Oscar Wilde once wrote, "It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information." Few are likely to share Wilde's sentiments in this day and age-at least in the information industries-but it's true that the volumes of information now at the fingertips of companies and enterprises present unique challenges, not only in terms of understanding but also preservation, indexing, and security. And that's just general database management; when that database also handles large amounts of unstructured data, the problems are even more pronounced.

One of the companies helping the enterprise meet these challenges is MarkLogic. The company has apparently had a very productive year so far, with its number of customers now topping 200 and including the likes of LexisNexis, Cengage, and Elsevier, along with a number of government clients. And with the 4.2 release of their MarkLogic Server platform on October 19, the company is showing that it hasn't forgotten about the fundamentals.

According to Ken Chestnut, VP of product marketing, MarkLogic Server 4.2 focuses on the three key areas that are of greatest concern to the company's customers: agility, robustness, and enterprise search and discovery. To that end, the company is beefing up its database offering with a host of improvements, including the ability to adjust search relevance based on geographic proximity to a resource and expanded support for XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation), a language that makes it possible to transform one XML document type into another.

According to Chestnut, XSLT support makes it possible for customers to syndicate data to new platforms-such as various mobile devices-without the need to significantly redesign their CMS systems. "If I'm a media customer, I want to be able to quickly support the iPhone, the iPad, the nook, the Kindle," says Chestnut. "And I want the flexibility and the agility to support new devices that might not be known [yet]."

MarkLogic Server 4.2 is also adding the ability to roll back a database to a prior point in time, a feature that Chestnut describes as being akin to the Time Machine backup utility developed by Apple for OS X. In the event of a catastrophic failure that causes damage to a database, users can immediately revert the database to a particular time-stamp. "[Customers] want to be able to roll back as quickly and effortlessly as possible from that catastrophic event," says Chestnut.

Other new features for 4.2 include the replication of information across different databases to aid in disaster recovery and improve search response times, improved automatic response to server failures within hardware clusters, and the ability to return the most distinctive terms in a document.

Along with updates and new features for MarkLogic Server, the company is also releasing Information Studio, an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool that joins MarkLogic Application Builder, Search API, and Library Services API as part of MarkLogic Application Services. The tool gives users access to a web-based interface to load unstructured data into a MarkLogic database.

"Basically, it's a web-based graphical interface that allows me to literally load things in MarkLogic Server just by dragging and dropping them," explains Chestnut.

The new features and updates in MarkLogic Server 4.2 were driven partly by the requirements of its customers, according to Chestnut. He specifically points to the rollback feature as something that the company's clients in the financial services sector needed, where database recovery can become an arduous process that would otherwise require duplicating hundreds of transactions to bring the data back up to date. Other features, such as those dealing with search and discovery, were driven by customers such as LexisNexis.

But while many of the new features were driven by specific needs from customers, Chestnut also thinks that the features will find broader use. "We believe our technology and our products are horizontally applicable," he says, adding, "I think all of our customers will benefit from them in one way or another."

(www.marklogic.com)

Starbucks launched the Starbucks Digital Network in its U.S. company-operated stores. Created through a partnership with Yahoo!, the Starbucks Digital Network will provide customers with a collection of hand-picked premium news, entertainment, and lifestyle content, plus info on local insights and events. The network will be delivered by free Wi-Fi and is available only in Starbucks stores via laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

Starbucks is kicking off its launch week with a trio of exclusive offers, including free music tracks, a movie clip with charitable ties, and a novel sneak preview. Customers can get exclusive free access to two songs and a video from new band Fistful of Mercy, as well as a clip from the upcoming film "Waiting for Superman," and an excerpt from Anita Shreve's Rescue.

Other content included in the service will feature content from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY, along with music and videos from iTunes, short ebooks, and health and fitness content from a variety of magazines.

