Traction Software Introduces TeamPage, Enterprise Weblog Solution

Traction Software, Inc. has introduced the Competitive Intelligence (C.I.) and Market Research solution to its TeamPage Enterprise Weblog. TeamPage is designed to solve the problem of collecting, organizing, sharing, linking, and retrieving strategic competitive intelligence information from many sources. Traction C.I. is targeted at strategic planning, competitive intelligence, market research and marketing professionals.

Valuable, strategic information is typically in pockets and siloed systems across the company, including email, Web content, external news feeds, business analytic systems, or authored contact reports--and not easily centralized in repository so it can be leveraged by the right people at the right time. "Traction's solution addresses the problem of easy collection, organization, and dissemination of diverse content from many sources," said Tim Simonson, CEO of Traction Software. "By creating an deep archive of shared information, business teams are able to convert collected information to actionable knowledge faster than would otherwise be possible using email or traditional content management systems."

Traction's solution addresses each of the five steps of the competitive intelligence and research cycle: Planning, Collection, Analysis, Dissemination and Retrieval.

The automated ExecutiveSummary, daily email newsletter has been benchmarked after column two of the Wall Street Journal and VentureWire's daily email newsletter, enables busy executives to remain peripherally aware of market activities without the burden of trying to make sense of random email messages. Traction's ExecutiveSummary automatically organizes and disseminates a one-paragraph summary of content entries to permissioned users and enables them to "click-through" to a browser window if they choose to dig into the content.

Traction's Instant Publisher allows users to collect and post selected text, pictures, links and attachments directly from Microsoft Word, Outlook, or Internet Explorer. Users can flag and link diverse content at the full entry or paragraph level, overcoming the pervasive problem of siloed information across content stores. Permissioned users can update and enrich content, inserting comments, cross-links, topic labels and action flags. To be kept abreast of new information in the enterprise weblog, users have web real-time access or can receive a daily ExecutiveSummary email newsletter, which consolidates new information organized by project.

Because Traction is a self-contained web server, a workgroup or enterprise solution can be installed and ready for use in an hour. The Traction Server is a Java application that can be installed and configured on any computer that runs Java including Windows XP, NT or 2000, Linux, Solaris, and Macintosh OS X. Traction readers use standard browsers from Microsoft or Netscape. Traction also supports wireless access from Palm, Windows CE or Blackberry browsers so users can review a Traction newspage or search published messages by time, content, or topic from a PDA. Traction Competitive Intelligence & Market Research solution is availability immediately.  Traction CI is priced at $10,000 per server and $125 per named account, plus 20% for annual maintenance and support.  Traction offers a 15-user, workgroup package for $4,995.

--Kinley Levack

(http://www.tractionsoftware.com)

ECNext, a provider of market expertise and Web commerce services for business publishers and advisory firms, has secured $3 million in third-round funding for continued growth and expansion. The investment, from Athenian Venture Partners, River Cities Capital Fund, and ECNext's angel investors, will be used for additional sales and marketing resources. ECNext's new CEO, Chris Skudder, is placing heavy focus on scaling the company's sales and marketing resources and initiatives to take advantage of growing market opportunities.

(http://www.ecnext.com)

Revenues for the 57 companies in the $21.2 billion General Aggregators, Reports, and Services segment of the Information Content (IC) industry grew by 7.4 percent in 2001 according to research by Outsell, an Information Content industry research firm. The segment includes general aggregators such as Factiva, LexisNexis, and Dialog, subscription agents and services such as EBSCO and Swets Blackwell, and selected business portals including Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL. Outsell analysts see two distinct parts of this segment: The first are the struggles of the aggregators and distributors who have always relied on the enterprise and institutional markets, selling large contracts to information units in corporations, academic institutions, and government. These companies, according to Outsell, have been forced to modernize and deliver not just content, but the integration technology and services that deliver the content to desktops through Intranets and corporate portals. The second part is comprised of the major portals, which Outsell views as a "wild card" in the space. Outsell's findings are reported in "Industry Trends, Size, And Players In The General Aggregators, Distributors and Services Information Market." The report analyzes the size, growth rates and market shares of 57 content companies in the segment, and identifies the significant issues and trends facing them and their customers. The report is available for $1,295, including an Industry Overview.

