Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2001-9 (VOL.52, NO.5)

Special Issue : Web Computing

• Fundamental Concept for Web Computing

We are now rushing into the second stage of Internet business. At Fujitsu, we think that, in this second stage, companies will not be able to remain in competition unless their management strategy includes the use of broadband Internet. For example, to adapt to the new competition principles such as deregulation and abolition and to respond to a rapid growth in business, an advanced, expandable Web system that can accommodate broadband is required. Moreover, we expect that Web services will become a key technology because of the establishment of new and powerful industry standards such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). This paper outlines Fujitsu's fundamental concept for Web computing in the broadband age.

• Web System Technology

Web technology has rapidly spread by becoming integrated with the global network infrastructure of the Internet. Compared to legacy information system technology, which is oriented towards an efficient infrastructure for enterprise systems, Web system technology can be characterized by its strong connection with enterprises' business models, in which the application of the technology itself can become a business strategy. Web technology was founded 10 years ago as an infrastructure for document exchange among researchers. Since then, many new business models that apply this technology have appeared. Current market conditions are stimulating a rapid growth in Web technology, and new technologies are being developed every day. This paper introduces the basic Web technologies that support enterprise activities and the recent technology trends in this field.

• Web Service Technology and Fujitsu's Strategy

Web service technology connects information systems through the Internet and may be used to build the Internet infrastructure of the future. Various standardization activities such as SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL are underway to encourage the use of Web services. Web service technology enables seamless service integration, dynamic system extension, and business process outsourcing. Several Web service systems are already in use, especially in the area of corporate electronic business based on standards like ebXML and RosettaNet. Fujitsu has been participating in standardization activities such as ebXML and UDDI and has already released products using SOAP and WSDL technologies. This paper describes the standardization of Web service technology and its various merits, and outlines Fujitsu's activities related to Web services.

• Trends in Java as a Core Web Technology and in System Development Technology

Java is now widely accepted as a key component of Web technology, and many Web systems today are constructed using Java technology. Fujitsu's INTERSTAGE APWORKS and INTERSTAGE WEBCOORDINATOR support the development of systems in which Java is the core technology. This paper describes the current trends in using Java as a Web system core and gives an overview of Fujitsu's products that support the recent trends in system development.

• Sharing and Promotion of Software Components

EJB is enabling us to develop application systems with shared and distributed software components. However, until certain requirements such as truly portable shared components and better mechanisms for component distribution have been met, it will remain difficult to quickly develop high-quality Web applications. Fujitsu established the Component Consortium for EJBTM last year in collaboration with several other companies, has formulated and published a set of portable component rules, and has promoted component sharing among different vendors. Fujitsu has also developed and provided EJB components that are compliant with these portable component rules and a total environment for system development using EJB components. This paper explains these activities in detail and gives a brief overview of future plans.

• Portal Server for Business Improvement

In these days of hard competition and rapid market changes, enterprise information systems equipped with Internet technology are continuously being extended and enriched. This situation is causing an information overflow and a consequent need for systems that enable users to access information distributed in and outside companies in the right format and at the right time. Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) is a Web front system that effectively meets this requirement.
INTERSTAGE PortalWorks is a business portal server that develops EIP into Enterprise Information & Service Portal (EISP) by handling not only information but also the services which are rapidly emerging in the Internet world. PortalWorks simultaneously presents multiple related information items and services in a single browser view. Its scripting function makes it possible to federate multiple services and to process contents on portal servers. With these functions, PortalWorks quickly and flexibly copes with users' business requirements, sharply improves user's business efficiency, and increases the user's business.
This paper describes the advanced portal functions provided by PortalWorks and describes how portal solutions developed using PortalWorks can improve a user's business.

• Support System for Outline Investigation

This paper describes a system we have developed that supports outline investigations in text databases by providing essential information for making comparisons within retrieved data and for trend analyses of the data. In order to achieve high-precision semantic retrieval, which is often necessary for outline research, we added a semantic representation to the original text in the form of XML tags, which can be directly retrieved by our XML retrieval system. Each element of information is then extracted from the retrieved results and arranged in a well-organized table so that users can easily make further analyses.

• Prospects for ATLAS Translation Server Product

The IT revolution is sweeping across the industrial world, forcing businesses to globalize and increase their pace of activity. Also, because more and more overseas companies are entering Japanese markets and the importance of English is growing, many companies are becoming interested in machine translation software.
Fujitsu has been developing a machine translation system called ATLAS since the 1980s. We released ATLAS for mainframes in 1984, ATLAS for Sun workstations in 1991, ATLAS for Windows in 1994, and the tr@nslingo server software for using ATLAS over the Internet in November 2000.
This paper explains our approaches to translation server products, describes the ATLAS Translation Server designed for translation markets, and investigates the future of translation server products.

