XML and Web Services In The News - 01 September 2005

Plenty of Choice in Open-Source CMS
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
There are dozens of Linux distributions, but only one Linux. There are over a dozen open-source Web servers, but only one Apache. When it comes to content management systems, however, there are over a hundred choices, and there is no market leader. And, unlike Linux, where the distributions are variations on a single theme, most CMSes (content management systems) are quite incompatible with each other and take very different routes to achieve the goal of making complex Web sites manageable. CMS Watch, the leading Web-based portal on CMSes, was first built on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) using the Midgard open- source CMS. When picking an open-source CMS, it would be a very good idea to have programmers on staff who can handle the language it's written in. There is some potential good news from the viewpoint of users, rather than developers. There is now an effort under way by the OpenUsability Project to bring "common User Interface Guidelines for Content Management Systems to provide a reasonable level of consistency to specific areas of the UI and promote good interface design." Examples: JSR-170, PHP-Nuke, PostNuke, Midgard, Plone, Zope, Typo3, OpenCMS and eZ... Fortunately, since open-source software can be freely tried, the wise Web administrator should first determine which CMSes look best for his use, and then test out the best two or three. Then, he'll be able to make the right choice.
See also: OpenUsability - CMS

OASIS Hosts Webinar for ebXML Registry 3.0 Standard
Staff and OASIS ebXML Registry TC Chairs, Announcement
The OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee has announced a public Webinar event to provide information about how the ebXML Registry enables secure, federated information management within and across enterprises. The Webinar will be held twice on Thursday, 15 Sept 2005, covering the ebXML Registry v3.0 OASIS Standard: "How to Publish, Manage, Govern, Discover, and Reuse Artifacts for eBusiness, SOA, and Other Applications." The presenters include James Bryce Clark (Director of Standards Development, OASIS), Kathryn Breininger (Central Project Manager, Boeing Library Services), Farrukh Najmi (Sun Microsystems), and Carl Mattocks (MetLife). The ebXML Registry provides the functionality needed to manage electronic artifacts for SOA including WSDL, XML Schema, BPEL, e-business and other process descriptions, ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profiles and Core Components, as well as application-specific artifacts. This OASIS Standard promotes service discovery and interoperability, while enabling secure, efficient sharing, reuse, and version control of artifacts. ebXML Registry can also be implemented for event or information asset registry and repository. In fact, any requirement you have for describing and registering items of interest to an organization can be accomplished with ebXML Registry.
See also: The news story

Microsoft Pitches ESB Alternative: BizTalk Server and Indigo
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
ESB (enterprise service bus) technology as a category of its own has been gaining increasing numbers of followers lately. Microsoft, however, isn't one of them, according to a position paper that the company recently published. Instead, the software giant is positioning its BizTalk Server integration and process server and its planned Indigo Web services technology as its solution in the ESB space. Microsoft doesn't believe ESB is a stand-alone product category but "customers looking to purchase an ESB will find that Microsoft offers a significant superset of ESB functionality... ESB does not meet all the needs of users," said Scott Woodgate, group product manager in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft and a co-author of the position paper. Usually viewed as a mechanism to provide Web services-based application integration in SOA environments, companies such as Sonic Software, Cape Clear Software, and BEA Systems are offering an ESB. But Microsoft characterizes an ESB as ambiguous. BizTalk Server 2004 enables decoupled integration with a range of systems, including MQSeries, SAP systems, and Web services: "BizTalk Server provides for all the capabilities of traditional ESBs." Business activity monitoring and other related functions also are provided. Indigo, which is now officially being called the WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), is Microsoft's next-generation Web services technology; it offers a framework for secure, reliable and interoperable software based on industry standards.
See also: The paper