(http://www.outsellinc.com)

Ephox, a maker of enterprise-wide content authoring solutions, has announced the general availability of EditLive! for Java 2.0, the next generation of its Web-based content authoring application. EditLive! for Java 2.0 adds features such as support for XML, support for the Web-based distributed authoring and versioning (WebDAV) protocol, and compliance with Section 508. This new release further emphasises Ephox's focus on developing multi-platform content authoring solutions that support large-scale Web content management, knowledge management, and eLearning applications. To ensure information consistency across applications in this distributed environment, EditLive! ties into leading content management and CRM solutions such as Vignette,  FileNET, Stellent, and KANA. New features of EditLive! for Java 2.0 include: XML Support--XML tags can be inserted into XHTML-compliant content, which enables content to be transformed using different templates for different scenarios or client devices (e.g. wireless); WebDAV interface--users can now browse WebDAV-compliant repositories such as Stellent, Microsoft IIS, Apache and Oracle.; Extensibilit--custom toolbar or menu options can be added and macros programmed in JavaScript; Multilingual support--EditLive! for Java 2.0 now supports over 100 different character sets; Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Spanish, French, German, Italian, Czech, and Korean versions of the application are now also available; and Accessibility--The EditLive! For Java 2.0 user interface has been updated for Section 508 compliance so that it meets the US government procurement requirements.

EditLive!'s server-based architecture enables administrators to control exactly how content updates occur, even as the application scales to thousands of users. A multi-platform solution, EditLive! supports both desktop (Windows) and enterprise environments (Java) in Internet Explorer and Netscape. EditLive! for Java 2.0 is now available.  The pricing of EditLive! For Java 2.0 starts at $35 per user or $5,000 per CPU. An evaluation kit and online demos are available Ephox's site.

(http://www.ephox.com)

Authentica, Inc., a provider of content security software for protecting corporate intellectual property and confidential business information, has introduced Authentica SafeRoute, an enterprise secure messaging solution for guarding sensitive email shared within or outside corporate boundaries. SafeRoute is designed to provide both automatic email security and the option for individual users to protect their own outgoing messages. SafeRoute is intended to give enterprises a robust yet simple and flexible solution to centrally manage and control corporate email in accordance with established email security and retention policies--without disrupting their existing messaging infrastructure or requiring cumbersome steps for users. SafeRoute offers a range of deployment and protection options. Its capabilities include: Policy Management/Enforcement--organizations can both centrally enforce email security policies and allow individual users to protect and manage their own messages; Strong Content Security and User Authentication--SafeRoute provides 128-bit data encryption, data integrity verification, and user authentication to protect email wherever it is distributed or stored; Protection Options--enterprises have a choice between two email protection levels; Secure Delivery for point-to-point message protection, and Secure Content for control of email both during and after delivery; Activity Tracking and Auditing--organizations can audit and track information including when and how often content is accessed and printed throughout its lifecycle; Ease of Use/Adoption--senders can securely communicate by email with external users without requiring them to have additional software beyond a standard Web browser; and Content Scanning Integration--SafeRoute works with all major content scanning products to scan, encrypt, and protect sensitive outgoing email in one process. SafeRoute offers four deployment options, which enable enterprises to secure business information without any user involvement or to allow individual users to protect and manage their own messages and documents. It can be deployed through a client desktop using the MailRecall email client plug-in, the Authentica Secure Gateway, a business application, or a Web interface. The SafeRoute messaging solution is part of Authentica's content security suite that also includes PageRecall for secure document sharing and NetRecall for secure sharing of Web content.

(http://www.authentica.com)

