Epicentric's portal targets 'intelligent' Web services

SAN FRANCISCO - Portal software vendor Epicentric is partnering with digital content provider NewsEdge to create a "smart portal" that automatically assembles relevant content for users so they don't have to dig for information manually.

The technology, which is embedded into Epicentric's portal server, categorizes content and data, and retrieves only information that is relevant, says Ed Anuff, Epicentric's co-founder and chief strategy officer.

The portal is a user interface that combines a business's digital resources, internally and externally, and presents those resources based on user roles. Epicentric uses a Java-based framework that integrates a range of applications.

What Epicentric couldn't do, however, was tie applications and resources together in real time so that users would be presented with only information they needed. That's where NewsEdge steps in, Anuff says. Epicentric began working with NewsEdge last year to create a technology to allow disparate applications, content and data to interact with each other.

While other vendors such as Autonomy and Semio can do categorization of content and applications, Epicentric is doing something a little different, says Larry Hawes, an analyst with Delphi Group.

"What's new is they're applying it to the Web services model that's emerging, where these services are served by an application server," he says. "What Epicentric is doing is defining a way to make them aware of each other and then aggregating content from all of these different services."

Users won't have to personalize each Web service or application separately, Hawes says; the personalization will apply to all the data sources that are offered as Web services.

Web services are software components designed for the Internet and built on open technologies such as Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). UDDI defines a universal registry of resources, and SOAP exchanges XML-based messages from one business application to another over the Web.

The technology unveiled last week by Epicentric and NewsEdge, called Contextual Interaction, is similar to UDDI, "but that's an open standard as opposed to this semiproprietary scheme that Epicentric and NewsEdge have come up with," Hawes says.

NewsEdge uses a classification system that combines patented technology and human editorial review to deliver highly targeted content from more than 2,000 sources, says David Scott, a NewsEdge vice president.

Contact Senior Writer Jennifer Mears

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