Xml And Ecm

Driving XML Standards Into ECM Mainstream

The ECM space is broad and varied and encompasses everything from document
imaging, to web content management to collaboration technologies to digital asset
management.

XML is a technology that enables automation and therefore cost savings by providing
consistent structure and mark-up to the content. By providing metadata about the
content it also supports highly automated content assembly, formatting/conversion and
delivery.

ECM Connection had a chance to sit with Kevin Duffy, President and CEO of
XyEnterprise, to give a background of XyEnterprise and to help us understand the
impact of XML within the enterprise content management arena. Enjoy the discussion.

1. Who is XyEnterprise?

XyEnterprise is a software developer and service provider focused on content
management and multi-channel publishing solutions.

We serve two primary markets – technical content and commercial publishing.
Technical content is typically documentation that accompanies a product (i.e.
installation manual, user guide, training documentation) while commercial publishing
IS a company’s product (i.e. financial information, reference data).

We develop and market 3 product lines Contenta (our CMS offering), XML
Professional Publisher XPP – our electronic pubs offering and ContentaView – a new
interactive, rich media delivery device which represents the next generation in
content delivery platforms.

In support of these technologies, we have a world class ProServ professional
services organization that support our customers and partners through every step of
the implementation of our solutions – including system design and configuration,
integration consulting, project management, training, implementation services and
custom programming services.

We also have experience with a wide array of related 3 rd party technologies including
XML editors, review and collaboration technology and even open source
technologies such as the DITA open toolkit that I would like to talk more about later.

2. What are the top 3 things you’d like our readers to know about you?

What sets XyEnterprise apart from its competition is our relentless drive to help our
customers succeed. This laser focus, a result of people and technology can be
summed up in the following attributes:

Stability – XyEnterprise has extensive experience providing end to end solutions in
some of the mos t complex and dynamic publishing environments. And we’ve been
doing so for almost 20 years.

Scalable – Our software provides proven ROI, backed by a referenceable customer
base of global market leading companies that can attest to our ability to deliver
systems that work – and work for the long term as demonstrated by customer
retention rates of nearly 100%.

Innovation – XyEnterprise continues to innovate to bring new technology,
methodologies and best practices to the market, in support of customer’s current and
future needs.

3. How does XyEnterprise fit into the overall ECM space?

The ECM space is broad and varied and encompasses everything from document
imaging, to web content management to collaboration technologies to digital asset
management.

We focus specifically on editorial content management (often referred to as
Document Management) , particularly in XML environments where customers are
looking to reduce their authoring, content development and delivery costs by
managing structured XML content, in component – not document form - to be shared
and reused across multiple deliverables in multiple forms (e.g. reusing technical
information across an end user guide and a training guide and a repair guide that
might be delivered in print and electronic form).

We see increasing activity in the global market – where customers have the need to
develop content in multiple formats and in multiple languages for simultaneous
delivery worldwide. We support this market directly via management of master
language content, and by leveraging our partnerships with Best of Breed
globalization and language translation platforms.

4. What factors have driven XML into the mainstream?

First, XML is a technical solution, or component of a solution, to a major business
problem. Companies large or small that are delivering a variety of products, requiring
a variety of collateral information in multiple channels and languages are finding that
they simply cannot keep up using traditional authoring and publishing practices. If
they can’t keep up and products can’t ship, or users are dissatisfied or information is
inaccurate, the cost to their company can be tremendous.

They have to find a way to create more types of content, in more forms, faster, and
typically without adding staff. To do that you have to automate and improve the
process.

XML is a technology that enables automation and therefore cost savings by providing
consistent structure and mark-up to the content. By providing metadata about the
content it also supports highly automated content assembly, formatting/conversion
and delivery.

I like to compare automated content delivery to common manufacturing processes.
When you order a PC or other highly configurable product, you order the type of
processor, graphic card, disk storage, and other options that you want, and the
product is then manufactured to your specifications. This just-in-time manufacturing
works because all of the components and subassemblies that make up the pc are
built in standard, structured, reuseable ways so that they can be quickly assembled
into an end product.

XML provides this structure to content components so that they too can be
dynamically assembled into collections or publications that specifically match a
particular configuration – and formatted on the fly for different delivery channels.
Consistent structure, along with consistent authoring styles also goes a long way
toward automating the language translation process over time.

So perhaps the old adage “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” applies here – XML is gaining
significant traction because companies’ content development and delivery processes
are broken and they have to find a way to apply best practices and technology to fix
it.

5. What are some of the new generation of XML standards?

XML as a general standard has been in use for years, but historically companies
implemented XML using custom or proprietary content models.

With emerging standards like DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture), which
is of great interest to technology companies and S1000D an expanding milspec and
aerospace standard, you get more “out of the box” so to speak.

These standards suggest granular, component-based authoring (topics or data
modules) versus document-based (chapters and sections); they provide a specific
content and mark-up model so they can be shared and reused internally and
externally (e.g. with business partners or subcontractors; and because they are
standardized, vendors and open source developers are making available packaged
solutions that leverage these standards.

6. What impact do you think these standards will have on the market, and
how will they change the way authors, editors and publishers work?

I believe these standards will have on impact on many fronts, including
implementing, authoring and publishing.

From an implementation perspective we see an impact on cost of system
deployment, time to deploy and supportability and sustainability of the
implementation.

With regard to authoring, there will be an impact on how content is treated since the
standards view content as components rather than documents. This will trickle down
to topic/subject matter writers versus document/product oriented writers, and how
content is shared and reused. The standards support a minimalist authoring
philosophy versus standardized English.

The impact to publishing is perhaps the most exciting as the standards make
possible just-in-time publications, publications for specific products , and a move to
web/electronic delivery, This move to rich media provides more interactive,
intelligent and adaptive information delivery - by skill set, language, symptoms and
faults.

In addition to these variables, there can and will be positive impact across the board
as the standards offer a prescriptive way of managing and publishing data.

7. How would you describe Xy’s role with regard to Dynamic Publishing?

Given our role in all aspects of the publishing process – from content creation to
multi channel delivery – all of our technology and best practices relate directly to
dynamic publishing:

-Content Management (Contenta) = dynamic assembly, versioning, component-
based content development, reuse
-Publishing (XPP and ContentaView) = multi-channel, traditional print and PDF to
rich media that is tailored to audience. (right content, right format, right time)

8. Why all the buzz about Web 2.0 and how is XyEnterprise positioning itself to
play in this space?

Web 2.0 represents a more dynamic, interactive, and tailored user experience. It is
directly related to our customer driven philosophy, with technologies that are being
implemented today.

Among the technologies, we have embraced AJAX to improve the overall user
experience of our web-based solutions. In addition, specific solutions such as
ContentaView allow us to tailor deliverables to the end user with interactive input
from users or systems.

Xml And Ecm

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