In brief

Making e-learning a breeze

Macromedia has launched an e-learning tool that promises to deliver enhanced online conferencing and web communications, which users can access instantly.
Breeze 5, the latest version of the company’s popular solution, has a simple and intuitive user interface and provides online communications that can be accessed through the widely-used Flash Player. Its features include voice-over IP, on-demand video, and real-time, multi-point video conferencing.
A variety of innovations, such as multi-course curriculum management, full-screen video and enhanced tracking and reporting, will help trainers deliver more engaging training.
www.macromedia.com

Alliance to deliver blended e-learning to Asia Pacific

Enterprise training software specialist, Software Training Technology (STT) has formed a strategic alliance with Nasia, the Singapore-based, business and government learning solutions provider.
A main focus of the alliance, which will cover Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzen, Hong Kong and Malaysia, will be STT’s expansion into the Asian market – a drive that Nasia will support by localising the software company’s service and product offerings.
Nasia’s current blended learning solution will be further enhanced with the addition of an STT authoring tool, which will enable more rapid development of simulations, documentation and help files.
www.stt-global.com
www.nasiagroup.com

Speed-trap and APR Smartlogik join forces

E-business intelligence company, speed-trap Limited has announced an original-equipment-manufacturer agreement with APR Smartlogik.
Under the terms of the agreement, speed-trap’s Search Intelligence tool will be integrated within Smartlogik Semaphore, giving the solution additional capabilities to carry out analysis and performance monitoring.
The enhanced version will be marketed as Semaphore Pulse.
www.speed-trap.com

Analysts name EMC as number one storage provider

Gartner has named EMC as the number one provider of storage management software for the sixth consecutive year, based on its new license revenue throughout 2004. The software firm gained the most revenue share, seeing off competition from nine vendors.
Over the past year, EMC has extended its worldwide market lead by more than two percentage points – achieving a 29.5 per cent new license revenue market share. This revenue grew 21.2 per cent during the year, nearly twice the market growth rate of 12.3 per cent.
www.emc.com

Mediasurface finds its Silverbullet

Mediasurface has announced that it will acquire the Netherlands-based software company, Class-Act Bv.
The deal will encompass intellectual property rights for the Dutch firm’s Silverbullet content-management product, along with the services of its authors, and is said to be worth around 400,000 euros.
The acquisition of the low-cost Silverbullet product, in addition to its own Morello solution, could also extend Mediasurface’s position in both the low and high-end markets for content-management applications.
Silverbullet, which is expected to be re-named within the Mediasurface brand, will continue to be developed in line with the marketplace it addresses, but will be available only as a rental solution. Morello will only be offered as a licensed product.
www.mediasurface.com

Tridion on the crest of the Forrester Wave

Forrester Research has positioned European content-management-solutions provider, Tridion as a leader in web-content management (WCM) for external sites in its report, Forrester’s Wave: Web Content Management Q1 2005.
Nine WCM vendors were assessed for the study, through hands-on lab tests and the evaluation of 194 criteria in the current offering, product strategy and market presence areas.
Tridion was found to be the ‘leader’ in WCM for external sites (internet and extranet), and a ‘strong performer’ in the internal (intranet) category.
The report also shows that European companies now lead the pack for external WCM – a market that has previously been dominated by American technology firms.
Forrester’s Wave can be viewed, in full, at www.tridion.com.

Compliance keeps storage industry on its toes

A survey has found that compliance with regulations has a high or fairly significant impact on the storage strategies of 87 per cent of the organisations that responded.
The study was conducted by organisers of the Storage-Expo 2005 event, and canvassed the opinions of 493 different companies.
Another key area is back-up and recovery, which 93 per cent of respondents cited as important to their data protection strategy.
“Other reasons to invest in data storage are business continuity and disaster recovery,” said Claire Sellick, event director for Storage-Expo 2005. “Without adequate back-up solutions, which have been tested, a major system crash could jeopardise the future of any organisation.”
www.storage-expo.com

APR Smartlogik powers council website

Worthing Borough council in the UK has adopted technology from APR Smartlogik to help improve the services available to the public on its website.
Smartlogik’s Semaphore solution will be deployed to structure and classify the sites underlying content, allowing for improved search capabilities and compliance with e-government standards for online information delivery.
In preparation for local e-government deadlines next December, all councils are required to metatag their shared electronic resources using controlled vocabulary taken from the Local Government Category List – a process that is greatly simplified through the use of Semaphore, which re-classifies documents and other content automatically.
The council is part of a countywide, customer-relationship-management project that offers local information to residents online, through a network of help points.
www.aprsmartlogik.com