Traction Software Internationalizes Enterprise Weblog Platform with Release 3.0

Traction 3.0 Delivers Internationalization, Authentication, Compatibility, Extensibility for Business and Government Customers around the Globe

Contact:
Dana Harris
Red Javelin Communications, Inc.
978-440-8392
Email: dana@redjavelin.com

Providence, R.I. November 17, 2003 - Traction Software, Inc., the leader in Enterprise Weblog software, today announced the release of Traction® TeamPage Release 3.0. Release 3.0 extends Traction's ease-of-use, simple deployment and a unique permissioned access model with new capabilities, which deliver enhanced productivity, knowledge sharing, communication and collaboration, making Traction the enterprise platform of choice for commercial and government applications. New features include: internationalization, enterprise authentication, a new extensible framework for user interface customization and branding, enterprise search engine compatibility, and enhanced support for standards. The new release of Traction's Instant Publisher Client adds round-trip WYSIWYG editing as well as integrated one-click publishing from Microsoft's Internet Explorer using a new .NET architecture.

"The demand for proven enterprise Weblog solutions for working communication and knowledge sharing within the enterprise is growing rapidly in the U.S and around the world," said Greg Lloyd, President of Traction Software. "Traction 3.0 is designed to give companies and government organizations such as the Department of Defense the ability to easily integrate TeamPage into their enterprise and quickly leverage the benefits it brings to the table."

Traction 3.0 introduces new features all designed to make it the enterprise platform of choice for commercial and government users. These features include:

• Internationalization: The Traction 3.0 platform builds on previous support for capture, search, editing, browsing, automatic email and newsfeed syndication of content that can be encoded using the Unicode (UTF-8) standard, including all Western European, Slavic, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew and other languages. With 3.0, Traction adds; Unicode project names, user names, labels and file names; an Internationalized User Interface, which simultaneously permits forms, buttons and message text to be shown using different locales selected by multiple users; localization that can be performed by Traction, its partners, or customers using Sun Microsystems Java standard resource packaging; Japanese language localization provided by Traction partner Applied Knowledge Systems, Inc.; Western and non-Western language word boundary segmentation using Java's internationalization capabilities to create content indices for mixed as well as single language articles and comments.
• Extensible Authentication: Enterprise customers frequently maintain directories of account names, passwords and role-based permissions using LDAP or Microsoft Active Directory servers. Traction 3.0 introduces an extensible plug-in authentication mechanism that allows external administration of user account names, passwords and role-based permissions. Traction provides executable and Java language source code for LDAP and Active Directory plug-ins, as well as a run-time extensible interface that can be used to interface with micropayment and single sign-on solutions. Support for TLS/SSL encryption and optional X.509 certificate based authentication was introduced with Traction Release 2.5.
• Extensible User Interface (Skins): Traction's new Skin Definition Language (SDL) makes it possible to create a new Traction look and feel using only HTML editing tools. SDL is valuable for customers looking to make Traction work as part of their internal (or external) portal, seamlessly extending the look and feel of existing sites with Traction generated content, links and controls. Traction can serve all skins simultaneously, allowing customers to choose one based on personal preference, or have it chosen automatically based on the browser and device being used. Traction provides five skins with the product, including one that is optimized for Palm OS, Microsoft PocketPC or Blackberry handheld devices. Traction 3.0 introduces a new family of CSS driven skins that provide a simple Web interface that is easily extensible using style sheet control.
• Enterprise Search Engine Compatibility: Enterprise customers frequently want to expose the content of key internal data sources for enterprise wide search and content analysis. Traction 3.0 articles, comments and file attachments can be completely or selectively exposed to spidering by search and data mining engines such as Verity Ultraseek, Google, Tacit Knowledge Systems, Autonomy and Clear Forrest. Each Traction article is independently indexed, making it simple for enterprise search and mining applications to show the title and content of the search hits, and link back to the correct article in Traction. Enterprise search engines work in parallel with the continuously updated international language search engine built into Traction.
• Support for Syndication and Weblog Standards: Traction 3.0 extends interoperability with best of class support for publishing and syndication protocols. Traction supports RSS 2.0 for content syndication, as well as Blogger and MetaWeblog XML-RPC API's for publishing and editing of Traction content using popular blogging and RSS aggregator programs such as NewsGator (Windows), NewsMonster (Mozilla/Firebird - all platforms) and NetNewsWire (MacOS X). Traction provides a plug-in extension to make Traction Instant Publisher V2 work as a publishing extension for the popular NewsGator news aggregator that runs within Microsoft Outlook. Traction makes it easy for readers to create a custom RSS feed from combinations of projects, topic labels, authors and search expressions. Traction 3.0 supports password-protected RSS feed for aggregators that support Basic http: (realm) protection.
• Web Services Standards: Traction supports SOAP bindings (in addition to email and http interfaces) that permit external applications to post automatically generated messages to the Traction server. The SOAP interface includes the ability to post MIME encoded file attachments (graphics, office documents, data files) as well as HTML text. Automatically generated content can include live links to the precise source of business information, geographic location, or any other content that augments the time, author and context information that Traction automatically logs for each article or comment. Traction's wrapper kit can be used to easily create SOAP wrappers for any Journal database, relationship or other function exposed as part of Traction's Java Software Developers Kit (SDK). The wrapper kit and SDK are provided to Traction customers without additional charge.
• Traction Instant Publisher V 2.0: Version 2.0 of the Traction Instant Publisher (TIP V2) is a new .NET implementation of Traction's clip and collect client for Microsoft Windows environments. TIP V2 adds round-trip WYSIWYG editing for Traction articles and comments. Formatting tools include bullet and numbered lists; indented blocks; as bold, italic and underscore styled text; inline graphics and a drag and drop or browse and select file attachment window. TIP V2 includes built-in screen capture that you can use to select and publish any rectangular region of your computer screen, allowing capture of graphics from any Windows application. Users can publish any selected block of text and graphics directly from Microsoft Internet explorer, with automatic HTML cleanup, relative link conversion, and automatic creation of a back-link to the original source. You can copy and paste or drag and drop text from any Windows application.
  

