The Gilbane Advisor

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Online Help and Customer Experience

Although I have been out of the technical writing trenches for some time now, I enjoy staying in touch with my techdoc buddies and keeping up with the hot issues. One I remember well is the challenges in the early 90’s of single-sourcing documentation for print, electronic, and context-sensitive online help delivery.

Apparently it’s still hot, despite the release of RoboHelp6 from Adobe, a tool I remember quite well. This is the first product update Adobe has released since the company bought Macromedia over a year ago. Product reviewers generally agree that Adobe beat the estimated delivery date by months, although there is some confusion over dueling version numbers according to my friend Char James-Tanny over at helpstuff.com. Still, an early release is a good sign in terms of a company’s current and future commitment to a product.

On the other hand, product reviewers also seem to agree that “XML does not seem to be a priority.” Hmmm. That certainly does not bode well for champions of single-sourcing for multi-channel publishing (although the new version automates hyperlinked PDF creation.) Even more interesting are the passionate responses to an unfavorable monkeyPi product review, including an extremely detailed rebuttal from Rick Stone, Adobe’s Community Expert for the product (although he’s not an employee…)

Without claiming to have reviewed the product, what I find most interesting is Adobe’s focus on source and version control, team collaboration and workflow, and the usage tracking capabilities of RoboHelp Server6. Adobe describes this latter feature as the ability to identify frequently-viewed content, view usage statistics, and uncover search trends.

As we’ve discussed in numerous posts, relevant content and customer experience are intrinsically related, whether the project is Web site design, localization efforts, or yes, even online help development. (Part 2 of our series on this subject, Small Content Changes, Big Impact takes place on Thursday February 1st.) Assuming RoboHelp Server6 provides the insight into the online help user experience it claims, its value to techdoc departments striving for more “upstream impact” in their organization could be quite significant.

Global 360 Merges Collaborative Content & Process Management as Core SOA Services

Global 360 announced the general availability of G360 Case Manager 10.0. G360 Case Manager combines the capabilities of BPM and optimization tools, collaborative content and records management applications into a single solution. Case Manager 10.0 incorporates the ability to graphically model organizational data and deploy human processes, with enterprise content management functionality for a complete management platform. With self-contained application configurations, IT can enforce configuration lifecycle management policies for each independent process or content application and simplify the deployment features. Case Manager 10.0 features integration with Global 360’s Business Optimization Server (BOS), providing a complete view of an organization’s processes and data. G360 Case Manager can leverage BOS capabilities to test drive relevant business processes, such as mortgage lending or underwriting, with actual business data to assess risk and compliance before implementation. http://www.global360.com/

MindTouch Unveils Commercial Wiki Virtual Appliance

MindTouch unveiled MindTouch Deki, a business wiki implemented as a virtual appliance. MindTouch Deki is a business software that installs quickly, giving different workgroups in organizations the ability to share information and collaborate with colleagues almost instantly and securely on their own network. MindTouch Deki is a complete pre-installed, pre-configured application and operating system that runs on any Windows or Linux machine. Scalable from small workgroups to large enterprises, it runs atop VMplayer, a free virtual appliance player from VMware. MindTouch Deki enables users to create, edit, share, search and store documents, emails, files and images securely behind a company’s firewall. With an interface that looks and works like a word processor, MindTouch Deki offers a WYSIWYG rich-text editing experience in a web browser. With the Outlook Connector, a user can work in MindTouch Deki and pull all the necessary emails in one place, convert them to wiki pages in one click and share the contents. Every wiki page in MindTouch Deki is stored in XML, which enables content to be integrated into existing web services, knowledge management, web publishing or any standards-based enterprise application. MindTouch Deki is free for the first five users and is designed for on-demand scalability; customers simply purchase more user licenses online when they are ready. The free license does not include software updates and fixes, support or certain advanced features such as Outlook Connector. A full license (for five users) starts at $995. http://www.mindtouch.com

