MadCap Software announced MadCap Lingo, an XML-based, integrated translation memory system and authoring tool, aimed at eliminating the need for file transfers in order to complete translation. Document components, such as tables of content, topics, index keywords, concepts, glossaries, and variables all remain intact throughout the translation and localization process, so there is never a need to recreate them. MadCap Lingo also is integrated with MadCap Flare and MadCap Blaze, and it is Unicode enabled to help documentation professionals deliver a consistent user experience in print, online, and in any language. MadCap Lingo is being announced in conjunction with the new MadCap Analyzer, software that proactively recommends documentation content and design improvements. MadCap Lingo works with MadCap Flare, the company’s native-XML authoring product, and MadCap Blaze, the native-XML tool for publishing long print documents, which will be generally available in early 2008. A user creates a MadCap Lingo project to access the source content in a Flare or Blaze project via a shared file structure. Working through Lingo’s interface, the user accesses and translates the content. Because the content never actually leaves the structure of the original Flare or Blaze project, all the content and formatting is preserved in the translated version. Once a project is translated, it is opened in either Flare or Blaze, which generates the output and facilitates publishing. At the front end of the process, Flare and Blaze can import a range of document types to create the source content. Following translation, the products provide single-source delivery to multiple formats online and off, including the Internet, intranets, CDs, and print. MadCap Lingo is available and is priced at $2,199 per license, but is available at an introductory price of $899 for a limited time. MadCap Lingo also is available on a subscription basis for $649 per year. Fees for support start at $449 per year. http://www.madcapsoftware.com/
Day: January 14, 2008
IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled new software and research aimed at improving the way employees across an organization collaborate in a globally integrated enterprise. The challenges of globalization are forcing companies to become more nimble, using an increasingly geographically-dispersed and virtual workforce to remain competitive. In the world of software development, this means 24×7 collaboration with specialized teams around the globe to pick up where another left off. IBM is also examining how virtual worlds can help software development teams break down the barriers caused by globalization. IBM is announcing it is opening up its development platform based on Web 2.0 technologies for developers to collaborate and contribute to software under development at jazz.net. Jazz.net is an open, commercial community designed to help companies globally and transparently collaborate on the development of Jazz-based technology. Previously only available to IBM customers, academics and partners, Jazz.net is now open to the greater software development community. IBM also announced IBM Rational Team Concert Express, available later this year, which will help small and mid-sized development teams enable real-time collaboration across a geographically dispersed software delivery team. IBM will also offer IBM Rational Team Concert Express free of charge to qualified open source projects and to academic institutions for use in accredited course programs or academic research projects. IBM Rational Team Concert Express beta 2 includes Web dashboards to help software project teams see real-time project status data such as the status of work items and project health. IBM Rational Team Concert Express beta 2 allows software development teams to use DB2 and other databases to host the IBM Rational Team Concert repository. IBM Rational Team Concert Express is based on middleware including IBM WebSphere, IBM Lotus Sametime, Apache Tomcat, Apache Derby and Jabber. To register for the Jazz project or download IBM Rational Team Concert, beta 2, visit http://www.ibm.com/
