Snapbridge Software announces FDX Cross Media Server

The folks over at Snapbridge Software are very excited to be announcing FDX Cross Media Server, a multi-platform application family which will consist of several products geared towards improving workflow between writers, editors and production groups while reducing the complexity of archiving and repurposing content.

Benjamin Chen, Snapbridge chairman and CTO, explains that both print and online publishers share a common problem--how to repurpose content. There have been a number of promises for technologies to help integrate this content seamlessly, however, there are no real solutions.

Snapbridge sees cross media as a three-step process. The first step is a need for a repository that allows the reuse of content. "Many repositories have been created over the last several decades, but it is truly the advent of XML that has allowed the reusability of content to come about," states Chen. He goes on to say, "we're talking about an XML type of repository with the ability to reuse content, the ability to index multiple types of content with metadata, the ability to do Boolean full text search with advanced filtering capabilities, allowing you to access large data sets fairly quickly." The second step would then focus on creating content and getting it into the repository in a seamless fashion and the third step would answer the question of how to publish content in multiple formats from that repository.

FDX Cross Media Server tackles these situations in that it integrates disparate data sources and different content formats and delivers across multiple channels, including print, broadcast, web and wireless.

Snapbridge is following its traditional theme of being truly cross platform. FDX Cross Media Server can run in the Windows environment, UNIX, and OSX. In addition, it allows you to use off the shelf databases, be it Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL.

FDX Cross Media Server is a browser-based system that allows unlimited user access, (it is not charged by seat). Since it is browser-based, it is very easy to use. To quote Chen, "If you can use Google, you can use this product."

The first product available for download in this family is the FDX Search and Archive Engine. It comes in two flavors, a standard edition priced at $499 per CPU and an Enterprise Edition for $4,999 per CPU. The standard edition is bundled with a pre-installed database and support for MySQL while the Enterprise Edition includes a wide range of database support including Microsoft SQL, Oracle and MySQL. In addition, the Enterprise Edition supports J2EE application servers, load balancing and fail-over capabilities and is LDAP compliant.

Founded in 2001, Snapbridge is a provider of XML developer tools and cross-media publishing solutions. The company's product suite includes FDX Cross Media Server, FDX XML Server, XStudio Pro and XStudio Stylemaker development environment for XML development as well as information integration and management. For more information, please visit www.snapbridge.com.