XML and Web Services In The News - 25 January 2005

Consulting Firm Tackles Federal XML Registry
Joab Jackson, Government Computer News
Extensible Markup Language (XML) consulting firm Starbourne Communications Design is tackling a job that agency XML advocates have long lobbied for, but have never gotten the funding to execute: building a central registry of federal XML schemas. At its own expense, the Berkeley, Calif.-based company will collect schemas from both the FirstGov Web site and the Global Justice XML Data Model and Data Dictionary and then make them available through a portal, according to Rex Brooks, founder and president of Starbourne. Eventually, the collected schemas could be used as the basis for developing a federal dictionary of descriptive XML terms. Brooks spoke, by telephone, at the monthly meeting of the Federal CIO Council-sponsored XML Community of Practice group, held last week. Starbourne hopes to present a working prototype of a registry to the group, during its March 16 [2005] meeting. A federal registry could be useful in that it could standardize the schema terminology that the federal government uses for its XML documents. A schema describes the structure of an XML document, including terms that described each element in that document. The idea of building a federal XML registry is not a new one, though previous efforts have been thwarted by lack of funding. In 2002, GSA's Office of Governmentwide Policy contracted with Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. of McLean, Va., to develop a business case for building a registry for the entire government.

Microsoft Turns to Elixir for Office Boost
Ina Fried, CNETAsia News
An effort, code-named Project Elixir, will take shape later this year as a way to promote Microsoft's Outlook e-mail and contact program, with some additional fields, as a tool for viewing customer relationship data. Eventually, the plan could help the software giant elbow its way further into the customer relationship management market, where Siebel Systems, Oracle and SAP dominate. The idea of creating programs that make Office more than just a collection of desktop applications is not a new one. Microsoft has been pursuing such a strategy for a few years. Among its first efforts was trying to make Excel 2002 a tool that could be used to analyze a broad array of company data using XML. "We saw the beginnings with XML in Excel 2002, but it really came through with the release of Office System 2003," Silver said. In Office 2003 Microsoft added the program InfoPath, which uses XML to shuttle documents throughout different parts of a company's business processes, moving the data among different software programs as well. InfoPath made it possible to do things like Elixir, but it also requires companies to do a lot of investment on their own to link Office with their business processes. With Elixir, Microsoft aims to offer tools that make it far easier.

Lifting the Lid: XBRL Seen Easing Financial Analysis
Daniel Sorid and Joel Rothstein, Reuters/ComputerWorld
The day when stock investors scan corporate results with computer software to make immediate buy-and-sell decisions may be close at hand. After agonizingly slow progress, a computer language of business reporting called XBRL appears to be on the verge of wider adoption, its backers say. XBRL could have major implications on the speed at which hedge fund managers and other investors make trading decisions, making accounting shenanigans more readily apparent and potentially increasing stock price volatility. XBRL, which stands for Extensible Business Reporting Language, consists of thousands of "tags" that correspond to items on financial reports, including balance sheets and income statements, making corporate filings understandable by a computer. The technology has won support from major accounting firms and investor relations groups and has even gained a preliminary nod from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has proposed a voluntary program for XBRL. Yet after five years of pushing, only a handful of companies have committed to publishing their results in XBRL.
See also: XBRL references

Datapower Adds Virtualisation With XS40 Update
Paul Roberts, ComputerWorld
New software features from XML (Extensible Markup Language) network hardware maker DataPower Technology allow customers using its XS40 XML Security Gateway to create virtual XML gateways on a single device and make it easier to set up Web-service security policies, the company said. DataPower released firmware version 3.1 for the XS40 on Monday. The new software will make it easier for companies to manage more than one Web-service deployment from a single XS40 gateway, said Eugene Kuznetsov, chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) at DataPower. DataPower's products are designed to process network-traffic information rendered using XML, a standard used to display, transmit and interpret data that is passed to and from Web pages. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, company's XS40 gateway appliance is designed to filter and validate XML traffic, spotting potential attacks hidden in the XML traffic, encrypting and decrypting XML messages or data elements and validating XML documents. The new device virtualisation feature allows administrators to create many, virtual XS40s to protect Web services deployments on a single corporate intranet or extranet.
See also: the announcement

Rambus Files New Memory Suit
Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com
Just when memory makers thought it was safe to go back into the water, Rambus files another lawsuit. The Los Altos, Calif.-based chip designer announced on Tuesday that it had filed suit against Hynix Semiconductor, Taiwan's Nanya Technology and Infineon Technologies, as well as the latter two companies' joint venture, Inotera Memories, for allegedly violating its intellectual property in producing DDR2 DRAM, which started to get incorporated into PCs last year. Rambus has pending suits against Infineon, Hynix and Micron that allege that DDR DRAM -- the most common type of memory used in PCs for the last several years -- produced by these companies violates its intellectual property. These companies, in turn, have filed countersuits alleging that the patents are invalid and were obtained fraudulently. After a series of early trial setbacks, Rambus has racked up some notable wins in court against Infineon and Hynix. If the patents are upheld, analysts believe that Rambus could be entitled to billions in royalties and licensing fees. If claims for royalties on DDR2 memory are upheld, Rambus will be entitled to even more money. Several companies outside of the four identified defendants in the new lawsuit make DDR2, GDDR2 and GDDR3.

W3C Web Services Recommendations Support Faster Binary Data Transmission.
XML Cover Pages
Three new W3C Recommendations improve Web services performance by standardizing the transmission of large binary data. "XML-binary Optimized Packaging" (XOP) defines an efficient serialization of XML element content based on XML Infosets. "SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism" (MTOM) uses XOP to enable SOAP bindings that optimize a transmission. "Resource Representation SOAP Header Block" (RRSHB) allows SOAP message recipients to access cached resources.