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Product Briefs

Stylus Studio 4.5
eXcelon Corp., which is in the process of being acquired by Progress Software, has announced the latest release of its Stylus Studio XSLT integrated development environment (IDE).

The product allows developers to generate XSLT stylesheets automatically from HTML pages, providing advanced debugging support, including XSLT debugging for SAXON and .NET processors. Developers in these environments can now access the full debugging and back-mapping capabilities of Stylus Studio. Stylus Studio 4.5 also includes an XQuery editor, XQuery debugger and XQuery processor to allow developers to build and debug applications with intelligent XML search capabilities. An automatic schema documentation generation editor reduces overhead associated with documenting XML schema. This new feature works like 'javadoc' to produce full documentation for XML schema documents, which is said to make complex XML schema documents more comprehensible to all members of the development team.

Pricing for Stylus Studio 4.5 starts at $399 for a single-user license.
eXcelon Corp., Burlington, Mass ., www.exln.com


M7 Application Assembly Platform, Version 2.0
The latest version of the M7 Application Assembly Platform features an enterprise object repository that allows objects to be reused without requiring expert knowledge of their implementation. The product is available from M7 Corp. Inc.

Version 2.0 enables seamless integration of Web services into new apps. Once a Web service is defined, it can be reused like any other object in the system. Business logic and application workflow can be defined and maintained using visual tools. The visual workflow editor provides full access to the enterprise object repository data across objects, workflow operations and business rules. A visual site inspector allows for the examination of uses and dependencies in the application, as well as the monitoring of workflow status, broken links and orphaned files. Also included is support for custom libraries, JSP 2.0 support and support for leading J2EE application servers, including BEA WebLogic 7.0, IBM WebSphere 4.0 and JBoss 2.4.

Contact the company for pricing information.
M7 Corp. Inc., Cupertino, Calif., www.m7.com


TimesTen Real-Time Event Processing System V4.5
TimesTen Inc. has released Version 4.5 of its TimesTen Real-Time Event Processing System. The system enables applications to process massive transaction volumes and respond instantly to requests.

The main enhancements in Version 4.5 include a doubling of throughput for distributed, replicated configurations; increased sophistication and performance for event notifications; and an RDBMS adapter for extending TimesTen's real-time performance to Oracle data. Version 4.5 also adds a materialized view feature to which TimesTen's existing event notification API can be attached, giving users the ability to more easily define and monitor sophisticated events occurring within the system. In addition, Version 4.5 adds a sequence number generator to guarantee unique key values; performance increases on multi-row read, update, insert and delete operations; and dynamic replication reconfiguration.

TimesTen Real-Time Event Processing System Version 4.5 supports Sun Solaris, Linux, Windows, HP-UX, IBM AIX and LynxOS.
TimesTen Inc., Mountain View., Calif., www.timesten.com


FileMaker Mobile Companion for the Palm OS
FileMaker Mobile Companion for the Palm OS (Multilingual version) is now available from FileMaker Inc.

The new release allows users to transfer and synchronize data between FileMaker Pro 5.5 V2 databases on desktop computers and Palm OS handhelds. Users can select and load the FileMaker data they require from their desktop computer to the Palm OS handheld. Later, the data on the handheld may be synchronized with the desktop database via Palm HotSpot technology. Users may transfer up to 50 fields per record from a desktop FileMaker Pro 5.5 V2 database to a Palm OS handheld.

The new FileMaker Mobile 2 must be used with FileMaker Pro 5.5 V2, and is priced at $49 (single-unit price). FileMaker Mobile 1 registered users are entitled to a free downloadable upgrade to FileMaker Mobile 2. (Please go to http://www.filemaker.com/products/mbl_home.html for more details.)
FileMaker Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., www.filemaker.com


NXTier Services
Mitem Corp. has released NXTier Services, which extend Mitem View's application integration capabilities by adding support for a wider range of new devices and applications.

NXTier Services comprise software components that install on the target system and new Mitem View server-side functionality that enhances their connectivity. These components, called Delegates, are lightweight and expose a simple interface that is said to be easy to configure and maintain.

