Altova Releases Version 2008 of Its Award-Winning Software Product
Line
XML, Data Management, UML, and Web Services Tools Provide Support for
Office Open XML, Multi-Purpose IDEs, Enhanced Database Functionality,
and More
VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(Marketwire - September 12, 2007) - Altova®
(http://www.altova.com), creator of the industry-leading XMLSpy® XML
editor and other popular XML, data management, UML, and Web services
tools, today announced the availability of Version 2008 (v2008) of
its award-winning line of software development tools. With the
release of its v2008 products, Altova introduces a host of powerful
new capabilities, including support for the Windows Vista operating
system across the product line, extended support for Office Open XML
file formats in XMLSpy, more data mapping versatility in MapForce,
and enhanced database functionality in StyleVision. Additionally,
this new software version brings Visual Basic .NET code engineering
and real-time integration with Visual Studio and Eclipse in UModel,
support for editing database views and stored procedures in
DatabaseSpy, one-click directory synchronization in DiffDog, and much
more.
"It's major product and feature enhancements like these that keep
Altova customers ahead of the technology curve and give them real
productivity advantages," said Tim Hale, Director of Worldwide
Marketing for Altova. "Our record of delivering superior products
with unparalleled functionality has earned us over three million
registered users and keeps organizations turning to Altova products
for their software development and data management needs."
New in XMLSpy 2008
Altova XMLSpy is the world's best-selling XML editor and the industry
standard XML development environment for modeling, editing,
transforming, and debugging XML-related technologies. New features in
XMLSpy 2008 include:
-- Extended support for Office Open XML (OOXML) -- With support for
OOXML
in XMLSpy 2008, users can extract, edit, query, and transform XML
data from
within Microsoft Word, Excel, and now PowerPoint 2007 files,
enabling them
to repurpose and re-use the vast amount of data being created in
the new
Microsoft Office 2007 default file formats.
-- Data editing in Database Query window -- Through the new SQL
editing
capabilities in XMLSpy's Database Query window, users can now
edit data,
review the changed fields, and commit the changes back to the
database.
This new functionality makes working with database content in
XMLSpy 2008
more seamless than ever.
-- Evaluating XPath expressions across multiple files -- The unique
XPath
Analyzer window in XMLSpy 2008 lets users execute and view the
results of
XPath expressions across multiple files simultaneously and
enables them to
compose, test, and troubleshoot XPath expressions with ease.
Separate tabs
for storing and evaluating expressions allow developers to make
changes and
re-evaluate expressions without retyping them.
-- Support for XInclude and XPointer -- XMLSpy 2008 provides support
for
the W3C standards, XInclude (XML Inclusions) and XPointer (the
XML Pointer
Language). Through helpful dialogs XMLSpy users are now able to
select
entire documents or document fragments using XPointer, and
include them in
a file using XInclude.
Learn more about all the features in XMLSpy 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/xmlspy
The new OOXML, XInclude, and XPointer capabilities are also supported
in AltovaXML, a FREE XML processor that includes Altova's XSLT 1.0
and schema-aware XSLT 2.0 engine, XQuery engine, and XML validating
parser. Learn more about AltovaXML 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/altovaxml
New in MapForce 2008
Altova MapForce is the premier data mapping, conversion and
integration tool. It maps any combination of XML, database, flat
file, EDI, and/or Web service, then converts data instantly or
generates royalty-free data integration applications for recurrent
conversions. New enhancements in MapForce 2008 include:
-- Aggregate data processing functions -- The MapForce function
library
now includes aggregate functions that allow users to perform
computations
on a range of data within a source field and return a unified
value to the
target. New functions calculate the sum, minimum, maximum, and
average of a
group of data, or join values from multiple fields together,
bringing even
more functionality to the graphical MapForce data mapping
interface.
-- ValueMap function for transforming field values -- With MapForce
2008
users can now build data processing functions that transform the
values of
an input field into a different set of result data. For example,
if months
are represented by numbers in the mapping source, the numbers can
be
changed to correspond to the month names in the target. This new
capability
adds more versatility for mapping XML, databases, flat file, EDI,
and Web
Services data.
-- Enhanced options for XML output -- New options for customizing
the XML
output generated when mapping data to an XML file are available
in MapForce
2008. Users can now enable pretty-printing of generated XML
output or they
can omit XML Schemas/DTD references when a schema isn't available
to the
end user of the output. The encoding of the output (e.g., ASCII,
UTF-8) can
also now be changed for each XML target in a mapping.
