Looking ahead to our conference in San Francisco, there are a number of sessions related to XML and content management, as well as some broader sessions on SaaS and content management platforms. David Guenette and I are working with Frank on the Content Technologies & Strategies (CTS) track as well as the Enterprise Publishing Technology (EPT) track. At this writing, we have the following sessions on tap (and you can see the whole grid here).

CTS-1: XML Strategies for Content Management

XML is fundamental to content management in two important ways--in how the content is tagged and structured and also in how content management systems interact with each other and with other enterprise applications. This session looks at how successful organizations make the best use of XML to support critical business processes and applications.

CTS-2: Enterprise Rights Management: Best Practices & Case Studies

As content management systems proliferate, so do the requirements for better and more sophisticated protection of that content. Simply stated, traditional protection is not enough--content needs to be protected persistently throughout complex business processes. Enterprise Rights Management platforms are answering these challenges, and this session uses case studies to help explain how this technology can help you meet your requirements.

CTS-3: SaaS - Is Software as a Service Right for You?

Software as a Service is exploding. Every day brings new offerings, new approaches, and new adopters. While content management SaaS offerings were once limited to Web Content Management, there are now SaaS offerings for document management, ECM, globalization, and XML-based component content management. This session looks at the big questions about SaaS and discusses whether SaaS might be right for you.

CTS-4: Platform Pros & Cons: SharePoint vs. Oracle vs. Documentum vs. IBM

The long-predicted content management platform wars are upon us. Activity is everywhere--the introduction of SharePoint 2007, Oracle's acquisition of Stellent, and EMC's continued aggressive acquisition strategy, and IBM's acquisition of Filenet. Will we all end up using one of these four platforms, and if we do, would this be a good thing? This session will offer the vendor, user, and industry perspective on this dominant issue.

CTS-5: Financial Content Collaboration with XBRL & RIXML

If you follow XML in the financial services arena, you undoubtedly know about XBRL, the emerging standard for financial data reporting that is really taking hold at the SEC and the regulatory agencies of EU countries. But a lesser known but equally intriguing standard is RIXML, the Research Information Exchange Markup Language. This session looks at these standards and the implications for the lifecycle of financial content.

EPT-1: Enterprise Publishing with XML (DITA)

June 2008 marks the third anniversary since DITA 1.0 was approved by the OASIS Technical Committee, and it is very safe to say that no XML-based publishing standard has had such rapid and far-ranging uptake. This session looks at some emerging uses of DITA while also discussing some of the positive business impact enjoyed by companies who have already adopted the standard.

EPT-2: Multi-Channel Publishing - How to Do It

Multi-channel publishing has become a mandate for nearly every organization. With the explosion in mobile devices, the mandate is becoming more complex. But along with this complexity comes opportunity to serve more users and more applications. This session offer case studies and practical advice for implementing multi-channel publishing to support your business objectives.

EPT-3: Digital Publishing Platforms: Magazines, Newspapers & eBooks

Amazon's Kindle may be getting all of the publicity, but there is an explosion in new devices, technologies, and products for digital publishing--with implications for every traditional publishing medium. What are these new technologies, and what opportunities do they present to publishers? Hear from publishers and technologists, as well as some of the results of the Gilbane Group's extensive research into how these technologies are reshaping the digital publishing landscape.

So says Tim Bray. And he would know; he helped invent it. Tim's post is a very nice "where are they now" that gives credit to the interesting collection of folks who worked very hard on XML in the early days.

Hat tip, Dave Winer.

• Over at eWeek, Jim Rapoza looks at the most overhyped technologies of the century, and XML isn't one of them.
• At IBM developerWorks, Elliotte Rusty Harold speculates on the future of XML. He's bullish on XQuery and Atom, and he declares the end of markup-centric editors.
• Speaking of being bullish on Atom, check out Mochilla's Atom-based API for premium content.
• Geoff Bock sends along news that Microsoft's push to get OOXML as a standard is being scrutinized by the EU.
• Also on the OOXML front, IBM and Microsoft seem ready to go toe to toe. More perspective here and here.
• Have you ever thought you should be able to take DITA-encoded content and pump it through InDesign? You are not alone.
• If you follow the Apache Software Foundation or other technical listservs at any level of interest, you just have to try Mark Logic's MarkMail application where you can ask questions like, "Who from Microsoft chimes in on the XML schema list at the W3C?".
• I'm not the only one to think that part of Microsoft's interest in Yahoo is driven by Yahoo's impressive efforts in wireless technology, which have XML at their core.

Well as the name of the blog suggests, the focus is on both technology and strategy. We have been at this long enough to come to the stunning conclusion that technology adoptions minus well-thought-out and sound business strategies are doomed to failure. (Now you know why we get paid the big bucks!) While obvious, the conclusion is also true. I have had the luxury of consulting with several clients over a long period of time. I like to think they are successful because they listen to me (and they do), but the bigger reason they are successful is that they use my input to inform well thought out business strategies. Sometimes these are operational (they want to save money, improve efficiency), but more often they are about the top line. They want to drive more revenue.

For commercial publishers this means bringing more product to market more quickly, customizing products, and developing derivative products (think of offerings like SafariU). For enterprises, this is also tied to bringing more product to market more quickly; think of a company like Autodesk using XML-based publishing and globalization to bring more products to more markets simultaneously. These are world-class projects based on XML that are bringing incredible value to their organizations, but--even more significantly--these are not the only efforts of their kind. Whereas in the early days of SGML the community could count projects of this type in perhaps the low double digits, I have long ago given up on trying to remember or catalog how many of these projects are out there backed by XML technology.

But not every project is as successful as the ones I have cited. Indeed these stand out as case studies of the best practices. Projects do fail and projects do falter, and I will reveal my bias here in saying that, especially in the recent few years, few projects fail because of the chosen technology. (All complex systems require significant customization! Who would have thunk it?) Much more often they fail because of problems with project management, lack of sufficient staffing, and shifting plans and execution when the inevitable problems arise. And these kinds of failures come right back to a failure in strategy, or at least a failure in realistically planning for a complex undertaking that is critical to organizational success.

So content strategies are indeed a critical half of this practice, but technology is the other half. Here as well a comparison to SGML is in order. Whereas in the days of SGML there were few vendors at the table, now there are literally scores. Even more importantly, none of the major vendors are missing, and one can make the argument that the major vendors are--or soon will be--the dominant players in the market. XML is central to the product and development platform strategies of Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Adobe, and EMC. One can only speculate at the level of R&D dedicated to XML at these companies, but it is safe to say it is a lot. Just as impressive is the community of developers who work in XML daily. Most programmers working in contemporary languages like Java and C# use XML for all kinds of routine tasks, and XML data mapping and modeling tools are built into Visual Studio and many other development tools.

To be more specific, we intend to cover what we categorize as the range of XML products of most interest to business and IT professionals responsible for content management initiatives. These include:

• XML Repositories


• XML Content Management Platforms


• XML Editors


• XML Transformation and Publishing Tools


• XML Utilities, Middleware, and IDEs


• XML Forms

Among other things, we will be developing an online directory of these product lines (more on that in a future post). I have been informally cataloging the companies over the recent few weeks and I already have 60 to 70 companies without trying very hard. We expect to interact with these vendors, get details of the products and product roadmaps, and also work with them when appropriate on product strategy and projects like white papers and case studies.

So that's the news so far from here. Do get in touch if you have any questions, ideas, or complaints!