Hermes Selected Best Infrastructure Building and Communication Applicationby Linux Business Award 2005]

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

Hermes Selected Best Infrastructure Building and Communication Application
by Linux Business Award 2005

Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China – July 7, 2005 – Center for 
E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), University of Hong Kong 
(HKU) is pleased to announce that our open source ebXML 
business-to-business (B2B) Messaging Server, Hermes, has won the Grand 
Award in Infrastructure Building and Communication Application of Hong 
Kong Linux Business Award 2005 
<http://www.hitechweekly.com/linuxaward2005.htm>. Companies and products 
competed under Business Adoption Award and Product Development Award in 
sub-categories of Enterprise Business Application; Infrastructure 
Building and Communication Application; Industry Based Application and 
Linux Appliance resulting in four Grand Award and 10 Merit Award winners.

Organized by the HKSAR Office of the Government Chief Information 
Officer, Hong Kong Productivity Council and Hong Kong Linux Industry 
Association, Linux Business Award aims to educate and motivate 
enterprises in deploying IT application on Linux platform. Five entries 
were shortlisted to the final stage of Product Development Award’s 
Infrastructure Building and Communication Application category. Based on 
innovativeness and technology, deployment scale and scope, quality, cost 
effectiveness and benefits to society, Hermes came up with the top score 
to win the Grand Award. Two Merit Awards were also granted in this 
category.

Hermes Business-to-Business (B2B) Messaging Server is an open-source 
Message Service Handler embracing an e-commerce open standard (OASIS 
ebXML Messaging Service v.2.0). This award-winning product provides a 
standardized, reliable and secure infrastructure for enterprises to 
exchange business data on the Internet. Developers from 80+ economies 
have already downloaded Hermes’ source code since its release three 
years ago, and Hermes has many successful deployments. Some local users 
of Hermes include MTR, OOCL, Sony, HMV, bigboXX.com and HKSAR 
Government. Besides certified for ebXML and AS2 interoperability, Hermes 
has won Certificates of Merit (Product Category) at the 6th HK Computer 
Society IT Excellence Awards and Asia Pacific ICT Award 2004 (R&D 
Category). Hermes is available for free from http://www.freebxml.org 
<http://www.freebxml.org/>.

About CECID (www.cecid.hku.hk <http://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.

PR Contacts for Press and Analysts：
Dorris Tai
Business Manager, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development
Tel: +852 2859 2818
Fax: +852 2547 4611
e-Mail：cwtai@cecid.hku.hk
URL：http://www.cecid.hku.hk