Learn more about all the features in MapForce 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/mapforce
New in StyleVision 2008
Altova StyleVision is the ultimate visual stylesheet designer for
transforming XML and database content into HTML pages, PDF reports,
Word/RTF documents, and creating Altova Authentic electronic forms.
New capabilities in StyleVision 2008 include:
-- Support for Modular StyleVision designs -- StyleVision 2008 makes
it
possible to re-use portions of existing design files when
creating new
designs. Users can simply add an existing StyleVision stylesheet
as a
module in the Design Tree, and its constructs can then be used in
the new
design. This makes it possible to collaborate and re-use portions
of
existing stylesheets to quickly create new designs.
-- New Database Connection wizard -- The same user-friendly database
connection wizard featured in XMLSpy, MapForce, and DatabaseSpy
is now
available in StyleVision 2008, simplifying its use in styling
relational
database content into HTML, PDF, Word/RTF, and Authentic forms.
-- Database Query window -- StyleVision 2008 includes a new Database
Query window, enabling users to query a database using SQL or
SQL/XML
statements. A Database Browser pane displays the connection
information and
database tables, a SQL Editor pane makes writing accurate queries
easy, and
the Results pane clearly displays the returned data. The
StyleVision
Database Query window provides users with a quick user-friendly
way to view
database data while creating stylesheet designs to publish
eye-catching
output from the database content.
Learn more about all the features in StyleVision 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/stylevision
New in UModel 2008
Altova UModel is the simple cost-effective way to draw on UML. It
lets users visually design application models and generate code or
reverse engineer programs into UML diagrams. The new features in
UModel 2008 include:
-- Tight integration with Visual Studio and Eclipse -- The new
UModel
Enterprise Edition integrates with and operates inside the Visual
Studio
and Eclipse IDEs. New functionality includes automatic, real-time
synchronization that allows developers to instantly see the
impact of
application revisions, whether implemented in the model or
directly in code
in a source code editor.
-- Support for Visual Basic .NET code engineering -- In addition to
Java
and C#, UModel 2008 now supports code engineering for Visual
Basic .NET
(VB.NET) versions 7.1 (2003) and 8.0 (2005). VB.NET users will
recognize
the opportunity to increase development efficiency by taking
advantage of
UModel's intuitive and straightforward software modeling and code
generation functionality. Additionally, they will be able to
reuse existing
modules by applying UModel reverse engineering to the application
code.
Learn more about all the features in UModel 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/umodel
New in DatabaseSpy 2008
Altova DatabaseSpy is the unique multi-database query and design tool
that connects to all major databases and eases SQL editing and
database design. New enhancements in DatabaseSpy 2008 include:
-- Creating and editing database views -- Expanding on its support
for
querying database views, DatabaseSpy 2008 users can now create
and edit
database views. A view is a stored query that returns a
customized subset
of data from one or more database tables for convenient access,
and the
ability to add and modify views greatly enhances DatabaseSpy's
usefulness.
-- Creating and editing stored procedures -- Adding to its robust
feature
set, DatabaseSpy 2008 enables users to create, edit, and execute
stored
procedures. Stored procedures allow faster execution of sets of
multiple
SQL statements and are used to optimize repetitive database
queries and
regular operations, making this an important new capability for
database
administrators and developers.
-- Database content editing -- With DatabaseSpy 2008 users are able
to
retrieve and edit content in existing database tables, add rows
to insert
new data, or delete entire rows. Edits to the content are made
locally in
the data preview window, but aren't applied to the database until
the user
clicks a special Commit button. This permits users to review
changes before
applying them to the database, minimizing the occurrence of
errors.
Learn more about all the features in DatabaseSpy 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/databasespy
New in DiffDog 2008
Altova DiffDog is a unique synchronization tool that quickly compares
text, source code, and XML files and diverse directories then
highlights differences and merges content via its straightforward
visual interface. New capabilities in DiffDog 2008 include:
-- Enhanced directory merge functionality -- New folder sync options
in
DiffDog 2008 enable users to update/merge entire folders,
including
subfolders, in a single step. Users can now also skip the steps
of
reviewing and merging differences individually.
-- Binary file comparison -- DiffDog 2008 now examines and compares
the
content, as well as file size and modification dates, of binary
files
during directories comparisons. Image files, compiled application
executables, or binary-based documents created by any application
are all
accurately processed, increasing the efficiency of directory
differencing.
