NewsGator Technologies is to deliver /n software's RSSBus Feed Server as part of its Enterprise Server (NGES). This gives organisations the ability to create RSS feeds from all manner of information sources: Oracle, Microsoft and MySQL databases, Microsoft Excel, custom business applications, and so on. It gives users continuous access to information that is important to them.
Think of it as Yahoo! Pipes on steroids because the idea is that you can create flows of information through connectors and operators to arrive at outputs which can be picked up through the web, portals, e-mail clients, desktop applications and mobile devices. A major difference between it and Pipes is that RSSBus runs behind your firewall, although the company does have plans to offer a hosted service.
No doubt NewsGator went to /n software because of the company's deep experience in the manipulation and transformation of data feeds. But, if you don't have NGES, don't worry, you can buy the RSSBus application from /n software and run it on your own server. At the moment, it's designed for Microsoft IIS and requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework. Linux and Java versions are in the pipeline. You can even download a free trial version and run it on your desktop.
Data is fed into the bus as items, converted if necessary into RSS using connectors, and is taken out as RSS feeds. The software is supplied with a bundle of useful connectors, taking care of common format translations. You, or your techie pals, can create new connectors to suit any special local needs.
Finally, feed templates can be used to shape the resulting feed for the receiving device or application.
Whether you get RSSBus as part of NGES or directly, it looks like a smart and secure way of sharing key information within your organisation and among its stakeholders.
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