(www.starbucks.com, www.yahoo.com)

Microsoft Corp. has announced Microsoft Office 365, which brings together Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. With Office 365, people can work together from anywhere on virtually any device, while collaborating with others inside and outside their organization. As part of today's news, Microsoft is also opening a limited beta program for Office 365 in 13 countries and regions; it is expected to be available worldwide next year.

With Office 365 for small businesses, professionals and small companies with fewer than 25 employees can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and an external website in just 15 minutes, for $6 or 5.25 euros per user, per month.

Office 365 for enterprises introduces an array of choices for midsize and large businesses as well as government organizations, starting for as little as $2 or 1.75 euros per user, per month for basic email. Office 365 for enterprises also includes the option to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis, for the first time ever. For $24 or 22.75 euros per user, per month, organizations can get Office Professional Plus along with e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voiceconferencing and videoconferencing, webconferencing, 24x7 phone support, on-premises licenses, and more.

Later next year, Microsoft says it will expand Office 365 to include Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. In addition, Office 365 for education is slated to debut later next year, giving students, faculty and school employees powerful technology tailored specifically to their needs.

(www.office365.com, www.microsoft.com)

Social shopping site LivingSocial announced the acquisition of social adventure company Urban Escapes. Through the acquisition, LivingSocial will begin offering its 10 million subscribers a host of diverse urban adventures and experiences, produced by a team of on-the-ground experts.

Including activities ranging from "Zen Escape Yoga Hikes" to "Boulder and Brew Tours," creates tailored activities for users. Staff will work directly with LivingSocial representatives in five introductory markets designing and creating one-of-a-kind experiences and adventures for LivingSocial customers.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

(www.livingsocial.com)

Socialcast, a company that develops software to tie together people, information, and applications across the enterprise, announced the immediate availability of Socialcast Reach, an extension to the core Socialcast enterprise microblogging platform. Reach provides in-context views of relevant conversations across critical business systems such as SharePoint, Intranets, ERP, and CRM systems.

Socialcast's Reach helps employees focus on their work while still maintaining a view into relevant interactionsm. The Reach Stream extension brings conversations into enterprise applications, integrating key Socialcast streams into any SharePoint, intranet, or business system environment that supports HTML and Javascript. Meanwhile, the Reach Discussion extension allows users to focus discussions around key resources within business system environments. Finally, the Reach Recommend extension creates a view into the critical connections between users. Once a user clicks on a "recommend" button on any resource in the enterprise, a rich message is immediately inserted into the Socialcast platform, surfacing that person's recommendation.

(www.socialcast.com)

To learn more about Socialcast Reach, read our EContent Blog post.

Endeca Technologies and MeLLmo announced a strategic partnership to develop and deliver new mobile BI applications. The apps are designed to enable on-the-go decision-making and will involve the integration of their disparate flagship BI products, Endeca Latitude and Roambi ES3.

Endeca Latitude combines search and BI to help people find what they need and understand what they found, while MeLLmo's Roambi gives on-the-go workers interactive visualizations of company data on a mobile device. The two companies have already begun work to integrate Endeca Latitude with Roambi ES3, allowing employees at all levels of the organization to push data from Endeca discovery applications to iPhone or iPad visualizations for further analysis. The first co-developed offering is targeted for delivery by the end of 2010.

(www.roambi.com, www.endeca.com)

Dow Jones & Company is debuting a new service that provides ongoing, active monitoring of a wide range of potential threats in risk management. Dow Jones Supplier & Risk Monitor offers proactive monitoring of numerous types of risk, including supplier failure, supply continuity, political exposure, reputation management, product safety, plant and port closures, staffing disruptions, and others.

The new service draws on more than 25,000 media sources from 150 countries and monitors the news for events that could affect suppliers, rather than relying solely on financial data. It allows companies to view a more complete picture of critical partners and regions, while enabling supply chain managers to perform research and due diligence to evaluate new partners.

Dow Jones Supplier & Risk Monitor can be fully customized with widgets installed into a customer's workflow or hosted in a dashboard format. In addition, users can set up alerts, so they can be informed about key news and information by email or mobile device.