The XML Data Store market no longer exists as a separate market, concludes a recently conducted major study of XML data store solutions by ZapThink, LLC, an analyst firm focused on XML and Web Services. The study, which covers XML data store vendors and XML-enabled relational database (RDBMS) vendors, finds that the XML data storage market currently consists of two segments: general-purpose XML data storage and purpose-built XML data storage. ZapThink concludes that RDBMS, content management, and integration vendors are best suited to offer general-purpose XML data store solutions, while XML data store pure-plays are offering increasingly focused, purpose-built XML data storage solutions. The study is structured into two parts: one that discusses the requirements for XML storage and the directions that the market is heading, and one that profiles specific solutions and how they meet those requirements. This study discusses the requirements for XML storage and analyzes each profiled vendor's solutions and how they meet those requirements. The study covers the major adoption issues surrounding XML data stores and profiles four key vendors in the XML data store market: AGiLiENCE, Sybase, NeoCore, and Xyleme. The report also discusses the overall XML data store market including: Agilience, B-Bop, Birdstep, Coherity, eXcelon, IBM, Ipedo, IXIASoft, Microsoft, Neocore, Oracle, Progress Software, Sybase, Software AG, TeraText, X-Hive, Xyleme, and XYZFind. An executive summary of the report and purchasing information is available at the ZapThink Web site.

(http://www.zapthink.com)

FatWire Software, a provider of dynamic content management (dCM), has launched its new software product, UE Secure Deploy, a software product designed to improve the security, availability, and scalability of enterprise Web sites and content centric Web applications. An add-on to FatWire's enterprise-level dCM software UpdateEngine, UE Secure Deploy offers advanced support for clustering. FatWire UE Secure Deploy provides advanced security, reliability, and scalability among separate environments while supporting content authoring, workflow, and publishing functionality. UE Secure Deploy is a principle component of the FatWire UpdateEngine ECM Suite. UE Secure Deploy functionality includes: Promote--for advanced production of structured and unstructured content across firewalls; Demote--for faster removal of content and files from production servers; Bulk Promote/Demote--for timed promotion and demotion of groups of content items and files; and Fetch--fast retrieval of content submitted by site visitors for processing through workflow.

(http://www.fatwire.com)

Open Text Corporation, provider of Livelink, collaboration and knowledge management software for the enterprise, and Impact Innovations Group have announced their joint efforts in developing a Livelink-based application for the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The application, called the Master Location Register (MLR), has been specifically created for tracking information about the storage location of a significant segment of the important archival records in NARA's custody. An independent federal agency, NARA oversees the management of all federal records and ensures ready access to essential information. Internal to NARA, the MLR places key information regarding the location of archived items at the fingertips of NARA staff. The MLR leverages Livelink's secure information retrieval to enable NARA to enhance customer service and respond more quickly and efficiently to inquiries from government agencies and members of the public. NARA archivists will use the Livelink-based MLR to locate and track the physical movement of textual holdings in its two primary locations, Washington, DC and College Park, MD, which house in excess of 1,606,000 cubic feet of records. Following a request for information, NARA archivists will be able to use the MLR to quickly search for the physical location of the relevant resource and determine physical space usage to plan and manage the physical movement of records.

(http://www.opentext.com), (http://www.opentext.com/livelink)

Mergent, Inc., a provider of global business and financial information, announced that on January 6, 2003, it would release Mergent Online, its new flagship product. Mergent Online will replace Mergent¹s FISonline, a Web-based source for business and financial information. The company says Mergent Online will include the same information, reports, and services that its clients have come to expect. However, company CEO Jonathan Worrall has emphasized that Mergent Online is not a new and improved FISonline; it will be a completely new product with a substantial amount of additional content and new features. The company¹s rollout plans include face-to-face training, extended customer service hours and parallel service to make the transition to Mergent Online as smooth as possible for its FISonline clients.

Mergent Online will provide customers with a fully searchable database of approximately 15,000 U.S. and 20,000 non-U.S. companies. Its key enhancements include: Cross-border searching across multiple databases on a variety of financial and text variables; Customized viewing and output for retrieving precise information ; The ability to save search criteria for future reference; Labeling and tracking features; Capability to export company reports into Microsoft Word or view PDF files; and The ability to compare reports on multiple companies. New content includes:Fifteen years of detailed corporate financial statements; Current financials by business and geographic segments; Extensive bankruptcy, reorganization, merger and acquisition information for 6,000 companies; and Access to over 125,000 corporate annual reports, including more than 45,000 from U.S. companies and 8,000 from non-U.S. firms. Other key features include access to news items, government filings, institutional holdings and insider trading information, as well as Mergent¹s rich textual company descriptions and histories. Also available as an option are Mergent FactSheets, concise presentation-quality one-page company reports. Mergent Online will be available in a customizable format, allowing clients to choose modules according to their needs.