• Trends in Mobile Computing and Adaptation to Our Products

Providing information to mobile telephones with a browser such as i-mode and to mobile terminals such as PDAs has recently attracted attention in Web systems. Web sites for these mobile devices started appearing in the late 1990s. The increased diversity of browser-equipped mobile telephones and the information they provide is making server construction more complicated and technologically challenging. As a result, there is a need for an infrastructure that simplifies server construction. In 2000, Fujitsu and many other IT companies began to ship server products that provide an infrastructure to support various mobile devices. Fujitsu has developed a mobile communication agent and a mobile agent for Web front-ends based on core Web, mobile, and XML technologies. In this paper, we introduce our mobile technologies and describe their future evolution.

• Standardization and Strategy of Messaging Protocol for B2B

Businesses have recently been moving away from electronic data interchange (EDI) systems toward business-to-business (B2B) systems on the Internet. Accordingly, various information technologies for intranets have been re-created for the Internet. Open and reliable messaging in these technologies is a key requirement for promoting B2B. We have submitted the reliability function specification of a messaging technology that is based on the experience we gained developing our MOM products to the ebXML initiative, which is an international standardization organization that is establishing a B2B framework specification. We then created an open and reliable messaging protocol specification called the ebXML Message Service in cooperation with other IT vendors. The ebXML initiative completed the B2B framework specification, including the ebXML Message Service specification, in May 2001. We have applied the ebXML Message Service specification to our INTERSTAGE software platform for Internet business. This paper describes the standardization and strategy of the ebXML Message Service.

• Modeling and Verification of Web Systems

The application of the Internet in transactions between companies, in direct services to customers, and in information systems within companies is becoming common. As a result, businesses need to be able to develop high-quality Web systems in a short period of time. However, this is proving to be difficult to achieve because of factors such as the complexity of hardware/software combinations and the need to ensure adequate performance under heavy access conditions and provide network protection against malicious attacks. This paper describes Fujitsu's efforts to provide high-quality Web systems in a short period of time through modeling and verification technologies.

• Efficient Development of Medium-scale Web System

Businesses on the Web and the number of Websites are growing rapidly. For a Web business to be successful, it is essential to be able to quickly build and operate a stable, high-quality system. However, various difficulties in building a Web-based system must be overcome, and sophisticated security measures must be taken to combat the rapid rise in illegal accesses to Websites. This paper describes solutions for overcoming the difficulties and efficiently developing a new Web system. The method uses system development software components whose quality, performance, and security have been verified. The paper also introduces Solution Suite, which is a set of hardware and planning/consulting business templates for these software components.

• WebSERVE：Cases of ASP Introduction

Recently, companies have been adopting new business models that feature IT-based marketing strategies. Other recent trends in business include productivity improvements and improvements in customer services through the use of Web technologies. In January 1999, Fujitsu System Solutions Ltd. (Fsol) released an integrated Internet solution for small and medium-sized companies called WebSERVE. This new solution is the first of its kind to be released and has been introduced to over 350 clients in the last two years. It provides services ranging from planning/consultation and systems integration (e.g., EC/EDI, intranets, and service operation within various WebSERVE menus) to ASP operations. This paper introduces WebSERVE and describes how it is being used to introduce ASP at a manufacturing company and a trading company.

• Examples of e-marketplaces

E-marketplaces have taken off in Europe and Japan following the lead of the United States. However, following the bursting of the technology bubble last year, current business models are already being revised. Nevertheless, B2B commerce is spreading as the broadband age progresses.
This paper introduces two practical examples of e-marketplaces that have been built according to a new business model and that have changed the value chain between existing businesses. The first example is e-zaiko.com, which is a site for trading surplus stock that was established by trading companies, a consumer credit company, and an insurance company. The second example is e-netsenko, which was established by a transportation company to provide surrogate services for businesses, from receiving and issuing orders via the Internet to physical distribution.

• Superdistribution and the Security of Music Content

Major record companies now provide various Electronic Music Distribution (EMD) services over the Internet. In Japan, EMD services have been started through mobile phone networks. Fujitsu provides its Universal Distribution with Access Control (UDAC) as a security infrastructure for superdistributed, highly value-added content, for example, music belonging to a major record company. As a result of UDAC, the hit chart was recently distributed by EMD before being distributed on CD. If the spread of broadband networks and remote file exchange applications eventually make it possible for remote users to share and make instant bulk copies of digital content, mechanisms such as UDAC that can provide open, flexible, and strong content protection technology are expected to become more important. This paper introduces a UDAC-based service called “Keitaide-Music” (music on your mobile) and describes how the interoperability between mobiles supporting Keitaide-Music and PCs can be realized.

• Service Demonstration of Virtually Integrated Product Catalog Database for Fashion Industry

Fujitsu was commissioned to produce a service demonstration of a virtually integrated product catalogue database for the fashion industry, as part of the supplementary budget project, “Development and Demonstration of Software to Improve the Management Efficiency of Small Businesses” in fiscal 1999. The project was submitted for public tender in order to solve information problems in transactions between companies in the textile industry, especially between apparel companies and retail distributors. Using Agent/XML technology, we developed an apparel-retail data exchange model system to solve such problems and enable quick response (QR) by small businesses. We thus constructed a common platform for application service provider (ASP) services for the fashion industry of the future.