(www.dowjones.com)

ISYS Search Software, a developer of embedded search and universal information access solutions, released ISYS Document Filters 2010, the new version of the company's text extraction, printing, and viewing platform. The solution gives enterprises a component for text analytics, e-discovery, email archiving, data loss prevention, and other content processing systems.

ISYS Search Software develops embedded search and universal information access solutions, enabling the virtual aggregation of corporate knowledge and providing a single point of access to information spread across enterprise systems.

(www.isys-search.com)

Intranet Connections released the newest version of its intranet 2.0 CMS platform, which is designed to reduce administration overhead for intranet managers and simplify the design of site navigation. Intranet Connections version 10.5 is geared towards small and medium size businesses looking for SharePoint-like functionality without the price tag or management overhead.

The new release adds a revised menu builder featuring a drag-and-drop interface for managing site navigation, which lets administrators add a horizontal menu to their site, create drop down menus, add menu headers, and relocate menu items. It also builds on the popular tagging feature with a new content tag management interface that simplifies tag management tasks such as creating tag groups, moving tags between groups, and finding tags with dynamically filtered search results.

(www.intranetconnections.com)

ADAM Software announced the opening of its first US-based office, which the company hopes will further increase its ability to compete in the global DAM market. Dagbert Sansen has been appointed to the position of US Sales Manager for ADAM Software and will helm the office. He previously worked as sales manager for the Americas & Africa for Meucci Solutions, Ghent.

According to the company, ADAM Software has almost doubled its turnover on a yearly basis over the last two consecutive years. ADAM is a global provider of media workflow and marketing supply chain software.

(www.adamsoftware.net)

Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest LLC, is making some significant enhancements to its family of 360 Services for discovery. The enhancements include language selection features, new bibliographic citation management options, new sorting functions for Chinese and Korean languages, custom text options, and additional language support, and are designed to enable librarians to enrich research experiences and provide additional avenues of resource discovery.

In addition, a new administration console organization for 360 Core E-Journal Portal and 360 Link gives librarians the ability to quickly configure 360 Core E-Journal Portal and 360 Link to meet their patron-specific needs without requiring technical support. A new citation system also allows patrons to save and share research bibliographies through RefWorks, EndNote, ProCite, and Reference Manager.

(www.proquest.com)

Newser is appointing Elisabeth DeMarse as its new CEO. DeMarse joins the company from creditcards.com, where she served as CEO prior to its sale. She has also served as CEO of Bankrate and held executive positions at Bloomberg and Hoover's.

Bloomberg added Lou Andreozzi to the company as chairman of Bloomberg Law, and also tapped Larry D. Thompson to serve as its chief operating officer. Andreozzi most recently served as CEO of IQNavigator, Inc., and is a former CEO of LexisNexis North American Legal Markets. Meanwhile, Thompson was formerly senior partner with The Sterling Group 925 LLC, and also formerly served as senior vice president at LexisNexis.

Brightcove announced the appointment of Christopher Menard to the post of CFO. Menard comes to the company from Phase Forward, where held a financial management position prior to its acquisition by Oracle, earlier this year.

Demand Media, soon to be launching an IPO, brought in Jeff Dossett to serve as senior vice president for content partnerships. He will report to chief revenue officer Joanne Bradford. Dossett is a former executive producer and general manager for MSN, and also served as senior vice president for audience experiences at Yahoo.

Microsoft announced that chief software architect Ray Ozzie is stepping down from his position. Ozzie has worked on many of the software giant's key products, and also has a history that includes stints with IBM, Lotus, and Groove Networks. Microsoft does not plan to replace the veteran coder in his current position, although Ozzie will remain with the company during a transitional period.

Basho Technologies announced that Anthony S. Thornly is joining the company's Board of Directors. Thornly previously served as president and COO of QUALCOMM from 2002 to 2005, and also held the position of CFO since 1994. He is currently also on the board of directors of golf equipment manufacturer Callaway Golf Co.