PaperThin Announces New Nonprofit and Association Customers
(Boston) - PaperThin, Inc., a midmarket content management system vendor, has announced that several nonprofit organizations and associations have recently selected CommonSpot Content Server to manage their Internet, intranet, and extranet sites. With CommonSpot, nontechnical staff can now take control of the process of creating and publishing Web content. The timeliness and relevance of content on the Web site is increased while the costs to maintain it are reduced.

New customers in the nonprofit and association sectors include Academy for Education Development (Washington, DC), American Academy of Pediatrics (Elk Grove Village, Illinois), American Society for Engineering Education (Washington, DC), Association of Public Television Stations (Washington, DC), Memphis Arts Council (Memphis, Tennessee), and United Way of the MidSouth (Memphis, Tennessee). These organizations join a long list of associations and nonprofits that have successfully deployed CommonSpot to manage their Web sites.

In developing their new Web initiatives, several of these organizations have engaged PaperThin partners, including Beaconfire Consulting (Washington, DC), Edgewater Technology (Wakefield, Massachusetts), Fig Leaf Software (Washington, DC), Fusion Productions (Webster, New York) and Ringger (Memphis, Tennessee) to redesign and build their new sites, which the organizations will then maintain themselves.

Using CommonSpot's extensive out-of-the-box features, PaperThin partners are able to build dynamic Web sites quickly, according to PaperThin. Deploying standard features like templates and style sheets allows a designer to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the site. Once the site is built, content owners, rather than in-house Web developers or outside consultants, can easily and cost-effectively create and publish dynamic, personalized Web content within a controlled environment. No special technical knowledge is required, and authors can publish documents, images, PDFs, video clips, and other content using a wizards-based interface.

CommonSpot can be easily integrated with association management systems to provide members with personalized Web site content. "Association staff members like CommonSpot because it is easy to implement and simple for nontechnical content owners to learn, while association executives appreciate CommonSpot's flexible pricing models that fit a wide range of budgets," noted Steve Drucker, CEO of Fig Leaf Software.
www.paperthin.com

Black Knight Transferred to Gestaltech
(Atlanta) - Montara Software has reached a definitive agreement to transfer all rights of its Black Knight product - including their customer list - to Gestaltech. Gestaltech will begin marketing an updated version of Black Knight in Q1 of this year.

Black Knight is the first ColdFusion extension that allows developers to leverage Microsoft's .NET platform with their Java-based CFML applications. Black Knight also provides for the porting of existing extensions - including Java extensions through Microsoft J# - frequently requiring only a single line of code to be changed before recompiling.
www.gestaltech.com

Macromedia Director MX 2004 Now Available
(San Francisco) - Macromedia has announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Director MX 2004, the latest version of the industry-standard multimedia authoring tool. Macromedia Director MX 2004 adds support for JavaScript, Macromedia Flash MX 2004 content, DVD-Video playback, and the ability to create projector files for both Mac and Windows platforms in one simple step. Director MX 2004 is available for immediate download from the Macromedia Online Store at www.macromedia.com/go/buy_dmx2004.

"Macromedia Director MX 2004 furthers the product's rich legacy by adding features that directly address developer requests to work more efficiently and utilize the latest technologies available," said Miriam Geller, director of product management, Macromedia. "Director MX 2004 greatly eases development and enables users to create richer content through a seamless workflow with other MX 2004 products and support for standards like JavaScript and DVD-Video."

Macromedia Director MX 2004 delivers multimedia content anywhere, whether it be to CD, DVD, intranets, kiosks, or the Internet. It supports most major video, audio, bitmap, 3D, and vector formats to give developers the broadest content palette from which to deliver sophisticated and compelling user experiences. Extensive video capabilities within Director MX 2004 allow developers to incorporate video files in DVD-Video, Windows Media, RealMedia, QuickTime, and Flash Video formats. DVD-Video functionality will enable developers to embed, control, and play back DVD-Video content within multimedia projects. Director also has a powerful Xtras plug-in architecture that enables developers to extend both the application and playback to add nearly limitless functionality.

"Every year, I need to create at least eight different presentations that are sent around the world to showcase ESPN programming. Director MX 2004 delivers a whole new level of functionality enhancements that will make my job easier and more fun," said Brett E. Stewart, interactive designer, ESPN, Inc. "Being able to incorporate DVD-Video into my Director presentations will both improve the video quality and more effectively enable me to reach new markets."

Macromedia Director MX 2004 is tightly integrated with other products and servers in the Macromedia MX family. In addition to adding support for Flash MX 2004, Director also has the ability to launch and edit both Flash and Fireworks to enable a seamless workflow. Macromedia will be hosting online seminars to showcase the new features of Director MX 2004. For more information on seminars, visit www.macromedia.com/go/directoronlineseminar.