W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) announced the publication of SPARQL, the key standard for opening up data on the Semantic Web. With SPARQL query technology, pronounced “sparkle,” people can focus on what they want to know rather than on the database technology or data format used behind the scenes to store the data. Because SPARQL queries express high-level goals, it is easier to extend them to unanticipated data sources, or even to port them to new applications. Many successful query languages exist, including standards such as SQL and XQuery. These were primarily designed for queries limited to a single product, format, type of information, or local data store. Traditionally, it has been necessary to formulate the same high-level query differently depending on application or the specific arrangement chosen for the relational database. And when querying multiple data sources it has been necessary to write logic to merge the results. These limitations have imposed higher developer costs and created barriers to incorporating new data sources. The goal of the Semantic Web is to enable people to share, merge, and reuse data globally. SPARQL is designed for use at the scale of the Web, and thus enables queries over distributed data sources, independent of format. Because SPARQL has no tie to a specific database format, it can be used to take advantage of “Web 2.0” data and mash it up with other Semantic Web resources. Furthermore, because disparate data sources may not have the same ‘shape’ or share the same properties, SPARQL is designed to query non-uniform data. The SPARQL specification defines a query language and a protocol and works with the other core Semantic Web technologies from W3C: Resource Description Framework (RDF) for representing data; RDF Schema; Web Ontology Language (OWL) for building vocabularies; and Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL), for automatically extracting Semantic Web data from documents. SPARQL also makes use of other W3C standards found in Web services implementations, such as Web Services Description Language (WSDL). http://www.w3.org/
Page 296 of 918
EditGrid, the online spreadsheet, is now available to customers that use the hosted versions of Confluence, the enterprise wiki from Atlassian. The EditGrid Plugin for Confluence allows for real-time collaboration of spreadsheets within Confluence Hosted or Confluence Enterprise Hosting. With EditGrid, users can create or insert spreadsheets into Confluence pages. They can also edit the spreadsheet collaboratively. The resulting spreadsheet is saved as an attachment within the Confluence pages in Microsoft Excel format, allowing Confluence to manage the revision history. Some of the features of the EditGrid plugin include: Real-time updates – allows multiple users to see dynamic changes to a spreadsheet; Remote data update – retrieves live financial data on the Web and stores it in a spreadsheet; Import and export: accepts file formats such as Microsoft Excel, CSV, HTML, Gnumeric, Lotus, OpenOffice and assigns fine-grained access control; and Live chat – enables multiple users to discuss changes from within EditGrid, no need to switch to another chat application. EditGrid is free for Confluence Hosted and Confluence Enterprise Hosting customers, and it is available starting today. For more information please visit, http://www.atlassian.com, http://www.editgrid.com
Proposals for Gilbane San Francisco are due today! See http://gilbanesf.com/
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/
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/
Globalization is a strategy rather than a project. Global customer experience is a mindset, not a deliverable. In turn, supporting these objectives requires complimentary strategic initiatives driven by subject matter experts that utilize a range of rapidly evolving processes and technologies in innovative ways.
Based on our community discussions, organizations that focus on combining the practices of localization design, content management, and translation management achieve results. And that focus in no way equates to a series of siloed application implementations.
We believe there is no better way to demonstrate this truth than by encouraging collaboration and promoting success stories. Agree? Here’s two opportunities to do so, in the form of a Call for Papers for synergistic events:
Gilbane San Francisco: June 17 – 19, 2008
Localization World Berlin: June 9-11, 2008
Collaboration yields knowledge. Sharing experiences spurs innovation for all organizations. Here’s your chance to contribute — our experience shows that it’s well worth the effort.
Yesterday was obviously a big day in the enterprise search space. “Enterprise search”, as opposed to web search news, doesn’t usually make the New York Times, Wall Street Journal Boston Globe etc. We (especially Lynda!) spent a lot of time yesterday just dealing with all the inquiries. Lynda posted her initial thoughts before the analyst call yesterday, as did Steve Arnold. Both will certainly have more to say. In addition to their blogging keep an eye out for the two reports we’ll be publishing this Spring: Enterprise Search Markets and Applications: Capitalizing on Emerging Demand, by Lynda Moulton, and Beyond Search: What to do When You’re Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work, by Steve Arnold.
SiberLogic announced SiberSafe On-Demand, a monthly subscription approach to XML content management for technical documentation teams who are looking for significant efficiency gains in producing long-lived, complex, evolving content. SiberSafe On-Demand delivers full SiberSafe functionality as an ASP service in a secure data center. Each team has full access/administrative rights to their server for system administration and configuration. SiberSafe On-Demand also includes daily content backups and SiberLogic’s technical support service. SiberSafe On-Demand “out of the box” configuration offers your choice of DTD – DITA, DocBook, or MIL-STD 2361 – with sample templates and stylesheets. Also included are SiberSafe Communicator (our XML authoring tool) and our integrated publishing tool. Alternatively, you can continue to use your own editor, such as XMetaL, Epic, or FrameMaker, or your own publishing tools. SiberSafe On-Demand costs only $799 per month for the first pair of users (one author and one reviewer) and as little as $275 per user monthly for 10+ users. There are no additional upfront costs. Anyone who signs up for SiberSafe On-Demand before the end of January 2008 will receive access for one additional author free of charge for the first year. http://www.siberlogic.com/
Subscribe to the Gilbane Advisor
