The Euphorion Business Innovation Platform is designed around two key areas, e-Blox!", and Concept Synthesis!".

e-Blox

e-Blox can be thought of as fundamental components of a comprehensive e-solution. Some e-Blox consist of third-party application software products that have proven their value in the marketplace and are recognized as the best-of-breed in areas such as content management, portal infrastructure or personalization. Other e-Blox consist of proprietary software modules and interfaces designed and built by Euphorion (such as intelligent search and extraction) that provide capability not yet found in mainstream third-party products or provide the "glue" that ensures efficient and effective integration and communication within the platform.

In general, e-Blox libraries contain eight component types:

• Business Objects - objects, methods, and their related attribute mappings that define the entities that are germane to the business problem and their behavior. These business objects may be entities internal to the Web application or may be entities external to the Web application in legacy systems or in other Web applications outside of the control of the client.



• Business Functions - reusable code modules that perform the tasks or provide the capabilities that are required to solve the business problem. Business function components can be complex (such as portal infrastructure, content management and personalization) or they can be simple tasks (such as retrieving a database record or populating a form). Business functions are also created to provide "instrumentation" for the application by defining when and where transactional data will be captured to monitor the performance of the application and to understand the behavior of its users.



• Data Models - data element definitions, DTDs, and XML Schema that define the attributes of the Business Objects. Data models may describe both data managed internally by the application and data managed externally by legacy systems or by other Web applications outside of the control of the client.



• Business Rules - reusable code modules that edit, limit, constrain, permit, or trigger business functions to be performed or business objects to behave in specific ways that are required to solve the business problem.



• Lexicons - vocabularies of words, phrases, and word relationships that are domain-specific and are used to extract meaning from unstructured text. Lexicons may play a role in both the creation of the software (within the Interactive Design Engine) and in the operation of the Web site itself (if one or more of its Business Functions requires extraction or inference).



• Presentation Elements - presentation objects (such as buttons and banners), graphic art, style sheets, forms, JSP and Java applets that are used to create the "look and feel" of the Web application.



• Workflow Elements - reusable code modules that implement navigation, determine the order in which Business Functions are performed, perform automatic functions, and execute decision logic within the Web application.



• Maps - indexing schemes within the e-Blox Libraries that define the relationships between components. Maps may be hierarchical (e.g. linking more abstract Business Function definitions to more detailed Business Functions) or maps may be horizontal (e.g. linking Business Objects to their related Data Models or linking Business Functions to their related Business Rules).

Many components in the e-Blox Libraries are third-party products that have proven their value in the marketplace and are recognized as the best of breed for functions such as portal infrastructure (Epicentric), content management (Interwoven), personalization (Vignette), and search (Verity). Other components are proprietary standards-based modules and interfaces designed and built by Euphorion such as intelligent search, extraction, and aggregation. As new client applications are built using the Platform, Euphorion continually evaluates both third-party elements, and the custom code, to harvest value-added components that can be added to the e-Blox Libraries.

Concept Synthesis

Concept Synthesis is taken straight from the EDA industry, and is an approach that Euphorion is continually refining and automating. It is the intelligent interface between client wants and needs and the technology solution. Euphorion undertakes early dialogue with clients to understand the business strategy and uses this insight to develop a first draft (prototype) solution. We assemble the appropriate e-Blox, create the interfaces between them, and identify 'holes' where additional components must be added. Euphorion then refines the first draft prototype with custom components that are unique to individual client needs (such as graphic design, business rules and back-end interfaces) and integrates them into a comprehensive e-solution that is flexible, scaleable and extensible.

Using this approach, Euphorion can rapidly assemble prototypes and begin development while the final elements of strategy are still in development. Because the common elements of the platform have been integrated and assembled in advance and have been designed and coded according to industry standards, the resulting solution is highly flexible. The entire system is 'change friendly' and can support ongoing refinement, ensuring rapid time-to-innovation as well as rapid time-to-market.