Mitem offers Microsoft COM, Pure Java and 'C' reference (Wi32) implementations of NXTier Services. Mitem has ported the NXTier Services Runtime to multiple platforms, including Windows, Unix and selected handheld devices running Windows CE.
Mitem Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., www.mitem.com


Project Office Connector for Microsoft Project
Project Office Connector for Microsoft Project enables users to publish information between Project Office and Microsoft Project plans for a total closed-loop Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution. The product is available from Pacific Edge Software.

Project Office Connector enables customers to implement a closed-loop solution that provides data updates between products. With the solution, users are assured that their portfolio data is always current and relevant. The Project Office Connector supports Microsoft Project versions 98/2000/2002; it also features standard Project Management Extensible Markup Language (PMXML)-based connectivity.
Pacific Edge Software, Bellevue, Wash., www.pacificedge.com


IBM's new tools support Eclipse
IBM has shipped new software tools -- built on the Eclipse open-source platform -- that support its entire portfolio of middleware.

The new tools work with IBM's software for deploying, securing and managing e-business data and applications, such as those for Web services. Specifically, the tools support WebSphere, Lotus Domino, CrossWorlds, DB2, Tivoli, MQ and IBM eServer iSeries. The plug-ins integrate the functions of IBM's middleware tools into WebSphere Studio, providing a single, unified ''portal-like'' experience for developing, testing, performance tuning and debugging. Developers can customize their application development environments for specific projects, enjoying consistent capabilities and flexibility.
IBM, Vienna, Va., www.ibm.com


FrontierSuite for Java Data Objects (JDO) Version 1.0
ObjectFrontier Inc. has released FrontierSuite for Java Data Objects (JDO) Version 1.0. The product is a JDO implementation with a JCA-compliant persistence engine and a Model Driven Architecture (MDA)-based development environment for designing, developing, deploying and running JDO applications. The product is said to provide transparent persistence to data using any JDBC-compliant RDBMS as the data store, in both managed and non-managed environments.

FrontierSuite for JDO supports four approaches to building JDO applications: Forward Engineering (using FrontierSuite for JDO), Reverse Engineering (using Frontier ReModeler for JDO), Class Enhancement (using Frontier DeployDirect for JDO) and Bridge Pattern (using Frontier DeployDirect for JDO).

Pricing for the FrontierSuite family of products is as follows: FrontierSuite for JDO is $1,299, FrontierSuite for J2EE is $4,599 and FrontierSuite for J2SE is $2,599. All prices are per developer license, with no runtime or server fees.
ObjectFrontier Inc., Atlanta, Ga., www.objectfrontier.com


Dataphor Data Access Components
Alphora has shipped Dataphor Data Access Components (DAC). The Dataphor DAC is a suite of components and controls that are data-aware by design, rather than merely data bound.

Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, the Dataphor DAC offers advanced manipulation and data binding capabilities not found in the controls that come with Visual Studio .NET. The product offers the ability to switch between SQL Server, Oracle, DB2 or other supported back-end database systems without changing queries; intrinsically data-aware controls that can react intelligently to focus changes, dataset states and formatting; and a component that dynamically reads rows into, and performs updates from, the dataset buffer based on user navigation and demand from the controls. Also included are data-aware user interfaces that can be configured and activated at design time within the Visual Studio .NET environment.

The Dataphor Data Access Components (DAC) are $499 per developer with no royalties for redistribution.
Alphora, Provo, Utah, www.alphora.com


PowerTCP Mail for .NET
Dart Communications has shipped PowerTCP Mail for .NET, the latest addition to Dart's product line that enhances Microsoft's .NET Framework with native classes that send, receive, compose, edit, encode and decode e-mail messages.

PowerTCP Mail for .NET combines POP and SMTP protocols with Dart's ''MessageStream'' technology, which enables the creation and manipulation of basic and complex mail messages without users having to learn the complexities of message decoding/encoding. The bi-directional MessageStream class provides a stream interface that decodes and encodes MIME and non-MIME messages. For authoring, messages are created using the same object model. To make complex message creation even easier, high-level functionality enables the creation of HTML mail with only one line of code.
Dart Communications, Rome, N.Y., www.dart.com


Updates to Marimba Desktop/Mobile Management product family
Marimba Inc. has announced a series of new releases to its Desktop/Mobile Management product family.

