Shana Confirms Support For W3C's XForms Data Model

Market Wire, 20050229

Shana Corporation today confirmed its support for the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) recently released working draft of the XForms Data Model.

"The XForms proposals of the W3C mean that our enterprise clients can now have the benefits of XML in a non-proprietary version," said John Murphy, Shana's VP of sales and marketing. "Think of sending requisitions to a supplier: now you can do it electronically and be sure that the form data will be understood at the other end, without having to worry about formats, platforms and so on. XML works in the real world: together with XForms, it will be key to facilitating e- business."

In their press release, the W3C stressed the fact that the XForms Data Model deliberately separates the purpose of a form from its presentation. They indicated that this separation "makes device independence easier to achieve by allowing Web application authors to write the data model once for all devices... paving the way for a Web that is accessible to all users."

"I am pleased to see that the Consortium has separated the data model, logic, and presentation layers since our own architecture has long reflected this approach," said Wayne Malkin, VP of Development at Shana. "We believe that this will be a key feature in the widespread adoption of the XForms standard. This flexibility will almost certainly allow XForms to be applied to many more solutions, and with the work of the XML- Signature Working Group, will bring digitally signed e-forms that are truly standards-based closer to reality."

Shana has a solid background of supporting new standards, and new technologies, as they appear. Shana's Informed software currently provides a high degree of integration with the Internet (with support for SMTP, FTP, HTTP and Java), and Shana was the first e-forms company in the world to support Entrust Technologies' digital signature standard.

Shana is currently developing and demonstrating the use of XForms-compliant XML documents in various components of its integrated e-form management solution. These products are expected to ship in Q3 2000.

Shana's integrated e-form management solution is comprised of Informed Designer, Informed Deployment Server, Informed Filler and Informed Filler (Java). Along with a variety of professional service options, they make up the Informed E-Forms Portal and address the fundamental challenge of managing large numbers of electronic forms across the enterprise. A properly integrated solution can reduce operating overhead, increase productivity, improve responsiveness and gain competitive advantage for the enterprise. In addition, the same solution can be used to meet internal B2E requirements and for external, B2B e-business applications. To learn more, please visit www.shana.com.

Shana has strategic partnerships with a number of companies including Entrust Technologies (Nasdaq: ENTU), FileNET (Nasdaq: FILE), EDS (NYSE: EDS), and NCR (NYSE: NCR). Shana is privately owned and brings over 14 years experience to its Informed e- forms solutions, with over 1,500,000 licensed users in more than 65 countries around the world.

Informed Designer, Informed Deployment Server, Informed Filler, Informed Filler (Java) and Informed E-Forms Portal are registered trademarks or trademarks of Shana Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.