Sacramento, CA, August 17 2007: After several beta releases, the Webswell Connect 2.1, an open source SOA, ebxml and AS2 integration tool, has been released. Compared to previous versions the new release has the following new features:

1. It includes HSQLDB as a alternative database system to the PostgreSQL. Both databases are available out-of-the-box.
2. Included Webswell Dispatcher 1.1.22. has improved handling of AS2 and ebxml Registry Repository messages. It was also optimized to work much faster.
3. Upgraded installer with improved MS Windows installation process.

Webswell Connect is a complete framework for e-business based on the ebXML, AS2 and SOA standards. It is used as an integration framework for heterogeneous business environments and for integration of incompatible legacy systems. With its messaging and Registry features it is a basic building block of SOA architecture implementation. Webswell Connect is an open source software, licensed under GNU GPL. Commercial technical support is available athttp://www.webswell.com About Webswell: Webswell Inc. is a company specialized in building EDI, AS2, ebXML, Web Services and SOA integration solutions and providing related consultancy. Webswell's mission is to help companies of any size to build business integration solutions and exploit benefits that such integration provides.

Apache Synapse is a mediation framework for Web services, based on the Apache Axis2 project, a set of XML, security, and Web services related projects and standards. Synapse provides a lightweight service bus and the basic infrastructure for the implementation of a Service Oriented Architecture. In this article, you will learn the basic architecture of Synapse and how to configure it. Synapse supports most of the tasks of a service bus in a SOA. Synapse is inherently extensible even though it is designed to support a large set of useful functions out-of-the-box. The main functions of Synapse can be divided into three major areas: (1) Connect: Connecting systems. Synapse is designed to support connecting systems with different transports with different protocols and Quality of Service (QoS). The protocols/transports that Synapse currently supports include SOAP/HTTP,SOAP/HTTPS, SOAP/JMS, SOAP/SMTP, XML/HTTP, XML/JMS and many more. Synapse offers termination and initiation of QoS tasks like Reliable Messaging and WS Security. Synapse can route messages based on XPath expressions or Regular expressions applied over the message header or content to an endpoint reference. Virtualization is achieved by routing the messages from virtual/logical URIs to real EPRs. (2) Manage: Managing interactions. Synapse supports Failover and Load-balancing to multiple endpoints. In the failover case, there are several sets of endpoints grouped as a failover group. When a particular endpoint fails to deliver the message, Synapse will try to deliver the message to other endpoints in the group. During load-balancing, Synapse will balance the load among the load-balancing endpoint group depending on the algorithm provided for load-balancing. Synapse also lets you trace the messages flowing in the enterprise by enabling tracing in the mediation. Authorization and authentication tasks for an organization can be delegated to Synapse through mediation, by using WS Security. (3) Transform: Transforming messages. Synapse can be used for message transformations through mediation with various languages, including most of the scripting languages, with the Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) and most importantly with XSLT. Apart from that, Synapse offers protocol switching, for example -- SOAP to JMS or XML/HTTP to SOAP. Mediation inside Synapse is designed with care, and there are two possible types of mediations that can happen inside Synapse. They are: (a) Message Mediation -- managing and transforming the messages flowing between the client and a service in an enterprise, and (b) Service Mediation -- Mediating messages coming into a specific service by specifying the target URI as a Synapse mediation service.

Mountain View, California-based Google said the universities of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson, Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State, and Arkansas State have signed up for its free Google Apps Education Edition service, which comprises of email, messaging, online calendars, word processing, and spreadsheets. Registered non-profit organizations now qualify for Google Apps Education Edition at no cost. The five universities join other universities like the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Trinity College in Dublin and Nihon University in Tokyo, who already use Google's applications... The move impacts Microsoft, a company that Google is going after in the applications space and also battling with over online advertising and other web-based services. Microsoft has its headquarters in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, which is stone's throw away from Google's three new office buildings located in neighboring Kirkland. This adds to the existing engineering office that Google has in the city, which employs roughly 400 people. It also has a 30-man sales office in the area as well. In May Google also subleased 60,000 square feet of office space in Fremont, another suburb of Seattle.

W3C has issued a renewed call for papers in connection with the Workshop on Next Steps for XML Signature and XML Encryption, to be held September 25-26, 2007 in Mountain View, California, hosted by VeriSign. Position papers are due 14-August-2007. Workshop Chairs include Frederick Hirsch (Nokia; Chair, XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group, W3C) and Thomas Roessler (W3C Security Activity Lead). Workshop attendees will discuss next steps for the XML Signature and XML Encryption specifications and share their experiences implementing and developing these standards. Topics may include interoperability and robustness, performance, legal requirements for digital signature formats, and the impact of the evolving XML environment. The Workshop is expected to give its recommendations to the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group. The Workshop is free free and open to all; however, submission of position papers is required of all participants. In conjunction with the workshop, the XML Security Specifications Maintenance Working Group will hold an interop test on 27-September-2007 to test C14N11 (Canonical XML 1.1) and XML Signature Core. See also Canonical XML 1.1:

Companies have completed the first phase of a Microsoft Corp.-sponsored project to convert Microsoft Word documents between Open XML and Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications file formats. According to the Microsoft announcement, "OpenXML Translator (ODF Add-in for Word) Release 1.0 supports the current industry-standard document formats of both Open XML and ODF. It has been tested on Microsoft Office 2007, Office 2003 and Office XP and has been localized into Dutch, French, German and Polish. In addition, Novell has announced that the Translator will be natively implemented in its next version of OpenOffice. The completed Open XML Translator enables conversion of documents from one format to the other and is available for anyone to download and use at no cost. When plugged into Microsoft Office Word, for example, the Translator provides customers with the choice to open and save documents in ODF rather than the native Open XML format. The Translator may also be plugged into competing word processing programs that use ODF as the default format to open and save documents in Open XML. Microsoft Corp. announced its support for the open source project to build a technical bridge between Open XML and ODF in July 2006 to provide interoperability between formats. Since inception, it has remained among the 30 most active projects on SourceForge.net and has been downloaded more than 50,000 times." Microsoft funded the work on the translator but did not contribute any code to the project, according to Jason Matusow, senior director of intellectual property and interoperability at Microsoft. The company provided architectural guidance and management to the project. A French company called CleverAge contributed the code and built most of the Open XML Translator, while Aztecsoft Ltd. in India and Dialogika in Germany did the quality assurance and testing.

The W3C Forms Working Group has published a Proposed Edited Recommendation (PER) for "XForms 1.0 (Third Edition)." The document responds to implementor feedback, brings the XForms 1.0 Recommendation up to date with second edition errata, and reflects clarifications already implemented in XForms processors. Comments on the PER are welcome through 31-August-2007. Forms are an important part of the Web, and they continue to be the primary means for enabling interactive Web applications. Web applications and electronic commerce solutions have sparked the demand for better Web forms with richer interactions. XForms 1.0 is the response to this demand, and provides a new platform-independent markup language for online interaction between a person (through an XForms Processor) and another, usually remote, agent. XForms separates presentation and content, minimizes the need for scripting and round-trips to the server, and offers device independence. XForms is not a free-standing document type, but is intended to be integrated into other markup languages, such as XHTML or SVG.See more details...