date. Results can be de-duplicated, sorted, and filtered to produce a targeted, relevant group of items of interest.

Like MuseGlobal's flagship product MuseSearch, MuseSeek will be primarily sold to software partners for incorporation into their product offerings.

(http://www.museseek.com)

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Publications Division will offer free online access to hundreds of articles on atmospheric chemistry and current issues of publications in celebration of National Chemistry Week, Oct. 19-25. This free access to the public will begin Friday, Oct. 17, and continue through Friday, Oct. 31. ACS Publications produces more than 30 periodicals in print and online, including the flagship publications of the American Chemical Society: the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Chemical & Engineering News.

Adults and students across the nation will participate in National Chemistry Week, a community-based program sponsored by the American Chemical Society. The annual event is designed to bring together ACS local sections, industries, schools and individuals to underscore the importance of chemistry to the quality of life. This year's theme-"Earth's Atmosphere and Beyond!"- was chosen to commemorate the 100th anniversary of flight.

Visit http://pubs.acs.org/NCW beginning Oct. 17 to receive free access to: more than 100 ACS journal articles on atmospheric chemistry from Web editions and ACS journal archives, plus access to selected Articles ASAP from the upcoming Chemical Reviews thematic issue on atmospheric chemistry. (ASAP contains research articles published as "as soon as possible" after acceptance, prior to their appearance in the print version of an ACS periodical); the 125 most-cited articles in Journal of the American Chemical Society, in celebration of its 125th anniversary this year, plus online access to the current issue; Chemical and Engineering News current issue and its special 80th anniversary issue on the periodic table; the current issue of Analytical Chemistry, celebrating its 75th anniversary; the current issues of Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry and Organic Letters, both celebrating their 5th anniversaries, plus access to Organic Letters Articles ASAP; and selected articles from the ACS journal archives.

(http://pubs.acs.org/NCW), (http://www.chemistry.org/NCW)

Overture Services, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc., has extended its search distribution relationship with Microsoft Corp. in the United States and United Kingdom through June 2005. Under the terms of the new deal, the companies have entered into a paid placement search agreement to provide Overture search results to U.S. and UK users of MSN Search. The agreement provides for the companies to potentially expand into additional countries.

(http://www.microsoft.com), (http://www.overture.com)