More Marketers Get Behind Ad-ID
Zachary Rodgers, ClickZ News
More than 300 advertisers have implemented the XML-based universal ad coding standard known as Ad-ID, according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA). The figure marks a moderate increase over last August [2004], when the backers of the protocol reported Ad-ID was actively in use by approximately 100 marketers. Additionally, 875 companies have registered to use it and 14,000 individual ad codes have been created. Marketers now attaching Ad-IDs to their ads and assets include Allstate, Blockbuster, BMW, Capital One, Coors Brewing Company, Discovery Networks, HBO, Johnson & Johnson, Masterfoods and Procter & Gamble. Ad-ID was proposed several years ago as a means to several marketing workflow and measurement ends. The system enables both the labeling of specific marketing assets and the recording of XML-based metadata about each asset -- such as who created it, and when the ad is scheduled to run. That's initially expected to enable more efficient delivery and billing. Longer-term benefits of the system are expected to be global measurement, cross-media campaign tracking, analysis of advertising ROI, and real-time verification that media ran according to the plan.
See also: AdsML Consortium

Scope of Mobile Web Best Practices
Phil Archer and Ed Mitukiewicz (eds), W3C Working Draft
The W3C Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has released an initial working draft for the "Scope of Mobile Web Best Practices." The WG was chartered to enable the reach of the Web to be easily extended onto mobile devices by providing guidelines, checklists and best practice statements which are easy to comprehend and implement. These, when implemented by a Web site provider will enable the content to be perceived by users on mobile devices, particularly small-screen devices such as PDAs, smart phones and touch-screen devices. The mobile web provides a new medium with new and exciting possibilities. It is in the interests of all the mobile value chain participants, from content author to end user, to minimize the impact of any fixed vs. mobile differences and maximize the benefits of all the similarities. The BPWG does not intend to force content authors to limit the scope of their content delivery only to those mechanisms which are currently available on mobile devices: the guidelines produced are meant to enable content to be displayed as correctly as possible on a range of devices -- either directly or, if and where necessary, assisted by some server, client or third-party adaptation mechanism which is transparent to the end user.
See also: Mobile Web Initiative

Ariba Adapter Opens Global Supplier Network
Renee Boucher Ferguson, eWEEK
Spend-management software developer Ariba has announced new software and services that enable users of procurement software from other vendors to link into the company's namesake supplier network. Ariba Inc.'s new Supplier Connectivity Adapter is geared primarily toward users of SAP AG and Oracle Corp. ERP (enterprise resource planning) software who would like to connect into Ariba's Supplier Network, but who are not standardized on Ariba's Buyer platform. The Ariba Supplier Network provides global supplier directories that enable users to manage trading partner relationships. Suppliers can register their capabilities, post and manage their catalogs on the network, and electronically manage their transactions with buyers. For transaction management, the network enables buyers to send purchase orders, change orders and order cancellations through the network to be routed to the appropriate suppliers, who can submit acknowledgements, invoices and other workflow information in return. One key feature of the adapter is the conversion of ERP documents to cXML [Commerce Extensible Markup Language] documents, which lets buyers and suppliers more easily share information on the network. The adapter can be customized to meet users' specific system requirement, and testing and certification services from Ariba are in place to help the customizations function correctly. The Ariba Supplier Network is available in two phases to non-Ariba users. The order management capability, which includes purchase order routing, is currently available. An invoicing capability that enables electronic invoicing and settlement between buyers and suppliers will be available soon.

Desktop Search Gets Down to Business: dtSearch, Google, ISYS, X1
Mike Heck, InfoWorld
Reviewer: "I looked at enterprise products from dtSearch, ISYS Search Software, and X1 Technologies, along with Google's Desktop Search, which has recently been outfitted with corporate features. I checked the breadth of file types, total number of documents, and systems that each enterprise product indexes, as well as how each accomplishes this. Accuracy is of utmost importance, of course, along with usability. The end-user experience is not, however, just about forming queries and displaying readable results; the operational side, which includes the building and sharing of indexes, is equally significant. I also considered what lies beneath, such as the index size and system resources consumed. Given that IT staff resources come at a premium, I examined how customizable each product is, and whether rollouts and updates could be performed with existing software management tools. Security is paramount even when these search tools are used within a corporate firewall: desktop search applications should respect Windows authentication and related permissions, such as log-ins to file servers, Web sites, applications, and local workstations. Each performed searches quickly, produced similar results, and didn't have any major security issues, but if you expand beyond the client desktop, some differences surface."