Quadralay Corporation unveiled WebWorks OnTime, an online consulting service that converts Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker documents into every major online format or professional online help system for implementation on a wide variety of electronic devices. WebWorks OnTime is on-demand ePublishing, reducing both the deadline pressure and the cost associated with deploying technical documentation, marketing copy, and other corporate communications. The only knowledge required for using WebWorks OnTime is proficiency in either Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker. WebWorks OnTime will convert raw XML data as well, providing a service for publishing legacy database. WebWorks OnTime helps writers convert their Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker content into one or more online formats without needing either the expertise to convert it themselves or the in-house hardware, software, and personnel that these tasks require. www.webworks.com
Month: January 2005 (Page 3 of 10)
Stellent, Inc. announced it has partnered with Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) to expand the suite of search technologies it offers Stellent Universal Content Management customers. Under the agreement, Stellent will integrate the FAST InStream OEM enterprise search solution with its Stellent Universal Content Management technology to provide Stellent customers with an alternative search and retrieval platform. The solution searches unstructured information within documents, Web pages, email, presentations and similar content, and also searches the metadata for that unstructured information. www.fastsearch.com
Last Friday’s evening edition of the American Public Media radio program
"Marketplace" had a short piece about Sarbanes Oxley. (Here is a
link
to the program — I am not sure how long the link will be good ..).
The gist of the story was that Sarbanes Oxley sure seemed like a good idea right
after Enron, but–now that companies are facing the effort and costs of
implementation–there is backlash leading to an effort to get Congress to change
the law. According to this story, there is a significant lobbying effort
underway, led by the US Chamber of Commerce and others, to make
"technical corrections" to SOX.
There is a related story in today’s online edition of Business Week Online,
titled "A
Dream of Simpler Accounting," bylined by Amey Stone. Stone’s
article covers a speech given by Don Nicolaisen, the Securities & Exchange Commission’s accounting chief,
at the New York State Society of Public Accountant’s conference yesterday.
Nicolaisen’s speech focused on his desire to simplify accounting rules by
moving away from detailed prescriptions to an approach based more on adherence
to principles. (One of the problems with very detailed rules is that they
can encourage companies to "game" the system … finding ways to skirt
the edge of ethics and of sound accounting principles while still technically
staying within the bounds of the rules. Another problem, of course, is
that detailed rules, universally imposed, can be onerous for many companies,
particularly mid-sized companies.) But, as Amey Stone reported in her BW
article, Nicolaisen’s speech on principles soon devolved into a defense of the
very detailed rules associated with Sarbanes Oxley. Nicolaisen reported
that he hears a lot of "noise" about Section 404 compliance.
I’d love to get a discussion going with some readers here as to whether SOX
is onerous and too detailed, or whether it is a necessary step in the direction
of guaranteeing standards of internal control over financial reporting.
But, apart from that discussion, it seems that, for many companies, Sarbanes
Oxley is JUST about compliance, rather than about making an investment that will
pay off in improved performance.
"Compliance" just means that you have followed the rules and can be
(relatively) free from fear of sanctions and penalties. But internal
control can be so much more than that. It can be about improved processes,
increased efficiency, and more effective governance. When companies talk about
"compliance" initiatives, does that imply that they are more focused
on avoiding the negatives than on seeking return from the positives?
A client of mine is looked for a hosted solution for a document collaboration project that will last several months to a year. Here are a few of the parameters and requirements as they see them:
–10-15 users
–contact storage
–e-mail
–document storage and versioning
–threaded messaging
–calendaring with basic project timelines
–no need to integrate with other applications
–several thousand pages of documents.
They are looking at low- to moderate-cost alternatives and already consider Intranets.com to be an option.
Other suggestions?
We have just posted the program for our Spring conference in San Francisco. Thanks to all who submitted a record number of great proposals – we wish we could accomodate them all. We are working on the Amsterdam conference now and there is still time to submit speaking proposals. We are co-locating this conference with XTech 2005 (formerly XML Europe), so proposals the complement XTech topics would be great.
Managing Editor Inc. (MEI) announced the availability of version 5.1 of the K4 Publishing System, a professional publishing solution for Adobe InDesign-based workflows. Featuring support for regional editions or multi-version publications, e-mail notifications of assignments, virtual layouts for issue planning integration, and object rules for connecting digital asset management systems, version 5.1 expands the range of workflow setups with K4 and provides better overall integration into publishing enterprise environments. In K4 version 5.1, each frame in an InDesign document can contain multiple variations of text, images, ads or multimedia content. For multi-language publications, each set of text frames can contain a different language variant. K4 version 5.1 allows data from ad layout and asset management systems to be sent to K4 directly via XML as object rules. K4 can read and interpret these rules to build layouts and/or place objects dynamically, then send back information about the placed files and page statusas well as JPG previews of InDesign pagesto the integrated system. Object rules for images or multimedia objects can be sent to K4 from asset management systems or image databases in the same way. K4 Publishing System 5.1 is available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/2000/2003. Its TCP/IP-based SQL database can run on OS X server, Windows XP/2000/2003 server, Linux and Sun Solaris. www.maned.com
Vignette Corp. and Access Distribution, a General Electric company and a value-added distributor of complex computing solutions announced a distribution relationship whereby Access Distribution will make a mutually agreed selection of Vignette solutions available to its reseller partners. With the agreement, Access Distribution will add Vignette portal and collaboration solutions to its portfolio of enterprise application software solutions. Access Distribution will also offer service, education and maintenance programs to its newly recruited authorized resellers throughout North America. Vignette solutions will augment existing products and services offered through Access Distribution’s Sun Business and Enterprise Solutions groups. Adding Vignette solutions to its portfolio helps Access Distribution as it furthers its move into the enterprise applications software market space, which was announced in December 2004. www.vignette.com, www.geaccess.com
Belus Technology announced Version 1.5 of XStandard, a WYSIWYG editor for Windows and browser-based content management systems (IE/Mozilla/Firefox/ActiveX). The new version of XStandard brings significant performance enhancements, including a loading time for the editor that is five times faster than previous versions, and under half a second on the average computer. Version 1.5 of XStandard also introduces a unique “Heartbeat” feature that ensures content is not lost when editing sessions are “timed out” and authors are forcibly logged off their content management system. By sending regular “pulses” to the server, the Heartbeat ensures that Session state remains open for as long as authors need to complete their work. Whatever the author’ skill level, XStandard always generates clean XHTML Strict or 1.1. http://xstandard.com