(http://www.mergent.com)

Inmagic, Inc., a provider of content and information management software and services, has announced the release of a Spanish version of DB/Text WebPublisher 5.2, an integrated database system that provides organizations the capability to store, search, and obtain information--text, multimedia, and images--on the Web. Also available is the Spanish version of DB/Text WebPublisher Lite, a single database version of DB/Text WebPublisher. Similarly, French versions of DB/Text WebPublisher and WebPublisher Lite were released in May 2002. International versions of DB/Text WebPublisher and DB/Text WebPublisher Lite are available now. Information and demos are available directly from Inmagic.

(http://www.inmagic.com)

The Annapolis Group, an organization of liberal arts colleges, has announced the launch of a news portal, using Ingeniux Content Management System (CMS). The site brings together current research, news, commentary and information from 112 liberal arts colleges across the nation. The news portal seeks to increase the visibility of the nation's liberal arts colleges and to promote the value of a residential liberal arts education. The Annapolis Group selected Ingeniux CMS because it allows non-technical staff, such as public relations directors, at each college to publish their news and information directly to the Web from their institutions. With member colleges dispersed across the nation, the Annapolis Group faced huge training expenses unless contributors could quickly and effectively publish online. Ingeniux Content Management System's ease of use allowed for streamlined content aggregation from all 112 organizations that contribute to collegenews.org.

(http://www.collegenews.org), (http://www.ingeniux.com)

Endeavor Information Systems and has announced the selection of ENCompass, Endeavor's digital management, organization, and linking tool for the University of Auckland's University Library. ENCompass will provide resource management and discovery options to accompany the Library's July purchase of the LinkFinderPlus advanced linking system and 1998 purchase of the Voyager integrated library management system. The library will employ ENCompass at several levels. ENCompass will enhance LEARN, the library's online gateway to over 350 databases, 13,000+ ebooks, and 55, 000+ ejournals and the Voyager catalog. LEARN consists of an estimated 5,000 Web pages and is not always intuitive to resource discovery because of the increasingly long Web pages of bulleted information. The Library recognized the need for a better way for students and staff to find and use electronic resources. ENCompass is intended to be a search engine to underpin LEARN. The library aims to roll out ENCompass in phases with the initial federated search functionality available for use in the first semester of the 2003 school year.

(http://www.endinfosys.com)

IONA, an ebusiness platform provider for Web Services Integration, and Altova, a provider of XML development tools, have announced a strategic partnership that will include the bundling of Altova's XMLSPY 5 with IONA's Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform--XMLBus Edition. IONA's Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform--XMLBus Edition provides a software infrastructure platform for the development, deployment, integration, and management of secure Web services to support the integration of business applications within the enterprise. Altova's XMLSPY 5 Suite supports the visual design, editing, and validation of XML documents, WSDL, XML schema, and XSLT style sheets. Using these products together, a software developer can create and deploy Web services using either legacy code written in CORBA, EJB, or Java through the use of WSDL auto-generation utilities, or develop a new Web service application using visual tools for building WSDL and XML Schema. The IONA Orbix E2A XMLBus Edition v5.4 and Altova XMLSPY 5 product bundle is available immediately for purchase at the Altova Online Shop on the Web. The product bundling includes XMLSPY 5 Enterprise Edition and a one-year development license for the Orbix E2A XMLBus Edition v. 5.4 for a discounted price of $1399. After completing the order information, customers will receive a product key via email that can then be used to activate the product bundle. A free trial version of XMLSPY Enterprise Edition is also available.

(http://www.altova.com), (http://www.iona.com)

RedDot Solutions, a provider of enterprise content management solutions, has announced the integration of its content management solution with Mazda Canada's corporate Web site. The new approach will transfer control and management of online content to internal Mazda personnel. The Mazda deal through non-linear creations inc., a reseller and service provider of RedDot's Content Management Server (CMS), becomes non-linear's largest implementation of the solution to date. In addition to streamlining content management for Mazda, non-linear creations inc. assisted in the design and build of the company's new 2003 Showroom pages. They also implemented a workflow procedure that is designed to ensure a smoother content approval process throughout the Mazda head office.

(http://www.mazda.ca), (http://www.nonlinear.ca), (http://www.reddot.com)