The latest upgrade of Stylus Studio XML Professional Edition, includes full support for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)-to-XML mapping in its Convert-to-XML legacy data integration tool. The Stylus XML Integrated Development Environment (XML IDE) also adds significant new features and usability enhancements to the Stylus Studio XML Schema Editor, Grid View, XML Mapper, XQuery Editor and XSLT Editor.

Carlo Innocenti, Stylus Studio's senior product architect, said, "New support for EDI in the Stylus Studio Convert-to-XML function extends an already powerful XML data mapping framework, providing an elegant solution for seamlessly handling EDI data sources to be more easily transformed and/or manipulated as XML using standards-based XQuery or XSLT technologies. Furthermore, as a testament to our renewed customer focus, Stylus Studio 6 XML Professional Edition, Release 2 implements over a hundred customer-submitted product change requests, including substantial usability and performance enhancements across all of our XML editors ? the net result is the most powerful, intuitive and productive XML IDE on the market."

The new XML Schema Editor offers a new visual interface, along with in-place editing of any XML Schema component references, support for substitution groups, intelligent copy/paste, and enhanced XML Schema data model re-factoring capabilities. The XML Grid View offers expanded support for visual XPath analysis, along with usability enhancements like renaming of element/attributes and the ability to remember column width and expansion states.

Reaction from the XML developer community has been very positive. Sherman Gomberg, senior managing consultant at business consulting and systems integration firm, Syncata, expressed a view shared by many. He said, "XML and Web services offer greater flexibility and interoperability than older EDI technologies - new support for EDI-to-XML mapping in Stylus Studio provides an elegant solution for building new XQuery and XSLT enabled systems while still leveraging existing investments in legacy EDI systems that are so prevalent in the back-office operations of manufacturing, healthcare and many other industries. The new release offers compelling value by simplifying what would otherwise be very complex data integration projects."

Stylus Studio 6 XML Professional Edition, Release 2 is available now for a free 30-day trial download at http://www.stylusstudio.com/xml_download.html. Current Stylus Studio 6 XML Professional Edition paid users are eligible for a free upgrade to Release 2. Prices start at $495 for a single-user license and $240 for an upgrade license. Stylus is offering the upgraded product for sale on its Web site.