16 Jan 03: Shareholder.com Unveils XML-Based IR Platform

Corporate investor relations has long presented a challenge and significant expense for corporations wishing to provider their shareholders with up-to-date information about their companies’ activities and performance. Shareholder.com believes XML can be a major enabler for providing a coherent and useful investor information service via web-sites available on the public Internet.

Shareholder.com last month unveiled irXML version 2.0, a web-site development platform aimed at giving corporations the tools they need for building, hosting and maintaining sophisticated investor relations web-sites. Through its use of XML, irXML allows clients to gather and integrate different applications written in different languages into a single investor relations facility.

The company says that irXML is a completely open, web services tool that allows it to translate and accept data in any programming language, including Microsoft .NET, Sun ONE and FlashMX. This extends to data sources as well as the look and feel of the site.

The new version of irXML includes such functionality as handling updating stock quotes, fulfillment requests and adding and removing names from distribution lists. The system has a matching ‘tag’ or function for every web-site component, which ensures the necessary flexibility for customized site design and transparency. It also allows users to upload all or part of their investor relations web-site to any server, should they wish to bring the site in-house for budget, creative or security reasons.

Shareholder.com, based in Maynard, Mass., has been involved in listed companies’ investor relations for 10 years. It says that more than 750 companies currently use its services and products, among them ABN Amro, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft and Yahoo!.

The company plans to make all future features within the irXML product area compliant with the system’s tagging system, so that future and existing clients can benefit from the integration that enables.