Syncro Soft Announces a New Product: Syncro SVN Client

Syncro Soft Ltd, the producer of oXygen XML Editor, has announced the immediate availability of Syncro SVN Client, a platform-independent Subversion (SVN) client aimed at giving Subversion repository users a high quality user interface. Syncro SVN Client is released under the 2.0 version because it was initially developed as an embedded component in oXygen XML Editor and starting with version 8.1 of the editor it is available also as a separate product. Syncro SVN Client makes easier the document and code sharing between content authors or developers. It offers full SVN repository support: checkout, export, import, copy, mkdir, rename, branch, tag and delete. The front-end allows you to browse repositories, check for changes, commit changes, update your working copy and examine the revision history. There is no need to install separate applications like a Subversion command line client or a file compare tool. Syncro SVN Client is composed of several views allowing you to browse the Subversion repositories and your local working copies, compare and merge modifications, check the revision history. All the views are dockable, this means you can position them to create the optimal layout for your use case. The Subversion Repository Browsing view allows you to add multiple SVN repositories to the list and browse them in parallel. In this way you can identify the resources you need to checkout, or even create branches or tags directly in the repository. Other features include a SVN Properties view that allows you to change all the standard SVN properties and also to define your own properties, support for multiple communication protocols like SSL and HTTP/HTTPS, a visual diff/merge tool for comparing images. Syncro SVN Client with One Year Maintenance Pack costs $59. Syncro SVN Client Site License with One Year Maintenance Pack costs $2970. Volume discount rates are available starting with 5 licenses. http://www.syncrosvnclient.com

W3C XQuery 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 Become Standards

W3C has published eight new standards in the XML Family to support the ability to query, transform, and access XML data and documents. The primary specifications are XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XSL Transformations (XSLT) 2.0, and XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0; see the full list below. These new Web Standards will play a significant role in enterprise computing by connecting databases with the Web. XQuery allows data mining of everything from memos and Web service messages to multi-terabyte relational databases. XSLT 2.0 adds significant new functionality to the already widely deployed XSLT 1.0, which enables the transformation and styled presentation of XML documents. Both specifications rely on XPath 2.0, also significantly enriched from its previous version. W3C’s XSL Working Group and XML Query Working Group, who created these specifications, have addressed thousands of comments from implementers and the interested public to ensure that the specifications meet the needs of diverse communities. The eight Recommendations published today that together increase the power of the XML family are: 1. XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, 2. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, 3. XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, 4. XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX), 5. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM), 6. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, 7. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, and,8. XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization. http://www.w3.org/

IBM Offers Portal Solution for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced IBM WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0, the collaborative portal solution that provides a pre-built intranet and extranet experience out of the box for immediate use. WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0 is a new solution that allows businesses of less than 1,000 employees or departments within large organizations to be more productive and more responsive to their customers. WebSphere Portal Express provides integrated portal, document management, Web content management and collaboration capabilities in a single package with flexible pricing options. WebSphere Portal Express includes IBM Lotus Component Designer Version 6.0, a development tool that script developers, IBM Lotus Domino application designers, Visual Basic developers and others can use to create applications. IBM WebSphere Portal Express Version 6.0 will be available on January 30, 2007, and is priced at $2,300 per 20 user pack, limited to 1000 registered users, or $39,999 per processor (100 processor value units). http://ibm.com/websphere/portalexpress6, http://ibm.com/lotus/smb

IXIASOFT Announces OEM agreement with 3Squared

IXIASOFT announced an OEM partnership with 3Squared, a provider of web content management solutions and consultancy based in the UK. As part of this agreement, 3Squared has developed Arca, a document management solution based on TEXTML Server, IXIASOFT’s XML database. Aimed at organizations looking for a complete document management solution, Arca enables management for growing enterprise content. Arca features complete document and content management capabilities providing users with a collaborative solution allowing them to better control their content, store and retrieve documents and manage and compare versions. By selecting TEXTML Server as the main repository for their content management offering, 3Squared was able to quickly develop and go to market with its solution. http://wwwixiasoft.com, http://www.3squared.co.uk

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