(January 22, 2003) - HiT Software Inc. and Altova recently announced a new product integration between Altova's XMLSPY 5 and HiT Software's winAllora Xpress, a bi-directional data mapping utility that facilitates conversion of XML and relational data. When used together, the two products allow software application developers to utilize the advanced relational database-to-XML mapping utilities of HiT Software's winAllora Xpress, directly from within the XMLSPY 5 development environment. The winAllora plug-in for XMLSPY 5 is available immediately for download.

XML is today the standard format for expressing and exchanging business data, yet the vast majority of corporate data still resides in relational databases. Today's enterprise applications require support for both XML and relational database technologies, leveraging the open, integration-friendly nature of XML in conjunction with the performance and efficiency of the relational database storage model. Realizing such hybrid relational database and XML integration applications require developers to implement significant amount of mapping code. Now developers can use the XMLSPY 5 XML Schema editor to model data elements, then use graphical tools in winAllora Xpress to define XML Schema to relational database mappings. Or, developers can inspect existing database tables and relationships and auto-generate an XML Schema with winAllora Xpress, and refine the XML Schema in XMLSPY 5.