[announce] Hermes 1.0 and ebMail 1.2 Released and Used by HKSAR Government's New Project

["Dorris Tai" <cwtai@cecid.hku.hk>]

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Hermes 1.0 and ebMail 1.2 Released and Used by HKSAR Government
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Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China - January 28, 2005 - Center for
E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), The University of Hong Kong
(HKU) is pleased to announce that a new version of our two open source ebXML
software, Hermes and ebMail have been released to the ebXML community,
www.freebXML.org. The new releases are already being used by the HKSAR
Government in one of its joined-up service projects.

In the latest version of Hermes, Hermes 1.0, one new feature is a
customizable digital certificate resolver, in which the persistence handler
can customize the implementation for Hermes to save the message content. In
addition, Hermes 1.0 has improved its SSL (Secure Socket Layer) support to
make configuration simpler and more flexible. ebMail 1.2, the new version,
supports multiple party IDs handling in ebXML message by adding a
customizable message dispatching mechanism.

This latest version of Hermes has been adopted by the e-Government
Infrastructure Service (EGIS) project to provide secure and reliable
connectivity between the HKSAR Government and the business community. Under
the Hong Kong Digital 21 Strategy, EGIS is established as an
open-standards-based, scalable and flexible service delivery platform for
Government-to-Citizen (G2C) and Government-to-Business (G2B) transactions.
The purpose is to achieve service integration and transformation towards
citizen-centric service delivery with seamless information flow among
participating service providers. Business partners who need to connect to
EGIS may use the open-source ebMail 1.2 or Hermes 1.0 to exchange electronic
documents with B/Ds.

About Hermes (www.cecid.hku.hk/hermes.php)
Hermes is a Business-to-Business (B2B) Messaging Server which provides a
standardized, reliable and secure infrastructure for enterprises to exchange
business data on the Internet. Developers from 80+ economies have downloaded
Hermes' source code. Hermes has many successful use cases, most of which are
innovative, cost-effective applications used by enterprises for exchange of
business documents such as POs and invoices. Some local users of Hermes
include MTRC, OOCL, Sony, HMV, bigboXX.com and HKSAR Government's Marine
Department. Besides accreditation by the ebXML Asia Committee with Level 2
and 3 ebXML Asia Interoperability Certificates, Hermes has won Certificates
of Merit (Product Category) at the 6th HK Computer Society IT Excellence
Awards and the Asia-Pacific ICT Awards 2004 (R&D Category).

About ebMail (www.cecid.hku.hk/ebmail.php)
ebMail is a desktop e-mail client which helps organizations,
small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SME) in particular, to engage in B2B
e-commerce activities. This lightweight toolkit enables trading partners to
exchange business documents cost-effectively through email, or ebXML Message
Service (ebMS) over Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). ebMail is a
trimmed-down ebMS handler which does not require any application server
software and dedicated Internet connection to use ebXML. It allows a user to
compose electronic documents offline through graphical user interface (GUI),
and send and receive documents when the user is connected to the Internet.
Some users of ebMail include HKSAR Government's Department of Health, Hong
Kong Observatory and Dagang Net of Malaysia.

Hermes and ebMail are professionally supported by CECID. Different support
packages covering installation, connectivity, integration, enhancement and
plug-ins development are available to cater to different needs. Visit
www.cecid.hku.hk/open-source/ to learn more about the support.

About CECID (www.cecid.hku.hk)
Established in January 2002, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure
Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong conducts e-commerce
research and development with the vision of helping organizations increase
their competitiveness in the global economy. CECID develops e-commerce
enabling technologies, participates in important international e-commerce
initiatives, supports e-commerce standardization for Hong Kong and the Asia
Pacific Region, and transfers e-commerce technology and skills to the
community. With projects primarily funded by the Hong Kong Government's
Innovation and Technology Commission, CECID is an active member of OASIS and
the ebXML Asia Committee. The Center also collaborates with a number of lead
technology users in the Asia-Pacific Region on turning R&D results into
real-life business applications. CECID's contributions to the community
include its code donation of Hermes and ebMail to freebXML(www.freebxml.org)
and the production of an in-depth design and management guide on XML Schemas
for the Hong Kong Government. CECID is currently developing a plug-and-play
Internet appliance for secure and reliable transmission of electronic
documents based on ebXML/ Web Services.

PR Contacts for Press and Analysts:
Dorris Tai (cwtai@cecid.hku.hk)
Business Manager
Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) Dept. of Computer
Science The University of Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2859 2818
Fax: +852 2547 4611
URL: www.cecid.hku.hk