Flexible policy management capabilities now enable targeted scheduling to pre-determine how and when software applications and updates are distributed, installed, repaired and removed. A browser-based reporting tool, called Report Center, provides a management portal with built-in reports that correlate application deployment logs with inventory information. And infrastructure enhancements leverage a Web-centric, J2EE-based architecture to simplify the installation, configuration and management of Marimba's change management products.
Marimba Inc., Mountain View, Calif., www.marimba.com


InstallShield Update Service
InstallShield Software Corp. has announced InstallShield Update Service, a subscription-based Web service that allows ISVs and IT enterprises to deliver immediate updates of software applications, content and data files to consumers, business customers and corporate end users through a software updating platform.

In addition, the Update Service has been fully integrated with the InstallShield Developer 7 installation-authoring solution. This new integration provides existing customers with instant access to flexible update capabilities directly from within the IDE. This enables developers to implement native update functionality during the development phase. In addition, developers no longer have to manually market and 'push out' updates to customers whenever a new release, promotion, update or fix is available.

The InstallShield Update Service can be used with any of InstallShield's authoring products, including InstallShield Express and InstallShield Professional. Install Developer customers can begin using the integrated service by simply clicking on the Update Service button from within the IDE (Version 7.03 or higher). Pricing starts at $699 per 5,000 endpoints.
InstallShield Software, Schaumburg, Ill., www.installshield.com


e-Work Version 5.3
Metastorm has added support for Adobe Acrobat and other third-party software in the latest release of its business process management software, e-Work.

Version 5.3 allows users to view and complete Adobe PDF forms as part of an e-Work procedure, or employ them to initiate an automated process. The latest edition also supports new editions of software that integrate with e-Work: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Internet Information Server Version 5.1, Oracle9i and Microsoft Outlook 2002.

Version 5. 3 also supports the e-Work Accelerator for Microsoft BizTalk, lightweight directory access protocol for Microsoft Active Directory, enhanced XML/XSL integration tools, and support for SMTP mail, Web services, Novell GroupWise 6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.
Metastorm, Severna Park, Md., www.metastorm.com


Compuware DevPartner Studio
Compuware Corp. is shipping new functionality for analyzing distributed Microsoft-based applications.

Compuware DevPartner Studio now has a distributed analyzer that provides vital information on application readiness by locating problems and performance issues early in the development life cycle. This functionality is said to effectively trace the transactions of an application as it executes across multiple systems. Designed for developers and testers who are building multitiered, Web-based distributed applications, the distributed analyzer uses this insight to make recommendations for taking corrective action on errors, performance issues and design problems in distributed apps.

DevPartner Studio's distributed analyzer supports Windows XP/2000/NT, as well as COM, Internet Explorer, MTS/COM+, IIS, Active Server Pages, client- and server-side scripting, ISAPI and ADO. Additionally, the product's architecture has been designed to drop in support for new technologies such as Microsoft's .NET.
Compuware Corp., Farmington Hills, Mich., www.compuware.com


Total .NET XRef
Total .NET XRef, from FMS, generates cross-reference Microsoft C# and Visual Basic .NET code using an integrated Microsoft Visual Studio .NET parser.

The product performs real-time impact analysis to identify which objects a code change actually affects. Features include an instantly displayed list of every reference to any name defined in code; display of every line of code containing the reference along with its class name, member name, line, column and type of reference; support of C# and Visual Basic .NET code; and the ability to send reference lists to an HTML page for printing, saving or e-mailing at any time.

Total .NET XRef is licensed on a per developer basis. Pricing is $199 per license, $599 for five licenses and $1,999 for 25 licenses.
FMS, Tysons Corner, Va., www.fmsinc.com


Code Co-op Version 3.3
Code Co-op Version 3.3, from Reliable Software, is a version control system for Web and software development.

The product supports on-site and distributed team development by enabling collaboration through e-mail, LAN, VPN or a mix of these. Version 3.3 integrates with Borland Delphi and C++ Builder, Versions 5 and 6. Code Co-op also integrates with Visual Studio .NET and other Microsoft SCC API-compliant development applications.

V3.3 runs on Windows 95/98/ Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP. Automatic e-mail dispatching requires a Simple-MAPI e-mail client like Outlook Express and Eudora, or a MAPI client like Outlook XP and 2002. New licenses are $145 per seat.
Reliable Software, Seattle, Wash., www.relisoft.com