Lights, Camera, XQuery! - New Award Program Recognizes XQuery Innovators in 
the XML Developer Community 

Stylus Studio (http://www.stylusstudio.com), the industry-leading provider of XQuery de
velopment tools, today issued a call for entries for the first annual Stylus Studio XQu
ery Innovator Awards. The new award program offers enterprise IT developers, systems in
tegrators, and consultants engaged in building applications solutions based on new cutt
ing-edge XQuery technologies the opportunity to gain public recognition as pioneers in 
the XML developer community. The winners of the first annual XQuery Innovator Awards wi
ll be announced in the Stylus Scoop Newsletter, the industry-leading developer newslett
er for XQuery and XML data integration issues, in a comprehensive special report that w
ill also be published online at www.stylusstudio.com. Additionally, a trophy
 and commemorative memorabilia will be awarded to the winning teams. To appl
y for an XQuery Innovator Award, XML developers should submit an online appl
ication at: 
www.stylusstudio.com/xquery_award_form.html 

An application must describe the XQuery application, and specifically addres
s the following points: 

--  What was the business problem that the XQuery application solved (sugges
ted 300-word limit)?
--  Provide a high-level technical description of the application's architec
ture (suggested 500-word limit).
--  Describe the XML tools, servers, databases, languages and other  applica
tion infrastructure that were used during the project, and how they were use
d (suggested 500-word limit; include figures if necessary).
--  What were the key benefits of the new solution compared to the system  t
hat it replaced? What alternative solutions were considered (suggested 500-w
ord limit)?
--  Who was involved with the project, and what were their roles (suggested 
300-word limit)?
--  Background information about your company and its services -- include  t
echnical and marketing contact information (suggested 300-word limit).
    
Entries will be judged by a panel of XQuery experts including Stylus Studio 
product engineers and other industry XQuery experts. Criteria used to evalua
te entries includes, but is not limited to: 
--  Technical vision and scope of the project
--  Innovative use of XQuery and related technologies
--  Overall business value to the customer
    
XQuery Innovator Awards will be awarded in the following categories, each of
 which represents an industry leveraging the power of XQuery to solve proble
ms today: Academia, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturin
g, Publishing, Transportation, Retail, Telecommunications, Computers, Aerosp
ace, and Internet Services. 

Applicants may enter any number of projects; projects can be new or they can be XQuery 
enabling of existing systems. Due to the early-adoption status of XQuery technologies, 
projects that are currently in development but have a planned launch date sometime in 2
005 will also be considered for the Stylus Studio XQuery Innovator Award. Please see th
e official contest rules posted at: http://www.stylusstudio.com/xquery_...rm.
html .

"XML developers are beginning to fully comprehend the tremendous potential o
f emerging XQuery technologies and are now applying XQuery to solve a divers
e mix of enterprise data integration challenges," said Jerry King, Vice Pres
ident of XML Products at DataDirect Technologies." By showcasing innovative 
real-world XQuery use cases, the XML developer community can learn by exampl
e, and the innovators themselves get the recognition they deserve." 

For more information about XQuery, including XQuery development tools, components and v
aluable learning resources, visit the Stylus Studio XQuery Zone at: http://www.sty
lusstudio.com/xquery/ 

The deadline for entry is March 31, 2005 -- No Entries will be considered af
ter that date. 

About Stylus Studio 

Stylus StudioŽ, a product from DataDirect Technologies, an operating company of Progres
s Software Corporation, is the industry's most innovative XML IDE providing advanced su
pport for XML and its related technologies: XSL, XSLT, XML Schema, DTD, SOAP, WSDL, SQL
/XML, XML mapping and XQuery. Used by leading software developers worldwide, Stylus Stu
dio simplifies XML programming and enhances developer productivity through innovation. 
For more information, visit: http://www.stylusstudio.com.