Pricing & Availability
A preview edition of Traction 3.0 is immediately available, with delivery of a final edition in December 2003. Traction TeamPage 3.0 workgroup pricing starts at $4,995 per server. A personal edition - Traction Communicator sells for $249. Traction 3.0 is free to all Traction Customers entitled to receive software updates.

About Traction's TeamPage Enterprise Weblog Software
Traction TeamPage is an easy-to-use powerful solution that allows everyday corporate users to collect, link and organize information from e-mail, the Web, Office and other sources and deliver it organized by time, topic and importance to improve productivity, knowledge sharing, communications and collaboration. Traction's easy to use hypertext journaling system can be used to label, cross-link and deliver relevant content gathered from disparate sources, and plugs into an existing Web infrastructure. Traction's unique Instant Publisher allows users to selected and post text, pictures, links and attachments directly from Internet Explorer, or drag-and-drop content from any Microsoft Windows application.

Users who have been granted permission within TeamPage can update and enrich content, easily adding comments, cross-links, topic labels and action flags. To be kept abreast of news in the Enterprise Weblog, users have real-time web access, and can receive a daily Executive Summary™ email newsletter, which summarizes new information by project and importance, with click through access to the full story.

About Traction Software
Traction Software is the leader in Enterprise Weblog software, delivering easy to use tools for groups and teams to communicate, share, organize and link all-sources information in context. The firm's flagship product, Traction TeamPage™, makes the business internet a writable web that works as easily as email. Traction's pending patent covers the fundamental indexing, cross-reference and navigational elements that jointly make the Traction platform unique. The company distributes its products directly and through global partners. Traction Software was founded in 1996 and is located in Providence, Rhode Island. Investors include In-Q-Tel, The Slater Center for Interactive Technology and private individuals. Learn more at www.tractionsoftware.com.

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Traction is a registered trademark and Traction TeamPage is a trademark of Traction Software, Inc.