Learn more about all the features in DiffDog 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/diffdog
New in SchemaAgent 2008
Altova SchemaAgent is the visionary tool for analyzing and managing
XML Schema, XML instance, XSLT, and WSDL file relationships across a
project or an enterprise. New functionality in SchemaAgent 2008
includes:
-- Visualizing and managing XSLT and WSDL file relationships --
SchemaAgent 2008 provides important new functionality for
visualizing,
managing, and modeling XSLT and WSDL files. Users can drag XSLT
or WSDL
files from the SchemaAgent explorer into the design pane. Files
are then
displayed as graphical components with details on imported or
included XSLT
or WSDL files, associated XML Schemas, inline schemas, and
defined
namespaces. With its intelligent drag-and-drop functionality
users can even
change or create connections. This new functionality makes
SchemaAgent 2008
a comprehensive tool for understanding and managing file
dependencies
across projects, development teams, and enterprises.
Learn more about all the features in SchemaAgent 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/schemaagent
New in SemanticWorks 2008
Altova SemanticWorks is a ground-breaking visual RDF/OWL editor for
the Semantic Web. It lets users visually design Semantic Web instance
docs, vocabularies, and ontologies then output them in RDF/XML or
N-triples code. New features in SemanticWorks 2008 include:
-- Editing instances of classes -- Now, in addition to viewing and
creating instances of RDFS or OWL classes using a graph,
SemanticWorks 2008
users can take advantage of the new Details entry helper in
SemanticWorks
2008. This makes it easy to select the properties for each
instance of a
class using context-sensitive drop-down menus.
Learn more about all the features in SemanticWorks 2008 at:
http://www.altova.com/semanticworks
More information on all the new features supported in Version 2008 of
the Altova product line is available at:
http://www.altova.com/whatsnew.html
Availability and Pricing
Version 2008 of Altova XMLSpy, MapForce, StyleVision, UModel,
DatabaseSpy, DiffDog, SchemaAgent, and SemanticWorks is currently
available with pricing starting at
(EUR) ¤362, ¤180, ¤180, ¤93, ¤93, ¤93, ¤93, and ¤93 respectively.
These products may be purchased directly from the Altova Online Shop
at: https://shop.altova.com
30-day free trials of all Altova products may be downloaded from:
http://www.altova.com/download.html
The Altova MissionKit 2008 bundles up to eight Altova products for
less than the price of two.* All MissionKits include XMLSpy,
MapForce, and StyleVision at substantial savings, plus options are
available that add up to five of the other application development,
data management, and modeling tools listed above effectively free of
charge. The Altova MissionKit is currently available with pricing
starting at ¤536 Learn more about the Altova MissionKit at:
http://www.altova.com/missionkit
Altova recommends the purchase of its Support and Maintenance Package
(SMP) with all software purchases. Altova SMP provides free software
version upgrades, maintenance releases, and priority technical
support for the duration of the support period. Learn more at:
http://www.altova.com/support_package.html
About Altova
Altova accelerates application development and data management
projects with software and solutions that enhance productivity and
maximize results. As an innovative, customer-focused company and the
creator of XMLSpy and other leading XML, data management, UML, and
Web services tools, Altova is the choice of over 3 million clients
worldwide, including 91 percent of the Fortune 500. Enabling
customers ranging from vast development teams in the world's largest
organizations to progressive one-person shops, Altova's line of
software tools fulfills a broad spectrum of business needs. Altova is
an active member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Object
Management Group (OMG) and is committed to delivering standards-based
platform-independent solutions that are powerful, affordable, and
easy to use. Altova was founded in 1992 and has headquarters in
Beverly, Massachusetts and Vienna, Austria. Visit Altova on the Web
at: http://www.altova.com
Note to Editors:
*Pricing comparison is edition-specific and based on Altova
MissionKit vs. any two individual licenses of the following included
products: XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision.
Altova, MissionKit, XMLSpy, MapForce, StyleVision, UModel,
DatabaseSpy, DiffDog, SchemaAgent, SemanticWorks, Authentic, and
AltovaXML are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Altova GmbH
in the United States and/or other countries. The names of and
reference to other companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
Sales Information:
sales@altova.com
USA: 978-816-1600
EU: +43 (1) 545 5155 - 0
Media and Analyst Inquiries:
Tara M. Lefave
Public Relations Manager
Altova Inc.
978-816-1567
tara.lefave@altova.com
